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Looking at Six Singers that Opera Lost This Summer
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by Bruce-Michael Gelbert | >> see bio |
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| Beverly Sills - photo by J.Heffernan, Metropolitan Opera |
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This summer, opera lost six of the stars in its galaxy: four sopranos-Beverly Sills (July 2), Régine Crespin (July 4), Teresa Stitch-Randall (July 17) and Rose Bampton (August 21)-and two tenors-Jerry Hadley (July 18) and Luciano Pavarotti (September 6). Two were superstars whose influence reached far beyond the operatic audience-Sills and Pavarotti. One was in her 90s-Bampton; one was in her 80s-Crespin; three were in their 70s-Sills, Stitch-Randall and Pavarotti; and one was in his 50s-Hadley. Three were lost to cancer-Sills, Crespin and Pavarotti; two to natural causes-Stitch-Randall and Bampton; and one to suicide-Hadley. All four sopranos had retired from singing. Of the tenors, Hadley had not and Pavarotti had been on a farewell tour when diagnosed. All six made music memorably and the five that I heard in person also had major, very public vocal crises at some point in their illustrious careers.
Sills was my favorite singer during the 1960s and '70s and it is her loss that I felt most deeply. She had retired from singing in 1980, but was still an active presence in music in New York, through her fundraising efforts, board memberships, and appearances on operatic telecasts and radio broadcasts. Her career began in the 1950s, but she did not achieve widespread recognition until her Cleopatra, in Handel's "Giulio Cesare," with the New York City Opera, catapulted her to international stardom. She leaves behind a legacy of accomplishment in a bel canto repertory, which included Bellini's Norma, Elvira ("I Puritani"), and Giulietta ("I Capuleti e i Montecchi"); Rossini's Rosina ("Il Barbiere di Siviglia"), Pamira ("L'Assedio di Corinto"), her La Scala and Metropolitan Opera debut role, and Fiorilla ("Il Turco in Italia"); Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Queen Elizabeth I ("Roberto Devereux"), Maria Stuarda, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, Marie ("La Fille du Régiment") and Norina ("Don Pasquale"); and Verdi's Violetta ("La Traviata") and Gilda ("Rigoletto"). Her Handel roles, beside Cleopatra, were Semele and Ginevra ("Ariodante"). Her Mozart roles were Donna Anna and Donna Elvira ("Don Giovanni"), Queen of Night ("Die Zauberflöte"), Costanza ("Die Entführung aus dem Serail"), and 'Madame Goldentrill' ("The Impresario"). No list of the roles she made her own would be complete without the title roles in "The Ballad of Baby Doe" and "Manon" and the three heroines of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann."
Sills stretched her lyric coloratura soprano to encompass ferocious chest tones and forceful spinto declamation, particularly as the imperious Elizabeth, that may have shortened her singing career. Committed to three performances of the role in a week in some seasons, she often sang herself into a sore throat-although she always bounced back, after the tempestuous second act, to sing a breathtaking piano high D at the end of "Vivi, ingrato" in Act Three-and had to sing the next performance with her vocal cords treated with cortisone, her sound huge as she was feeling no pain. Sills claimed that she would rather have ten years of a blazing, Callas-like career than many more years of a safe one and she got what she wanted.
I always measured how much singers meant to me by my willingness to travel outside of New York City to hear them in roles they hadn't done here and Sills was someone I went to Boston, Newark, Philadelphia and Katonah, New York to hear. I heard her Norma, which she was never to sing in New York, in Boston and Newark and was set to hear her in Hartford, opposite soprano Patricia Brooks, with whom she often shared lyric repertory at City Opera, but that was on January 27, 1972, the day New York's gay/lesbian rights bill was first voted on-and voted down-and I couldn't leave, joining instead the hundreds who packed the Gay Activists Alliance headquarters, the firehouse in Soho, to find out how GAA recommended reacting-not, as it happened, with angry demonstrations, which would have let off steam. A friend, similarly, skipped a Met "Nozze di Figaro," conducted by Karl Böhm, to come to GAA that night.
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| Luciano Pavarotti - photo by J.Heffernan, Metropolitan Opera |
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The Philadelphia performance was a "Puritani," also in 1972, and the only time I heard Sills and Pavarotti together as, at the time, her home base in New York was City Opera and his was the Met. Both singers were at the peak of their bel canto careers and it was a thrilling experience to hear them together. It was Sills' first Elvira and she was reportedly somewhat put out that her scene with the tenor had to be transposed down, as Pavarotti did not sing high D in public! Another singer I went out of town to hear was Leonie Rysanek, whom I heard in San Francisco in Strauss' "Die Frau ohne Schatten," with Birgit Nilsson, in 1980, and Wagner's "Lohengrin," with Pilar Lorengar and Peter Hoffmann, in 1982, and in Philadelphia in concert with Pavarotti and the Philadelphia Orchestra, early in 1980. What repertory would Rysanek and Pavarotti sing together? Well, she sang her German arias, he sang his Italian arias, and they only collaborated on one selection, the Act One duet from perhaps the only opera they had in common at that point, Puccini's "Tosca."
I heard Crespin in some of her soprano roles-Brünnhilde and Sieglinde in "Die Walküre," with steely top notes characterizing the former and warmth, the latter, and as Tosca"-at the Met in the late 1960s, and as the Marschallin, in "Der Rosenkavalier," in 1970. She was to have repeated the role of Kundry--a role she had sung in the old Metropolitan Opera House, at 39th Street and Broadway--in a new production of "Parsifal," introduced in 1970. But when I arrived at the opera house, there was a sign in the lobby that said that Irene Dalis was singing instead. In the early '70s, when I worked as a Met supernumerary, Crespin was starting to drop into the zwischenfach-between categories-roles, sung by soprano or mezzo, such as Charlotte in "Werther," Giulietta in "Hoffmann" (in which, as a gondolier, I piloted the gondola from which she sang in the Barcarolle), and Santuzza in "Cavalleria Rusticana." She would later take on Carmen; in Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites;" move down from the soprano Mme Lidoine, the new prioress, which she sang at the Paris premiere, to the contralto Mme de Croissy, the old prioress, which she sang at the Met premiere; and tackle the low-lying grand guignol of Menotti's "The Medium," which I heard in Philadelphia in 1986. Crespin got into hot water with her gay fans for a time when she was quoted in High Fidelity magazine as deploring their over-the-top adoration of the prima donna! This was the Anita Bryant era and the slight was not taken lightly. When she cancelled appearances as Marina in "Boris Godunov," including the opening night of the Met season, some tried to imply that she feared being booed for her careless remark. She soon returned, though, for more performances of "Carmen" and "Carmélites" and it was clear that all was forgiven. The last time I saw her was a few years ago on the promenade of the New York State Theater, in the audience for the City Opera revival of "Carmélites." Her appearance was low-key-she wasn't there to be a star.
Stitch-Randall made her name singing Mozart, Handel and Bach, though she also appeared in some contemporary operas, including the 1947 premiere of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's "The Mother of Us All," about Susan B. Anthony, and sang with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. I heard her twice at the Met-as Fiordiligi, in "Così Fan Tutte," in 1962, when I was too young to make any educated judgment about what I was hearing, and as Donna Anna, in "Don Giovanni," in 1966, during the Met's last season at the old house, when it was clear that she was in vocal distress. I encountered Stitch-Randall enthusiasts on two occasions. One was a soprano, with whom I sang in a small company called Young Artists Opera, who conceded that her idol sounded like "a broken oboe," but admired her artistry and taste. The other was a Dutch visitor and I was able to lay my hands on a couple of out-of-print recitals of hers for him, in exchange for a recording by another quirky soprano, Christina Deutekom, which was available only in Holland. One recording I did not turn over to Niek was Stitch-Randall's complete Handel "Rodelinda," a recording I turned to prepare my partner and myself for its Met premiere with Renée Fleming. We got an idea of the opera from it, but I kept assuring Joe we would hear something better than the pallid tone that Stitch-Randall brought to Rodelinda's music.
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| Rose Bampton - photo by Maurice Seymour,Caracas |
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Hadley's death occurred just over a week after he shot himself in the head, an act that took the world by surprise. At a time when the Three Tenors-Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras-had been taking the--mostly non-operatic--public by storm, some considered Hadley a serious contender to be the 'fourth tenor.' Sills brought him to City Opera during her tenure as its General Manager, and he sang Ferrando, in "Così Fan Tutte," Werther, and Tom Rakewell, in Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress," there. In 1986, he sang Riccardo Percy to Joan Sutherland's "Anna Bolena" in a much-acclaimed concert performance at Avery Fisher Hall, another occasion I had to miss because of a movement commitment, this time with GLAAD. He made his Met debut in 1987 as a glowing Des Grieux in an unlovable new production of "Manon," an occasion I remember vividly as it was one of the first performances I reviewed for the New York Native, for which I wrote for a decade. A mutual singer friend told me that my write-up had come to his attention and had pleased him. Singing in the big house tempted the lyric tenor to want to make a big sound and, while he mustered the heft to sing over the heaviest orchestration in "Manon" and in "Eugene Onegin," in which he sang Lensky, this surely contributed to his voice losing the bloom it once had. His last Met appearances, in 2001, were in the title role in John Harbison's "The Great Gatsby," which he created in its 1999 world premiere there. His tenor was still an instrument to reckon with, but was no longer what it was. At the time he died, he was apparently contemplating taking on significant character parts in Britten and Wagner operas as a way to salvage his foundering career. We'll never know if he could have restored his reputation, having a second career in such assignments.
In 1970, I was involved, for a short time, with someone who was a fan of Crespin, whose voice used to be described as a soprano with a mezzo-soprano core, or a soprano falcon, after Marie Cornélie Falcon, whose career in Paris lasted just five years, during which she created the roles of Rachel in "La Juive" and Valentine in "Les Huguenots." An older operaphile we knew intriguingly called Bampton "the Crespin of her day" and said that Cliff would have liked her had he heard her. Like Shirley Verrett and Grace Bumbry, in more recent years, Bampton sang both soprano and mezzo roles, sometimes in the same opera in alternation. I never heard Bampton in person, as her career lasted from 1929 to 1950, but I know her recording of Amelia's part, complete with trill, of the grand ensemble from the Council Chamber Scene of "Simon Boccanegra" and saw her in the audience regularly at concerts, at the 92nd Street Y and elsewhere, and at operas in the 1980s and early '90s. She was tall and sported a hairstyle that seemed to me to say '30s or '40s and which she never saw fit to change. Her roles included Laura ("La Gioconda"), Aida and Amneris, Sieglinde, Kundry, Donna Anna, Leonora ("Il Trovatore"), and the title role in Gluck's "Alceste" during its Met premiere season, 1940-41, alternating with Marjorie Lawrence, the story of whose mid-career bout with polio was told in the book and movie "Interrupted Melody." Bampton was married to Met conductor Wilfrid Pelletier and, like Stitch-Randall, sang with Toscanini, notably as Leonore in his broadcast of Beethoven's "Fidelio," which was recorded. Bampton would have turned 100 on November 28. A crisp note she penned in 1995, from her home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in response to a solicitation to receive a complementary copy of Opera News and a specially-priced subscription, was turned over to me. "Thank you but I am already for many years receiving the Opera News," she wrote.
Pavarotti was a godsend to Joan Sutherland as a tenor as tall as she, who sang bel canto elegantly. He joined her in her native Australia for her 1965 Sutherland-Williamson tour, the first such national tour since her coloratura soprano compatriot, Nellie Melba, had undertaken one very early in the century. Sutherland and Pavarotti sang together at Covent Garden before they joined forces at the Met for "Traviata," "Rigoletto," "Trovatore," and, most notably, "Puritani" and "Fille du Régiment." In the latter, in early 1972, in its first Met hearings since World War II, he dazzled the audience with Tonio's first act cabaletta, "Pour mon âme," with nine perfect, ringing high Cs, eight written and one interpolated, in quick succession. He also impressed with his smooth legato in the second act aria, "Pour me rapprocher de Marie," which prompted legendary soprano Ljuba Welitsch, returning for the spoken cameo role of the Duchess of Crakentorp, to comment, beaming, that he sounded like Beniamino Gigli, the honey-toned Italian tenor of the early part of the century. For a large man, Pavarotti moved gracefully in the role and he and Sutherland reveled in the comedy.
Pavarotti's scheduled Met debut almost didn't take place. In the 1968-69 season, he was to sing Rodolfo, in "La Bohème," with his lifelong friend and colleague from Modena, Mirella Freni, and Elvino, in "La Sonnambula," with Sutherland, but caught the flu, sang one complete and one partial performance of Rodolfo, and cancelled the rest of his season here. He returned in 1970 for Edgardo, in "Lucia," with Renata Scotto, and Alfredo, in "Traviata," with Sutherland.
The cognoscenti knew and prized him, but few outside of operatic circles knew him, and heavier roles, like Radames, in "Aida;" Enzo, in "Gioconda;" and Calaf, in "Turandot," tempted him, as did fame, fortune, and recognition by those who only heard him on television with pop stars and in amplified stadium concerts. I heard one of the latter that he gave in the mid-1980s with Sutherland, in Atlantic City, of all places. He even made a forgettable movie, "Yes, Giorgio," which included a scene from "Turandot," with soprano Leona Mitchell. He was known as the "King of the High Cs," but his high C was already less than dependable in performances of "Fille" in the 1972-73 season. When he made an ill-advised return to the role of Tonio in 1995, the high notes in cabaletta, though transposed down, failed him miserably and, at the performance I attended, he fled after Act One, to be replaced by Jean-Luc Viala for Act Two.
Pavarotti became well known for his wave of his huge, signature white handkerchief to the audience; for the "Three Tenors" phenomenon; and for making "Nessun dorma" an aria known to all-and once even sung by Aretha Franklin, replacing him-when "Turandot" was, before 1960, a relative rarity. But his operatic appearances dwindled and, at the last ones I heard at the Met-a "Turandot" and an "Aida"-he looked pained, sitting for the big aria in the former and, in the presence of Pharaoh, during the Triumphal Scene of the latter; sounded stressed; and, consequently, made listeners uncomfortable. Better to remember the luster in his voice, his graceful phrasing and ease in his upper register when he sang in "Un Ballo in Maschera," "Luisa Miller," "Puritani," and "Bohème" in his prime.
The six artists who left us this summer may be remembered for both their triumphs and their flaws, but their collective contribution to music was undeniably immense and the loss they represent is incalculable.
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