Stefan Zucker

Contents of the forthcoming book

Franco Corelli and a Revolution in Singing 

by Stefan Zucker

Acknowledgements

Coming Soon!

(See table of contents)

Del Monaco and Corelli each rejected sweet tenor singing in favor of what they considered a more virile approach. Del Monaco pioneered singing with the larynx lowered to the bottom of the throat. That gave him a powerful, brassy, thick, muscular, penetrating sound, more suited to emphatic climaxes than sweet caresses. The technique limited his ability to color, to modulate between loud and soft and to sing with agility or legato.

To avoid these pitfalls Corelli developed what he called the “floating-larynx” technique. His stated objective was to combine Del Monaco’s fortissimo, Lauri-Volpi’s high notes, Pertile’s passion, Fleta’s diminuendo and Gigli’s caress. Corelli managed to lessen the tradeoffs between singing with a darkened massive tone and singing with expression.

Del Monaco and Corelli became bitter rivals. Each tried to block the other’s career. In the end Corelli emerged triumphant.

The two tenors became the model for many others and ultimately changed the world’s expectations of what tenors should sound like in Verdi and Puccini. Del Monaco and Corelli more or less relegated sweet tenor singing to the junk heap. Sung tones became throatier and older in sound, and singing became less in tune, less agile, less nuanced, less dreamy, more monochrome, more labored and more consistently forte or fortissimo.

The differences between the singing of Del Monaco and his predecessors, Gigli, in particular, parallel those between Duprez and Nourrit, in the 1830s, and Caruso on the one hand and Tamagno and De Lucia on the other, around 1900. In all cases the more forceful, less subtle style won out. 

The Origins of Modern Tenor Singing consists of four articles by Stefan Zucker. They focus on Rossini, castratos and florid singing; conspicuous fast vibrato, the David family of tenors plus Andrea Nozzari; Rubini; Duprez and the high C from the chest. These articles trace the development of tenor singing from the 1770s through the mid-19th century to Caruso. (The articles were originally published in Opera News from 1981-86.)

The following articles are of related interest: "Singers Who Changed Singing from 1775 to Callas and Sutherland" and "Did the Castrati Have Balls?" both by Stefan Zucker, in Issue #3 of Opera Fanatic magazine, and "A 19th-Century Tenor Colossus: Enrico Tamberlick" by Thomas G. Kaufman, in Issue #2.

Below is a sample essay from the booklet: