ROBERTO ALAGNA, TENOR, 7. JUNI 1963

„Ich habe nie besonders an Astrologie geglaubt, aber Experten haben immer behauptet, dass ich alle Eigenschaften eines Zwillings habe: sehr gesellig, aber auch sehr anpassungsfähig. Es war also von Geburt an vorherbestimmt, dass ich zu allen Wendungen und Rollen fähig sein würde!“

„Ich habe mich besonders für die Astrologie interessiert, aber die Spezialisten, die mir täglich zur Seite stehen, bestätigen, dass ich alle Eigenschaften von Edelsteinen habe: sehr kontaktfreudig und auch sehr anpassungsfähig.“ Ich habe meine Geburt nicht bestätigt, weil ich in der Lage bin, alle Revanchen und Rollen zu übernehmen!

Das Singen liegt dem französisch-sizilianischen Tenor Roberto Alagna im Blut. Sein berühmter Urgroßvater mütterlicherseits, Jimmy, sang für den großen Enrico Caruso, als der Maestro eines Tages zufällig in seinem Brieftaschenladen in New York City, USA, vorbeischaute, und Enrico war so beeindruckt, dass er Jimmy vorschlug, für den Chor der Metropolitan Opera vorzusingen! Was für ein Kompliment! (Obwohl Jimmy den Vorschlag des Maestros – oder des „Commendatore“, „des Kommandanten“, wie Jimmy ihn liebevoll nannte – ablehnte, da er sich lieber auf sein Geschäft konzentrieren wollte.)

Robertos Gesangsmentor Rafael Ruiz war ein direkter Schüler des legendären italienischen Tenors Aureliano Pertile (1885-1952). Diese Tatsache erregte die Aufmerksamkeit von Luciano Pavarotti, als Roberto ihn bei einer Schallplattensignierstunde im Pariser Kaufhaus Printemps traf. Ein Jahr später wurde Roberto, ohne es zu wissen, zu einem Vorsingen in der ersten Runde des Internationalen Pavarotti-Gesangswettbewerbs im italienischen Pesaro eingeladen, dem Geburtsort des legendären Komponisten des 19. Jahrhunderts Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868). Er sang für Luciano sein Glückslied „La Danza“ von Rossini und dachte, er sei disqualifiziert, weil Luciano ihm nicht erlaubte, wie alle anderen Teilnehmer, ein zweites Stück für ihn zu singen. Im Gegenteil, Luciano war von seiner Stimme begeistert und qualifizierte sich für die nächste Runde. Tatsächlich erzählte Saimir Pirgu, ein albanischer Tenor, der bei Luciano studierte, Roberto Jahre später etwas, das er nicht über Luciano wusste: „Jedes Mal, wenn wir bei Luciano Unterricht hatten, sprach er nur von einem Tenor, Roberto, und er sagte: ‚Hier, nimm diese LP und sing so.‘“

Nach dem Gewinn des Pavarotti International Voice Competition 1988 in Philadelphia – der Heimatstadt von Mario Lanza – erlebte Robertos Karriere einen steilen Aufstieg.

Sein Debüt gab er mit der Glyndebourne Touring Company in der Rolle des Alfred Germont in Verdis La Traviata. Ab 1990 hat er eine Reihe wichtiger Rollen an den führenden Opernhäusern gespielt: La Scala, Covent Garden und der New York Metropolitan.

1995 gewann er einen Olivier Award für seine Darstellung des Roméo in Gounods Roméo et Juliette, die für ihre Diktion und feinen Nuancen ausgezeichnet wurde und einen Wendepunkt in seiner Karriere darstellte, der ihm seinen Platz unter den Großen des französischen Repertoires sicherte. Alagna hat sich auch lange vernachlässigten Repertoires zugewandt und sich von seinen Anfängen als lyrischer Tenor mit zunehmender Reife seiner Stimme an schwerere Spinto-Rollen wie Samson in Samson et Dalia, Canio in I Pagliacci, Mauricio in Adriana Lecouvreur und Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut gewagt.

Roberto ist für seine charismatische Bühnenpräsenz bekannt und hat durch seine Aufnahmen in einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Musikgenres sowie durch seine Auftritte in Filmen und Musikvideos große Popularität erlangt. Sein 2008 veröffentlichtes Album „Sicilian“ war ein großer Erfolg und erreichte mit über 350.000 verkauften Exemplaren das breite Publikum.

Roberto Alagna wurde 2008 zum Chevalier de la légion d'honneur ernannt.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Roberto! Wir wünschen dir Glück, Gesundheit und Erfolg! Vielen Dank für deine Bereitschaft und Entschlossenheit, deinem Publikum auf der ganzen Welt weiterhin Freude zu bereiten!

Joyeux-Jubiläum Roberto! Wir wünschen Ihnen Glück, Gesundheit und Erfolg! Merci für Ihre freiwillige und begeisterte Fortsetzung der Freude an Ihrem Publikum auf der ganzen Welt!

EPISODE 12 INSIDE KLINGSOR’S GARDEN WITH MAURIZIO PIETRANTONIO

In the year 1880, Richard Wagner was hard at work composing what was to be his final opera, Parsifal. (He had been working on Parsifal since 1857). One of his favourite places to relax and draw inspiration from was Italy, and he stayed in Ravello at the Villa Rufolo, and it was in the Villa Rufolo that he found Klingsor’s Garden, which is so important for the second act. Being here in Ravello excited him and gave Wagner the burst of inspiration to complete the opera.

The Voice Detective is excited to present an interview with Maurizio Pietrantonio the General Manager of the Fondazione Ravello which is based in the Villa Rufolo. The Fondazione Ravello Villa Rufolo presents and manages the Ravello Festival and between the 6 July and the 25 August 2025 it will be the 73rd time it is taking place. More information about the Ravello Festival can be found at https://ravellofestival.info/2022/ What can be more evocative of the magic of Southern Italy that enchanted Wagner than sitting in the very garden that inspired him and overlooking the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea?

Maurizio Pietrantonio brings to the interview his extensive experience as a performing musician, professor of violin, musicologist, and the management and promotion of cultural events. Until 2023 he was tenured professor of violin at the State Conservatory of Music Naples, ‘San Pietro a Majella’. From 1999 to 2006 he was a Member of the Board of Directors of the Teatro di San Carlo Foundation and has extensive experience with management of theatres, music festivals and performances. He is also the recipient of numerous awards, most recently in 2024 the ‘Sorrentina Classica’ Lifetime Achievement Award. With his decades of knowledge, experience and artistic sensibility, the Voice Detective is privileged to be able to present Maurizio Pietrantonio’s unique life journey with an emphasis on Wagner’s presence and lasting legacy in Ravello.

HN008 OPERA INFLUENCES AN ARCHITECT

Louis Sullivan, the great American architect of the late 19th century, called ‘Lieber Meister’ by his better known protege, Frank Lloyd Wright was not only a builder of theatres for Grand Opera, but an early lover of the Art of Opera.

Most architecture aficionados know that Sullivan and his partner Dankmar Adler designed the Auditorium Building in Chicago, a 4,500 seater for Grand Opera completed in 1889. Though sadly the theatre Sullivan designed no longer exists as envisaged, contemporaries marvelled at the acoustics which were considered the best in the world. It also was at the time, the tallest, largest and most expensive building in the world. At its opening the President of the United States attended and Adelina Patti sang. It was as we might call it, the social and artistic event of the year.

But what makes for a great architect when it comes to opera houses? Perhaps there is a clue in Sullivan’s own writing. In his Autobiography of an Idea published in 1924 a few years before his death in poverty in 1926.

‘About this time flamboyantly arose Patrick Gilmore with his band and his World Jubilee. Then Louis discovered there had been in existence music quite other than oratorio, hymn, sentimental songs of the hoi polloi and burnt-cork minstrels, or the classic grinding of the hurdy-gurdy.

He found it refreshing and gay, melodious above all. When he hears full bosomed Parepa sing in coloratura, he could scarcely keep his seat; never was such a soprano heard in oratorio, and when the elder Strauss like a little he-wren mounted the conductor’s stand, violin in hand, and dancing, led the orchestra through the lively cadence of the blue Danube, Louis thought him the biggest little man on earth; and when it came to the “sextette” from Lucia, Louis roared his approval and listened just as eagerly to the inevitable encore. And the “Anvil Chorus” – oh, the Anvil Chorus! And so on, day by day, night by night from glorious beginning to glorious end. He had heard the finest voices in the world, great orchestral out-pouring, immense choruses. But he was, above all, amazed at the power of the single voice, when trained to perfection of control. He felt again with delight its unique quality, its range, its fluency, its flexibility, its emotional gamut, its direct personal intimate appeal; he felt a soul, a being, in a single voice, the heartful, the perfect instrument whereby to interpret and convey every state of feeling and of thought; and he was glad indeed.’

Let’s unwrap this a little, and repeat the words… ‘above all, [he was] amazed at the power of the single voice, when trained to perfection of control. He felt again with delight its unique quality, its range, its fluency, its flexibility, its emotional gamut, its direct personal intimate appeal; he felt a soul, a being, in a single voice, the heartful, the perfect instrument whereby to interpret and convey every state of feeling and of thought;’ Has anyone expressed so perfectly what great singing brings? How could such a human being have not known how to design a setting to bring out the best in a voice?

Also, think that Louis in the year that he first heard Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa was a mere 16 years old. Hearing Strauss senior play and conduct the Blue Danube, … I think its tempting to say that Sullivan’s encounter with Opera and great classical music was one of the greatest formative experiences in his life.

It doesn’t end here though. Sullivan is credited with the first true ‘skyscaper’ aesthetic. Yet even here, when he expressed his thoughts he had to refer to music. In 1896 he wrote, ‘…what is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? And at once we answer, it is lofty. This loftiness is to the artist-nature its thrilling aspect. It is the very open organ-tone in its appeal. It must be in turn the dominant chord in his expression of it, the true excitant of his imagination. It must be tall, every inch of it tall…..It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation….’ [italics mine].

Opera and music was integral to the way a great visual artist such as Louis Sullivan saw and created their world. It was one of the supreme aesthetic awakenings in his artistic life to hear performances by great musicians and this in turn influenced the course of architecture.

MARIA CANIGLIA, SOPRANO, MAY 5TH, 1905

‘I think she will do.’

So spoke the composer Mascagni, when Maria Caniglia auditioned before him as an emergency replacement for the role of Rosaura in Le Maschere. Maria was 24 years old and in her first season at La Scala and the year was 1930. The audition took place two days before the dress rehearsal.

The triumphant outcome of this rather off-hand praise depended upon the character and determination of the young singer. She learned and mastered the role in those two days, and throughout her long career Caniglia was noted for her outgoing and engaging personality. We would now recognise her as a team-player who would give all for her side. Indeed she told interviewer Lanfranco Rasponi, ‘I belong to a group of singers,…, who gave too much of themselves.’ She further, with characteristic honesty said, ‘I suffered a great deal in the theatre, for every time I conferred all my heart and soul. If toward the end my vocal resources were no longer what they had been, the public respected and loved me, because instinctively it recognised I did not spare one ounce of my being.’

Maria Caniglia was born in Naples in 1906 and studied singing at the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella. Although engaged at La Scala for the 1930-31 season, her first professional performance took place in Turin in 1930. as Chrysothemis in Strauss’ Elektra. She sang most of the Verdi lyric-dramatic heroines, but Caniglia made her mark especially in the verismo operas which were being composed throughout this period. However, she was not confined to Italian repertoire. Early in her career she performed Senta in Der Fliegender Holländer and spoke glowingly of Wagner, ‘How marvellously Wagner wrote for the voice! But a lot of breath control is needed for the legatos and the poetical phrasing.’

She was continuously at La Scala until 1943. In the same period Maria sang at Covent Garden and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. She returned to La Scala between 1948 and 1951 after which Caniglia left for Rome as the realised that two other great sopranos were engaged for the same roles ahead of her. In Rome, such was the calibre of her performances ‘she became as big an attraction at the Opera as the Sistine Chapel was at the Vatican.’ However, she never regretted the years at La Scale and noted that, ‘In my epoch there, if we made a mistake, the conductor never called us to task but rather reprimanded the assistant who had prepared us: ‘Why didn’t Signorina Caniglia hold that breath five seconds longer?’ or something of that sort.’ Does this still happen anywhere? It seems a very different world.

Her voice was noted for its sensuous and warm timbre, which made her an ideal verismo heroine. There are a number of recordings of complete operas with Beniamino Gigli, most significantly a Tosca, Un ballo in maschera, Aida, and Andrea Chenier. According to the Grove Book of Singers, her most representative recording is in the role of Leonora in La forza del destino, ‘where her gifts as a genuine lirico spinto soprano’, are displayed.

Episode 11 Of The Voice Detective Show with Liane Keegan and the Ensemble Creatus

Ensemble Creatus is Artist in Residence at the Victorian Artists Society in Melbourne, Australia in 2025. Their offering is named Seasons of Song, each concert being integral to the season during the year in which it is performed. The first of these concerts took place on the 9 February and coincided with the Victorian Artists Society’s Summer Exhibition. The Summer of course, being in the Southern Hemisphere. This concert is what the Voice Detective experienced, and excerpts form part of the Vodcast, by kind permission of Ensemble Creatus.

The concert series showcases the work of British composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams whose art songs are filled with rich harmonics and an impressive narrative gift. The intention is highlighted in the concert title, ‘When Art meets the Art of the English Song’ It is particularly appropriate that the concert took place in an historic setting with direct links to Dame Nellie Melba who taught singing in this building and the her contemporaries, the Australian painters who initiated a distinct movement in Australian art and who founded the Victorian Artists Society. The Ensemble Creatus team consists of contralto, Liane Keegan, accompanist and co-founder of the Ensemble Toni Lalich OAM, mezzo-soprano Juel Riggall, and sopranos Bethan Ellsmore and Naomi Summers.

The interview is with, Liane, a true contralto, has performed across the world in many of the leading opera houses. She is a specialist in Wagner and Verdi roles, as well as the concert and oratorio repertoire for contralto.

The programme presented was as follows:

Three Vocalises (1958) (wordless)
1. Prelude – Juel Riggall
2. Scherzo – Bethan Ellsmore
3. Quasi Menuetto – Naomi Summers
How can a tree but wither (1896) – Bethan Ellsmore
Poem by Thomas, Lord Vaux (1509- 1556)
Three songs from Shakespeare (1925) – Naomi Summers
Poems by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
1. Take, O Take
2. When Icicles Hang by the Wall
3. Orpheus with his Lute
To Daffodils (1895) – Bethan Ellsmore
Poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Excerpts from Seven Songs from The Pilgrims Progress (pre-1951)
No 1. Watchful’s Song – Liane Keegan
No. 4 – The Song of the Leaves of Life & the Water of Life – Bethan & Juel
No. 5 – The Song of Vanity Fair – Naomi Sumers
No. 6 – The Woodcutter’s Song – Juel Riggall
No. 7 – The Bird’s Song – Juel Riggall
Text from The King James Bible [1, 4, 7], John Bunyan
(1628-1688) [6] and Ursula Vaughan Williams (1911 – 2007) [5]
Five Mystical Songs (1906-11) – Liane Keegan
Poems by George Herbert 1593-1633
1. Easter
2. I got me Flowers
3. Love bade me welcome
4. The Call
5. Antiphon

SHORT009 IS THE PANAMA HAT THE SECRET BEHIND THE TENOR HIGH NOTES?

Is the Panama Hat the secret behind the tenor high notes? Gyaan Lyon aka The Voice Detective puts the theory to the test. Watch to find out the results…

HN007 CESARE RIPA’S ICONOGRAPHIA

Did you know that Cesare Ripa’s famous Iconographia published in 1593 provides 200 different iconographic descriptions of various ideas, concepts and moral guidance. Our description is the translation made by Edward A. Maser.

Number 192 is Musica.

Musica is depicted as a beautiful young woman sitting astride a celestial sphere. The sphere represents the harmony of the spheres of heaven upon which earthly harmony is dependent. She is young and beautiful because Music itself is pleasurable and beautiful. Nearby is an anvil from whence according to legend Pythagoras had his moment of inspiration that the tones struck might be written down for musicians. There is also a set of scales representing the blending and balance required for harmonious music. Before her a shrub plays a lute and at the cherub’s feet a bird singing – these two represent instruments made by humankind and the music of nature herself. In the background the west wind blows gently upon a flock of swans who are alleged to sing only if praised by gentle and warm encouragement, or “like some musicians who will only sing if they are soothed by the soft breeze of praise and admiration,” to quote Ripa himself. Finally, the god of Music, Apollo himself is present in the form of a monument with a lyre – his representative musical instrument.

KATHLEEN FERRIER, CONTRALTO, APRIL 22, 1912

Upon the shock announcement of her untimely death whilst at the height of her career in 1953, British contralto Kathleen Ferrier, was considered the most popular lady in Britain after the Queen. To this day the mention of her name garners great admiration and reverence amongst opera aficionados.

Ferrier grew up in the household of a school headmaster father. Her mother also possessed a strong contralto voice. Her musical aptitude was recognised at an early age, and she won awards and prizes for her piano playing, but at this stage her voice was not considered anything remarkable. When her father retired, the family were not able to afford to send her to attend music college.

On Ferrier’s career up to this point, the music biographer Humphrey Burton wrote in 1988: ‘For more than a decade, when she should have been studying music with the best teachers, learning English literature, and foreign languages, acquiring stage craft and movement skills, and travelling to London regularly to see opera, Miss Ferrier was actually answering the telephone, getting married to a bank manager and winning tinpot competitions for her piano-playing.’

But she was destined to receive much greater accolades and fame far from her initial success and become a living legend of her time with her contemporaries such as Marian Anderson claiming, ‘My God, what a voice — and what a face!’ In Vienna, the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was Ferrier’s co-soloist in a recorded performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor, with the Vienna Symphony under Herbert von Karajan. Schwarzkopf later recalled Ferrier’s singing of the Agnus Dei from the Mass as her highlight of the year.

Luckily her voice is well documented in recordings of her repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. She created the role of Lucretia in Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in 1946, and followed with Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice. These are the only operatic roles she chose to sing, though she performed operatic arias such as Adieu Fôrets from Tchaikovsky which she performed in recital settings.

To appreciate the beauty of her voice listen to her Ombra Mai Fu by Handel or the unaccompanied Northumbrian folk song Blow the Wind Southerly.

Sadly she finally succumbed to her breast cancer diagnosis despite working through radiation treatments and previous mastectomy, even stoically finishing what was to be her last ever stage appearance, when the femur of her leg gave way during the performance due to her effects of the radiation treatment. The audience was never aware of her condition.

She passed away not long afterwards and to this day it is still speculated as to how her career could have been even greater if she had lived longer. On the final page of Neville Cardus’ compilation of memoirs, after all the lists of recordings, there is a final last observation which simply states, ‘It is tragic that no recording exists of Kathleen Ferrier’s singing of the Angel in The Dream of Gerontius.

Ferrier was awarded the CBE in 1953 and a prestigious singing competition the Kathleen Ferrier Awards is held each April in the United Kingdom open to British and International singers under the age of 28 who have already completed a year of study in UK or the Republic of Ireland, to help further their studies as a legacy to her memory.

LILY PONS, APRIL 12TH, 1898

‘Really, what made the difference and turned a success into a triumph were the high notes. That is to say: the very highest, the Ds and E flats, the E natural that would stop the show at the end of ‘Caro nome’, the Fs which because of the keys used would elevate the final utterance of Lucia,’ wrote J.B.Stearne about the ‘X-factor’ of Lily Pons.

The extraordinary career of coloratura soprano Lily Pons seems graced by good fortune. Born to parents of French-Italian extraction on the 12 April 1898 in Draguignan near Cannes, she was a piano student at the Paris Conservatoire from the age of 13. As a budding pianist, she carried off first prize in a contest at the tender age of 15, against older competitors. Nevertheless when a friend heard her sing she was persuaded to approach a famous singing teacher, Alberti de Gorostigiaga who recognised her enormous potential.

In 1928 – aged 30 – she made her operatic debut in Mulhouse in the title role of Lakmé, which would remain one of the staples of her repertoire. Pons ‘learned her trade’ in various provincial opera houses in her native France until she sang in Montpellier and was noted by the retired tenor Giovanni Zenatello and his wife Maria Gay, who immediately recognising her vocal gifts, brought her to the attention of Giulio Gatti-Casazza, then Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Gatti-Casazza in his own memoirs recalled, ‘She came here – and gave us an audition. It was extraordinary. She sang the Bell Song from “Lakmé” and several other things, and we engaged her for the following season.’ Pons was in luck as Galli-Curci had left the Met the previous season and there was no coloratura soprano. Gatti-Casazza was well aware of the treasure that had been unearthed. Again in his own words, ‘I had given strict orders to the company that no word was to be uttered about her. I wanted her to make her debut without réklame and permit the public and the critics to judge from their own reactions, without preconceived prejudices, whatever they might be…. Unfortunately, however, the news leaked out to one of the papers after Lily Pons’s dress rehearsal.
Too late! The thing was done and it was not altogether to her advantage. Nevertheless, when Lily Pons made her debut on Saturday afternoon, January 3, 1931, in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” she became instantly a success. She sang throughout the remainder of the season in a number of different operas and, each time she sang, the theatre was full in spite of the financial depression.’ Apropos the debut in Lucia, after ‘Caro nome’ the applause went on for ten minutes and at the end of the opera she took thirty curtain calls.

Lily Pons sang at the Met throughout the rest of her long career. As well as Lakmé and Lucia, her other ‘signature roles’ included Violetta, Gilda, Mignon, and Amina in la Sonnambula, and Marie in La Fille du Regiment. Such was her success that Gatti-Casazza later wrote, ‘The personality of the singer has a powerful effect on the public mind. Witness our season of 1931-32. What was our most successful opera? Was it any one of the great masterpieces? It was a charming but not profound opera which brought the greatest receipts of all. That was Délibes’s “Lakmé,” with Miss Lily Pons, the justly popular young prima donna, in the title part.’ It was surely the case that when Pons sang the world stopped to listen.

With such outstanding success Hollywood beckoned and she made several now mostly forgotten films. During the second world war she enthusiastically sang to servicemen across the world. In the judgement of Harold Simpson, ‘No other coloratura held the position of esteem Lily Pons gained in her hey-day, and it is not unlikely that she is infinitely more exciting in the flesh than her later records would convey.’ This somewhat ambiguous praise reflects a view that in her later years the recordings show a decline. We will not judge. We know that she is a superstar in the firmament of legendary singers.

SHORT008 WHY VISIT SORRENTO, ITALY?

Why visit Sorrento? Because it’s on the Amalfi Coast?; For the lemon and orange groves?; Because it is immortalised in the Neapolitan Song ‘Torna a Surriento’ or ‘Come Back to Sorrento?’ But there is one more important reason to visit Sorrento. Watch the snapshot short to find out…