100Singers's video: 100 Singers - EUGENIO FERNANDI

Eugenio Fernandi, Tenor (1922-1991) Giuseppe Verdi: MESSA DI REQUIEM (1874) Tenor solo "Ingemisco tamquam reus" ("Sighing, I stand guilty") Conducted by Tullio Serafin (August 1959) My personal opinion: There have always been tenors with strange voices: Karl Erb, Julius Patzak, Peter Pears, the ridiculous Stephan Zucker or the southerners Giuseppe Morino, Joseph Calleja and not least the Toscanini favorite Aureliano Pertile (1885-1952), whose garish expression and tense intensity coped well with the conductor's overheated style. As unmistakable as the vocal resemblance between Tito Schipa (1888-1965) and his pupil Cesare Valletti (1922-2000), is also the audible affinity between Pertile and his student Eugenio Fernandi (1922-1991), who was generally regarded as one of the less interesting tenors of the 1950s. Maybe he would have been forgotten completely, if he had not sung Calaf to Maria Callas in TURANDOT, his only commercial recording of a full opera. Also Eugenio Fernandi's voice did not correspond to the general ideal of beauty. The first striking thing is the nasal sound of his odd timbre. Though it was a powerful and robust voice, it was hardly the suitable instrument to project compelling virility. This sober and objective finding can harm the subjective listening pleasure of his few recordings. Fernandi was judged by critics very differently. In his analytical book "The Callas Legacy", John Ardoin named Fernandi's Calaf "unformed", while Paul Jackson for his part was taken by "an appealing quality". Robin Sabin of "Musical America" praised Fernandi's "top range, which is a joy for the audience", whereas Bernie Hodes of "Billboard" complained an "uneasy top". The Viennese authors Karl Löbl and Robert Werba wrote in "Opern auf Schallplatten", that the tenor as DON CARLO in Karajan's 1958 Salzburg Festival production was "a forgivable mistake", albeit another unnamed Austrian reviewer felt that "Karajan has proved a keen sense in choosing Fernandi as the Spanish infante." Shouldn't we expect, educated experts do all agree? This is, evidently, not the case ... Only a few years after his first performances with the opera school of La Scala Milan in 1954, Eugenio Fernandi was seen as man of the future. Already in February 1957 he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera as Cavaradossi in a German sung performance of TOSCA (with Ljuba Welitsch). HMV producer Walter Legge contracted him to sing Calaf some months later in the Callas TURANDOT. Here, Fernandi did a good job - provided, one is willing to imagine his curious timbre and his unconventional accentuation as a kind of Asian exoticism. His entry at the Metropolitan came on February 19, 1959 as Pinkerton; praised by Paul Jackson as "the finest to be heard in years." Known to me is the broadcast of April 16, 1960 with Dorothy Kirsten (in which the Met's former Pinkerton, Charles Kullman, sings Goro). Maybe I'm too spoiled, but I can't agree with Jackson. Even if the reckless US Lieutenant is not a sympathetic figure, a Puccini tenor needs a seductive tone (a virtue that, with the best of intentions, I can't discover in his voice). It was his idiosyncratic deformation of vowels and words that made him almost a caricature of Richard Tucker, whose concise expression gave every line he sang a distinct shape. Neither in "Bimba dagli occhi" nor in "Qual occhio al mondo" from the 1957 RAI recording of TOSCA (with Magda Olivero), Eugenio Fernandi managed to convey the passionate lover. Although his voice was of "flesh and blood", Fernandi did not possess the sonic sensory stimulus of a charmer. In his singing, I miss a kind of youthful easiness and spontaneity. Seen this way, it is surely no coincidence that the tenor's probably most convincing role was Verdi's DON CARLO, a torned and self-doubting figure (so, I disagree with the above-mentioned opinion of Löbl and Werba). Between 1958 and 1962, Eugenio Fernandi sang Don Carlo fifteen times in Vienna, Salzburg and New York (at La Scala, the role was given to Flaviano Labò and Mario Ortica). Within the following years, his popularity faded as fast as it had come. Already in the 1960s his transient fame was expired, even if he was still used for occasional work until 1971 at the Met and performed in South America too. What remains are only a few recordings. If I had to choose one, I would take the Verdi REQUIEM, if only because of Tullio Serafin's sublime conducting. In the "Ingemisco" solo, Eugenio Fernandi's slightly whiny voice fits to some extent to the subject ...