Tenor Pappano's Classical Voices

MUSIC: Habanera from Carmen by Georges Bizet

There are seven billion people on our planet.

Every one of us has a voice that is unique, an expression of us.

And it's the only musical instrument that comes built-in.

I'm Antonio Pappano.

All my life, I've been surrounded by wonderful singing.

In fact, my father was a voice teacher.

As a conductor, it's been my good fortune to work with

some of the best singers there are.

I'm on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,

my musical home,

and home to all the great operatic stars, past and present.

MUSIC: Nessun Dorma by Luciano Pavarotti

In this programme, I'm going to meet the Kings of the High C.

The world's greatest tenors since recording and moving pictures began.

The tenor is the glamour boy of opera.

The romantic hero...

..the leading man.

What puts a tenor on his pedestal?

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What techniques does he use to produce THAT sound?

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I'll be talking to some of the great singers of today,

working with them, in fact, to find out some of the tricks of the trade.

How do they do it?

How does the throat work? How does the breathing work?

The body? The soul?

APPLAUSE

In the 1990s, the tenor - or rather, three of them -

became the toast of the whole planet,

with a series of gargantuan concerts staged at three World Cup Finals.

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Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo

and Luciano Pavarotti brought opera back into

the fabric of mainstream culture,

in a way that hadn't been the case since the 1950s.

Why three tenors?

Because the kind of repertoire

three tenors can sing,

only three tenors can do.

Composers wrote the most beautiful tunes for the tenor voice.

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RECORDED APPLAUSE

There is no other voice type that creates such an animal response

from audiences to the degree that the tenor voice does.

There's something unnatural about it, high wire, if you like.

Will he make the high note? Will he get through the part?

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Will the character he plays even make it to the end of the opera?

The tenor may get the girl,

but the two rarely end up living happily ever after.

The flawed heroes the tenor sings have a high body count in opera.

Living and dying for love, for revenge, for their dark obsessions.

From the young romantic lead to the tragic hero,

the tenor portrays masculinity in all its guises.

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The most famous tenor of the last 50 years -

he is still many people's idea

of the larger-than-life Italian tenor -

was, of course, Luciano Pavarotti.

Pavarotti grew up steeped in the Italian tenor tradition.

He was born in Modena, in the north of Italy, in 1935,

the son of a baker.

His father was a gifted amateur tenor, who gave up his own dream

to become an opera singer because of stage fright.

Luciano cut his teeth singing in church choirs with his father.

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Pavarotti went on to sing at all the great opera houses,

but his superstardom came from his voice on record.

In Britain, his recording of Nessun Dorma was

used as the theme of the Italian World Cup coverage in 1990.

Then an aria little known outside the opera house,

sung with an uncompromising operatic technique,

Nessun Dorma reached

number two in the UK singles charts -

such was the pull of the star tenor.

In our times, Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma has become legendary.

And there are many clips of him singing this aria.

But I like this one in particular, because he's very, very focused,

and you can see the mechanics.

The full-throated, open-throated high register.

You'll know what I mean when you see it.

And the clear, clear diction.

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The opening of his mouth is quite big, but not SO big.

There's a famous high note coming at the end,

and so he's not giving the whole show away.

And this is very important, very disciplined.

ANTONIO MOUTHS

Not known for his acting, Pavarotti, but actually,

I have to say that he doesn't need to do much.

And he convinces me completely. Now listen to this...

'Very forwardly projected.'

'Nice and round.'

Now watch the mouth opening.

That's how you achieve that.

MUSIC: Intermezzo from Cavelleri Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni

When Pavarotti marked 30 years in the business with a free

concert at Hyde Park, 100,000 people turned up to see him in the flesh,

even though it rained all day.

Luciano Pavarotti did so much for opera in his heyday.

I consider him - and give me a little leeway here -

but I consider him like a Muhammad Ali of the music world.

Because...

somehow opera in the '80s and the '90s needed a figure,

a symbol that defined opera as something worthwhile,

as something absolutely fabulous.

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But the tenor voice is perhaps the most unforgiving of all the voices.

You need a rock-solid technique for this kind of extreme singing.

As I'm about to find out for myself

with one of Britain's leading singers.

Now, even though I'm the son of a voice teacher,

I never took a proper voice lesson in my life.

And for my sins, I'm going to have one this morning.

And my vocal teacher is none other than Sir Thomas Allen,

and I feel very, very privileged.

-You're the boss, Tom.

-I'm the boss on this occasion.

But don't get used to it!

HE CHUCKLES

Just think of G major to start with, anyhow.

# Aah, aah, aah, aah. #

Now, it looks to me as though when you take the breath,

if you're having the breath, you're standing rather rigidly like this.

# Aahh! #

Relax. Relax the whole thing.

The best singers I've seen are the ones that look

most relaxed on stage.

I mean, I used to sit in your house, alongside Pavarotti,

listening to him singing Boheme.

I'd forget certain lines I had to sing because I was just

absolutely astonished at what this man did, and it was so easy.

It was just taking in the breath, sitting on it,

and then the mechanism just kicked in.

I mean, the breath, once it's taken in, is just turned round

and put out again, but now it's got flowers and embroidery on it.

But it's a simple intake of breath and then relax.

# Aah, aah, aah, aah. #

And it comes right down to here.

# Aah, aah, aah. #

# Aah... #

Can we get a really bright "aah"?

# Aah... #

If you just shout at me...

# Aah! #

# Aah! #

# Aah, aah... #

That's better. You see, because, as far as I'm concerned, singing is just

cultured shouting, it's shouting with music on it,

with notes attached.

Otherwise, how on earth could we reach the people that we do?

It just has...

If I were to shout now, as you did just then,

I could turn the shout into music as I go along.

AAH!

# Aahhh... #

And it becomes a note, rather than just something shouted.

Then all you have to do is put that all

together in front of 2,000 people.

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In Barber, it's difficult music.

Technically, you have to be prepared,

but if you are, then it's such a wonderful feeling.

It's about your breathing working at its...utmost.

And the control of that breathing, the fine-tuning of that breathing,

in order to make all the nuances, and in order to finish a phrase.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The tenor as we know him today was a 20th-century invention.

One man revolutionised the way the tenor sang.

And in so doing, made himself one of the most famous people,

never mind famous tenors, in the whole world.

ANTONIO MOUTHS

So idolised was he, that he was even signed up for a movie.

A silent movie!

The poster boy for opera was paid the eye-watering sum

of 100,000.

And you couldn't even hear him sing!

He was Enrico Caruso.

CARUSO SINGS

Enrico Caruso.

Perhaps the most important name in all opera.

Just saying that name gives me a chill

because there's no question,

that by any measure, this is the greatest singer of the 20th century.

Caruso's life could have been an opera.

The man who went on to top the bill at the Metropolitan Opera was

born in Neapolitan poverty.

Sent out to work at ten, he began singing for tips in waterfront bars.

Puccini, when he heard Caruso sing La Boheme, told him

he'd been sent by God.

Caruso was perfect for the

new operatic movement that Puccini,

and other Italian composers, were fashioning.

Verismo or "realism", called for a tenor hero who was believable,

and, above all, manly and vocally fearless.

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Caruso introduced a new spirit

and power that changed the perception of the tenor voice.

Before Caruso was mannerism et cetera...

After Caruso, it was more the real thing.

In that sense, he was the very first modern tenor.

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One can follow the development of his voice.

As a young man, he had a...

..light lyric voice, almost a frivolous voice.

But if you listen to his voice, he developed so it became one of

richest, virile, I would say, almost menacing voices in opera history.

CARUSO SINGS IN ITALIAN

In 1904, Caruso recorded the first ever million-selling record.

Here's his own caricature of the experience.

The fact that someone of his stature had recorded successfully,

led the other great singers of the day to follow suit.

What had been a toy, now became a must-have.

And Caruso created an aural encyclopaedia of tenor technique -

over 200 recordings.

And every tenor since, has listened for secrets to learn from this man,

and if they say they haven't, they're all lying!

What Caruso bequeathed was, above all, a new darkness

and richness in the lower and middle registers of the tenor voice.

One way to assess the unique qualities of the tenor voice

is to compare it to the baritone voice.

Now, the baritone voice is the next down on the vocal spectrum.

And in fact, there are only three or four notes

in range between those two voices.

But how different they are in colour.

The tenor voice possesses something which in Italian is called

squillo or "ring".

And there's a plangent...

..well, II think it's a thrilling,

exciting, high sound, that just wants to climb.

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You have to have the high notes,

you have to have the low part,

you have to have the metal

to pass over the orchestra.

You have to have the velvet.

Interesting word, "metal".

The combination of hard and soft, high and low -

that sets the tenor apart.

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It is a combination of adolescent sound,

and the male sound, a mature man sound.

I think it awakes in people, this emotion of,

this guy is a very young guy, is a teenager,

but at the same time he is a mature man in the sound.

And a baritone is just a mature man in the sound, which is wonderful,

but I think, in my opinion, I was thinking many times about it,

that this is what creates such fascination for the tenor voice.

So beautiful and so affecting. A one-in-a-million voice.

But let's go higher!

Hitting the high notes is the tenor's stock in trade.

As audience members, it's what we want, it's what we crave.

Now, the fabled High C, in particular,

can make or break a tenor's career.

Now, true, there are several high profile names that have made

a career without this High C.

But if you listen to this example from

Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment,

where you'll hear, in this example,

four High Cs in a string of nine -

it's better if the tenor has the High C!

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"Ah! Mes Amis" is a champagne aria.

But if you tried before, when you arrive in the dressing room,

or, you know, when you had some time, and, oh,

they were not so perfect, then you worry.

Because you know that's not a High C day.

HE CHUCKLES

But if they're good, you go, you know, "Easy!"

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The High C defines the tenor today.

But the way it's sung, the technique that produces it

is actually a relatively recent arrival on the music scene.

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In the 17th and 18th centuries,

most of the heroic male roles would have been sung by the castrati.

Yes, it's what you think.

Now, the hormonal goings on post-snip, would have created

a voice that would have seemed bizarre to us today.

In one way it was masculine -

tremendous lung power.

The chests of these singers were enormous.

But in the high register, the voice was something akin to

a turbo-charged falsetto,

or "head voice" - a very bizarre whooping sound, even.

Something needed to happen. And it did, in the 19th-century.

Now, it's rare in the history of music that you can point to

one defining incident when a revolution occurred.

But with the tenor voice you can.

The year was 1831, the composer - Rossini, the opera - William Tell.

The singer who changed the tenor's fortunes overnight, Gilbert Duprez.

Before Gilbert Duprez came along,

tenors would sing the High C...

in this kind of voice.

# Aah... #

Not too exciting, perhaps. But Gilbert Duprez had other ideas.

He was a young, promising tenor, who learned the voix sombree.

That meant to sing with the real voice.

And in the dressing room, he was trying these high notes,

because there's a lot of High Cs.

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And he tried the High C with the natural chest voice.

Which is such a landmark, you know! It revolutionised opera.

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And Rossini was disgusted. Disgusted.

Rossini said it sounded like a capon having its throat cut.

The audience loved it. And they cheered Duprez as the Messiah.

After Duprez,

the thrilling chest-voice High C was

eagerly anticipated by the audience.

The tenor doesn't sing that many of them.

But get it wrong, and you could be booed off the stage.

We go on the stage every night with the same feeling.

We are afraid.

And if somebody tell you this, tell you he is not afraid,

this means he's a liar

It's like the circus - the trapezist without net.

It is somehow like this.

I'm telling you, when you are on stage, and you have to sing

a High C, already two days ago you don't sleep.

Despite Rossini's objections, this unthinkable but wholly

possible new approach to the top of the voice becomes unstoppable.

By the time we get to the Verdi operas,

the tenor voice, as we know it today, becomes recognisable.

This new masculine, heroic approach to singing took hold.

From his first opera in 1839, to his last,

54 years later, Verdi WAS Italian opera.

He created a whole series of tragic tenor heroes in the romantic mould.

Dynamic, impulsive, and fatally flawed.

An ideal Verdi hero was Franco Corelli, who emerged

in the 1950s as one of the most celebrated of all Italian tenors.

Corelli trained as a naval engineer before entering a

singing competition on a dare.

Good call!

Corelli cut a dashing figure.

He even developed a sideline modelling evening wear

for style magazines.

And he certainly attracted the female audience.

He had good old-fashioned sex appeal.

The most glamorous tenor of the 20th century was

undoubtedly Franco Corelli.

The Italian tenor who, I think, created an image of the tenor,

even before Pavarotti,

that would influence everything that came after him.

Tremendously good-looking, he drove audiences into delirium.

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Listen to him here singing Puccini, in one of his signature roles -

Cavaradossi - a prisoner dreaming of happier times.

The tone was very personal to him. Every inch the romantic hero.

Quite old-fashioned acting style.

The darkness of that quality in that lower register.

So musical, he was.

See that low larynx.

Watch the larynx.

And in one breath - fabulous.

Dominating the orchestra.

That's unusual, for the tenor to turn around!

HE CHUCKLES

ANTONIO MOUTHS

And then the best old-fashioned tradition,

the sobbing...

CORELLI SOBS

..the applause-getters!

ANTONIO CHUCKLES

Now that tenors were expected to hit the High C using the chest,

or natural voice, a problem emerged,

and this is something that tenors have to deal with on a daily basis.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Well, the tenor range spans two octaves, normally.

From C to C.

Some singers can sing lower, some can sing higher,

but basically that's it.

Now, if I start to sing from the low C....

# Aah, aah, aah, aah

# Aah, aah, aah, aah... #

As I get towards

the middle...

my voice runs out.

Now, what happens here is something,

it's a natural phenomenon,

and it creates the need for some kind of manipulation.

We need to create a bridge from the lower voice,

through the middle voice, through to the high voice.

And this is called a passaggio.

Or a passage, or a bridge - you get the idea.

And the manipulation that takes place is...

# Aah, aah, aah, aah... #

The voice is made slightly smaller,

so that then you can go up...

# Aah, aah, aah...! #

Now, I'm not an expert in this, obviously, but you could hear how

by going small, around E or F, the upper middle,

all of a sudden, then there's room to expand into the top register.

Now, without this knowledge, without the mastery of this,

you cannot have a major operatic career.

Everyone from Caruso to Mario Lanza, to Pavarotti, to Jonas Kaufmann,

all were and are, masters of the passaggio.

So if you want to be a tenor, it's something you simply have to learn.

When you think of singing a song, it'll have high moments,

it'll have middle moments, and those lower notes as well.

And when we get into the upper parts, where the

money is made, then it goes up into the head,

and we negotiate through the chest and into the head.

Through the passaggio into...

# Ha-hey... #

And then you do really feel the buzz that's in there.

Let's do the scale.

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That's where...

Now we're dealing with passaggio,

because there are other muscles that then start to kick in.

The muscles that deal with the voice and the larynx

and everything else when it's in that lower position, in the

lower registers, and then we have to deal with this thing that every

-singer deals with, the passaggio, it's how you get through that bridge.

-It's like a bridge.

It's a bridge, it's like a frontier, in a way, a muscular frontier,

and you've got to get through it.

# Aah, aah, aah, aah

# Aah, aah... #

That felt OK, actually.

Yes. For me, it's around E flat and E natural.

# Y-aahh... #

After that, you go into another field, and it changes again.

That's how passaggio works in principle.

The whole art for the tenor is to manage to cross the frontier

without the audience being aware he's done so.

Here's Jonas Kaufmann

negotiating the passaggio in a performance of Andrea Chenier...

seamlessly.

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Right now, we're in the middle of performances of Andrea Chenier.

-Yeah.

-And in your first aria,

there's, I think, a classic example of going through the passaggio

when you go "non conoscete amor", which is an F, which is

right in the passaggio and then you go to a high B flat...

-where you need lots of room.

-Yeah.

# Non conoscete amor... #

F is...

for me, it's actually the note where

I'm indecisive,

let's say, whether it belongs to the upper or to the lower region.

And there's one note in the second act,

"si...soldato",

and I'm never sure...

And every performance I do it differently.

Because also depending on the form of the day,

it just comes differently.

But I think the more you think about it, the more difficult it becomes.

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One of the Holy Grails of singing is how do you diminuendo?

How do you get softer on a tone that is loud to begin with?

-Yeah.

-Now, you have an amazing ability to do that.

-Can you show us...?

-CHUCKLES:

-I can try!

You can try!

ANTONIO SINGS IN ITALIAN

JONAS SINGS IN ITALIAN

How do you do that? How do you do that?

No, seriously, how do you do that?

The larynx is low, the tongue, the whole mouth, everything is relaxed.

You did it perfect... It goes through F, again,

similar to Chenier...

HE SPEAKS IN ITALIAN

JONAS SINGS IN ITALIAN

Wow, back and forth!

It's the same thing!

The technical aspect of it is absolutely mind-boggling.

Because usually it's only one or two

people in the world, you know, at a time, could do that.

But you can do it.

The basic techniques are common to all tenors.

But within the category we call "the tenor" lies a whole spectrum

of different colours, ranging from the dark dramatic tenor

at the lower end of the frequency, to the lyric tenor at the higher.

This lighter voice is ideally suited to the young, naive romantic lead.

Tamino, in Mozart's The Magic Flute, is a famous example.

One of the role's most admired interpreters is the great

German lyric tenor Fritz Wunderlich,

who died at the age of only 35,

after a fall in a hunting lodge, in 1966.

The youthful light timbre perfectly captures the hero's

yearning for a princess he sees in a picture.

You hear the perfect balance of ardour and...

..vocal refinement, and good taste.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

Every syllable in place,

and yet the smoothest of deliveries.

Perfect intonation, just perfect.

Now we have difficult vowels in German - the "oo"

and the tight "eh" vowel.

Constantly going in and out of that difficult passaggio,

but it's nothing for him.

Oh, beautiful. "Liebe sein..."

And then there's the contrast.

See how many "ee" vowels there are in this aria.

Which can potentially tighten the voice.

But sound completely free with him.

You could say that there's a

matter-of-factness in the interpretation,

in the delivery.

A straightforwardness, is probably a better way of saying it.

But I think, when you have a voice quality like that,

and music that is so obvious, somehow,

so natural, you don't need to play around with it to make the effect.

And Fritz Wunderlich knew this inherently, and I think

that this is what makes him a great star, in the pantheon of the greats.

MUSIC: Trauermarsch from Gotterdammerung by Richard Wagner

100 years or so after Mozart,

a completely different type of tenor emerged in Germany.

He was the heldentenor - the "hero tenor" -

associated especially with the operas of Richard Wagner.

Not only did the heldentenor play superheroes on stage,

in roles like Siegfried and Tristan,

he had to sing for longer stretches than ever before,

and the musical forces he was now competing against, had been

increasing in strength.

In the 19th century, the orchestra grew and grew and grew.

Where Mozart wrote for a 40-piece orchestra, or less,

by the time we get to Verdi, it's 60.

And the biggest challenge is yet to come.

When we perform Wagner's music, we're playing with 110 players.

Now, you can imagine that this is a huge obstacle,

if you like, for the singers.

The amount of lung power and projection is exponentially greater.

That's where technique comes in. The art of projection, of resonance.

This cutting through the orchestra with a beam of sound,

rather than a wall of sound, is essential.

A heldentenor whose very personal technique allowed him to excel

in singing these heavy dramatic roles is the Canadian Jon Vickers.

A committed Christian, he tried only to sing operas

and characters whose message he believed to be morally uplifting.

There seems to be something of great

inner intensity in these characters.

They're almost obsessive,

almost driven characters.

I think that I have a certain ability to portray that intensity.

I study the role in a very abstract, objective way,

trying to analyse the facets of personality

which are the predominant ones that must be brought forward.

And I analyse the role in terms of finding the facets

within my own personality that have to be enlarged, or diminished,

or hardened, or softened,

so that in a way, I myself sort of die.

And I suppose that it's probably

because I build my characters from the inside out, that they have

this greater sense of commitment and intensity.

I've had the opportunity to work with Jon Vickers on two occasions,

and there is simply no-one like him.

And he does draw you in, let me tell you.

Listen to Jon Vickers singing the role of Florestan,

from Beethoven's Fidelio.

The character is a prisoner, a political prisoner,

who's been alone in this dungeon for a very, very long time.

No hope. Despair.

And these are the types of characters that Jon Vickers

gravitated towards.

Lonely, outcast individuals.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

You get an idea of the size of the voice now.

And how beautiful the voice actually was.

Low register, almost like a baritone.

It was like listening to a cathedral organ.

And he would seem to relax back onto the back foot

and then take a posture, a position.

It was as though he was ready to swallow a sword.

But a sword swallower must be able to open up a passage that

goes straight the way down.

So consequently, there's this man standing like that,

on the back foot, and creating this column, this great column,

and the whole body then becomes the voice.

And the mouth opens up, to a massive extent at times,

and it becomes rather like a, a, a...

..an animal.

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

How he pulls back his voice there, it's heartbreaking.

And the light goes out.

But did you notice the concentration in his eyes, the total focus?

The absolute convincing thought process that's behind the singing.

This is as important as the throat,

this is as important as the God-given talent.

It's how your mind accompanies your delivery.

I believe that singing is mainly about emotions.

I mean, the artist that is able to colour his voice,

and to give the right intuition, every sound, to the

role he's playing, I think this is a great artist.

Throughout musical history,

composers have written for specific singers.

Benjamin Britten wrote predominantly for his partner, Peter Pears.

Distinctively English in sound, Pears created some of the most

significant new tenor roles of the 20th century.

The vocal pieces were written, so many of them, with my voice

in mind, that I could just try

it out on him, then and there.

If it was a difficult phrase

I could just see

whether I could sing it or not.

And if I could, adequately, he probably kept it in.

But if I couldn't, or thought, oh, it was too difficult...

I may be said to have vetted, from my own point of view.

Beginning in the 1940s, the English operatic tradition, semi-dormant for

more than two centuries, was revived

by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears...

beginning with Peter Grimes -

a fisherman suspected

of murdering his apprentice. Here is the tenor as pariah, under threat.

Peter Grimes is the ultimate outsider, a strange,

troubled man, despised by the small village mind-set.

What is fascinating is Peter Pears' best note was E natural.

Other tenors have great difficulty with that note.

It's just...

sort of not fish nor fowl, it's kind of upper low register,

lower middle register and it's a tricky note,

but it's perfect in Peter Pears' voice, interestingly enough.

And in Peter Grimes,

Benjamin Britten writes an aria where E natural

is the main feature,

with a very allusive text -

"Now the Great Bear and Pleiades, where earth moves, are drawing up

"the clouds of human grief,

"breathing solemnity for the deep night."

# Now the Great Bear

# And Pleiades

# Where earth moves

# Are drawing up

# The clouds of human grief

# Breathing solemnity

# In the deep night... #

"In the deep night", so word-painting.

Britten brings the voice way down low.

Interesting how he makes music on that single note.

He does it again here.

# Who can decipher

# In storm or starlight... #

Alliteration there, "storm, starlight".

# The written character

# Of friendly fate...? #

And he opens up.

# As the sky turns

# The world for us to change. #

Pears shows us how to love the words.

Whether one possesses the most beautiful voice or not,

communication is paramount.

SINGS IN ITALIAN

The personality behind those voices can communicate something -

the joy of singing, yes - but also something deeper.

The greater meaning behind an aria, even a note.

Offering something completely new for us to experience.

It's that rare ability

to make everything you sing personal to you, and unforgettable

once heard, that distinguishes the great singer from the good.

One tenor who had personality, charisma

and star quality in spades went on to become one of the most

influential singers of the 20th century.

The first ever "crossover" artist hardly set foot on an opera stage.

But he became one of the biggest movie stars of the 1950s

by singing opera.

Jose Carreras said that he got into singing because of this guy.

The "Kid from Philadelphia" influenced Placido Domingo.

Pavarotti would go see his films and go home

and try to imitate him in the mirror.

Who am I talking about? Well, Mario Lanza, of course.

Now, friends, I don't want to waste a second of your time.

I want to introduce to you a star of many opera stages,

and a great star of Hollywood -

Mario Lanza.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Mario Lanza, unlike any classically trained tenor

before or since, was genuinely successful as a pop star.

Because You're Mine was a million-seller,

top ten hit in both Britain and the USA.

# Because you're mine

# The brightest star I see

# Looks down, my love

# And envies me

# Because you're mine

# Because you're mine... #

CROWD CHANT: WE WANT MARIO!

Mario Lanza was the most famous tenor there ever was, bar none.

And together with Enrico Caruso, certainly the most influential.

He was an inspiration for all of us.

And also, he did the life of Caruso.

It was the life of the

greatest tenor ever

and it was a very interesting

movie for people, that...

We were not very, very familiar with opera at that moment.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

ANTONIO MOUTHS

When you hear him sing those honeyed tones

and those very difficult phrases that go high...

He manages them, technically, absolutely wonderfully.

Going through the passaggio up to the high note,

back through the passaggio, back up.

The power of the modern tenor, ignited by Caruso,

fuelled by Mario Lanza, found new strength with The Three Tenors.

THEY SING IN ITALIAN

After I had the possibility to enjoy the movie with Lanza, I didn't

want to be an instrumentalist, or a conductor, I wanted to be a singer.

And then I realised that my voice was a tenor voice.

And I was very happy with that, needless to say!

MUSIC: Nessun Dorma

Three Tenors... Three different tenors,

ranging from lyric to dramatic.

The thrill of a unique and outstanding tenor voice has provoked

an animal response from audiences for nearly 200 years.

And in our century, shows no sign of running out of steam.

Next time, the voice type that gets to play the characters

known in opera as "Witches, bitches and britches".

Between the tenor and the soprano sings the earth goddess,

the mezzo-soprano.

# La, la, la, la, la... #

MUSIC: Overture (Prelude) from Carmen by Georges Bizet