100Singers's video: 100 Singers - ADOLF DALLAPOZZA

Adolf Dallapozza, Tenor (*1940) Adolphe Adam: LE POSTILLON DE LONJUMEAU (1836) Rondo: "Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire" (sung in German) Conducted by Franz Bauer-Theussl / Recorded live 1968 My personal opinion: A tenor with a secure high C is always most loved by the audience - and those who can even offer a high D became legends. This was the case with Nicolai Gedda as well as with South Tyrol born Adolf Dallapozza, both famous interpreters of LE POSTILLON DE LONJUMEAU. But I fear I have to disappoint you: In reality, the Swede never (!) sang the high note on stage, not even at his 1952 debut (as proven by a live recording). It's a legend Gedda wisely never contradicted. And also Dallapozza has been a half tone below the D in "Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire" as you can hear here in the sound document from April 1968. Both ventured the D5 only in their studio recordings unlike many high C's in front of the public ... The 'do di petto' was Adolf Dallapozza's trademark. His longtime home stage, the Vienna Volksoper, put the POSTILLON opera for his sake on the repertoire, just as Donizetti's LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT, in which - as is well-known - nine high C's are demanded in "Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête - Pour mon âme". Dallapozza was right to concentrate himself mainly on Vienna's second-largest music stage, where he became after his 1962 debut the uncrowned king of tenors, while his voice proved too small for the major roles at the State Opera, where he was mostly used as comprimario. By the year of his stage farewell in 2012, he had completed more than 2000 performances at the Volksoper, while at the "Haus am Ring" his activity in the years between 1968 and 1983 was limited to 14 roles in a total of 141 performances. Dallapozza had also content himself with supporting parts in many of his recordings, although it is hard to understand why a complete studio production of POSTILLON with him as Chapelou was never realized, when he was at the zenith of his skill. But nevertheless, as a widely known representative of Austrian music culture, he became a Viennese institution, omnipresent in broadcasts, operetta movies and TV shows. And if there was a Sunday morning request concert on the radio, Dallapozza was many times a part of it, singing an aria by Lehár, a well-liked Italien song like "Tiritomba" (of course with a high C) or something from a classical musical like WEST SIDE STORY, in which he sang at the Volksoper during the first German language performances in 1968 the part of Tony, initiated by Leonard Bernstein's old friend Marcel Prawy. As said, we meet Adolf Dallapozza in many supporting opera roles on records, for instance Arturo in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, David in DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG, Idamante in IDOMENEO or Jacquino in FIDELIO - to name a few. But he appeared here less concisely than in his countless recordings of operettas, his proper domain. At the Volksoper he sang many times Eisenstein in DIE FLEDERMAUS; on record he was used in 1971 as Alfred next to an all-star cast from Rothenberger over Gedda to Fischer-Dieskau and Fassbaender. It was an expensive EMI prestige production with big names but little Viennese atmosphere. More grateful for Dallapozza was the part of Adam in Zeller's DER VOGELHÄNDLER (1973), which he sang in juvenile tone with an enchanting Austrian idiom, albeit not with the folksy charm of a Karl Terkal or Ferry Gruber. In Willy Mattes' heavily abridged version of ORPHÉE AUX ENFERS (1978), Orpheus was reduced to a minor figure and Dallapozza's talent inexcusably wasted. Finally, in 1980, EMI gave him the opportunity to portray the young Goethe in Lehár's FRIEDERIKE, a romanticized retelling of the unhappy love between the famous poet and Friederike Brion. It is a now almost forgotten operetta that at least contains one hit: The splendid tenor aria "O Mädchen, mein Mädchen", which however was sung by Dallapozza more elegant and less strained in an earlier 1970 recording. Some of his biographers have categorized him as a 'tenore di grazia', which is only true with regard to the choice of roles in his beginner years (Almaviva, Chapelou, Ernesto, Nemorino, Tonio), but not in view of his voice-character. I am inclined to name Dallapozza a 'piccolo lirico spinto' with a voice only conditionally pressure-resistant. It's a fact, in a smaller theater a singer needs less energy and vocal exertion to be heard also in the back rows - and the ideal stage for Adolf Dallapozza was the Volksoper, where he even sang an appealing Rodolfo in LA BOHÈME and also the difficult title role in LES CONTES D'HOFFMANN, in which the tenor has to be on stage virtually all the time, using different vocal colours for each of the five acts, notwithstanding the uneven tessitura ... It may be, some saw in Dallapozza only a second row tenor, but if this were true, he stood there at first place, inseparably belonging to Vienna like the Danube and the Waltz.