belcantopera's video: A Bonci - Una furtiva lagrima 1918 The Rapid Vibrato

Bel canto tenor Alessandro Bonci (1870-1940) was born near Rimini (Cesena). After study in Pesaro, he made his debut in Parma in 1896. The following year he was engaged to sing at La Scala, where he made his debut in Bellini's I Puritani. In the early years of the twentieth century he was regarded as CARUSO'S ONLY SERIOUS RIVAL, excelling in roles demanding lightness, agility, and ELEGANCE, rather than the heavier and more dramatic parts. After some appearances at Covent Garden, he scored a great success in New York in 1906, singing in I Puritani at the opening of Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House on 34th Street. For the next three seasons he transferred his activities to the Metropolitan where he sang 14 different roles in 65 performances. He served in the Italian Air Force in World War I. Immediately thereafter, he returned to the Met in 1918-1920 - and then appeared at the Chicago Opera for the 1920-1921 season. From then on, he performed only occasionally. After 1925, Bonci entered partial retirement, devoting himself primarily to teaching in Milan; he died in Viterbo in 1940. In the older repertory, he excelled by virtue of the sweetness of his tone and the finish of his phrasing. Bonci had an elegant tenor voice, eminently suited for the older, bel canto repertoire. Caruso was trained in the bel canto tradition, but his singing became more powerful and strenuous as he adapted to the verismo style. I would say, among Italian tenors, Bonci's style resembles that of Anselmi. Schipa's and Gigli's tenore di grazia were of a later generation. Enrico Caruso - Una furtiva lagrima (1904) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6noHQXH0Qy4 ------------------------------------- Some of us love the rapid, shimmering vibrato sound... The small vibrato was a mannerism of the second half of the Nineteenth Century, copied from the great Rubini. To speak only of tenors, Bonci was not the only singer to brandish a conspicuously impassioned vibrato: we can hear a similarly throbbing emission of tone in the records of Anselmi, De Lucia, Magini-Coletti (and ladies such as Bellincioni, Storchio, or Farneti). This "romantic" vibrato - the rapid reiteration of a note, as distinct from a wobble, which is the slow alternation of two notes - is an art of itself. (Slow and ample vibrato, "calante", almost always means voice is in trouble, passed its better days.) The "mixed" head voice is, again, a feature of this pre-1914 style. The full belted high register, which made Caruso a popular favourite, breaks the suave romantic legato which was the great glory of this school of singing. -------------------------------------