Del Monaco: The Singing Volcano (VHS Only): Del Monaco...
Cavalleria (3 selections), Werther, Pagliacci, Butterfly, Giulietta e Romeo (Zandonai), songs (all the above are from 1952-60). Bonus: His last interview (1978), with new English subtitles. 37m. B&W/Color.
NTSC or PAL VHS
What gives Del Monaco's sound its elemental excitement? Ring, ping, what the Italians call "squillo." Most singers merely have resonance, which in and of itself is never exciting.
Tones without squillo cannot pierce or punch. They may exude sorrow but not heartwrenching suffering or violent rage. For me, singers lacking squillo can never be entirely satisfying as, say, Otello. The full-bodied tones of Carreras and Domingo may please, but they cannot thrill. To thrill, such singers have to rely on the use to which they put their tones, on musical interpretation and vocal acting.
The following have or had voices with resonance but no--or little--squillo: Battistini, Blake, Bonci, Borgioli, Bruson, Caballé, Clément, Corena, Finelli, Freni, McCormack, Olivero, Schipa, Simionato, Tagliavini, Valletti and Vrenios. Though he did not have a great deal of squillo, Gigli, for one, generated excitement through exuberance of manner.
The following have or had squillo: Bergamaschi, Cerquetti, Christoff, De Muro, Escalaïs, Fleta, Groh, Korjus, Kurz, Lauri Volpi, Martinelli, Nilsson, Pavarotti, Ponselle, Rosvaenge, Ruffo, Tamagno, Tebaldi, Tetrazzini and Zenatello. Sometimes a singer will have squillo on high notes only--Bonisolli, for instance. Sometimes a singer will have it on good days only--myself, for instance. Sometimes a singer will have squillo on the Italian vowels "e" and "i" only--De Lucia, for instance. Sometimes a singer will have it but lose it--Callas and Slezak, for instance. Björling and Caruso each relied on resonance and squillo in about equal proportion.
You can increase squillo by lowering your larynx--but you don't have to lower your larynx to have it. (Getting your larynx to stay really low while singing or talking takes some doing.)
According to Del Monaco's autobiography, La mia vita e i miei successi, at the beginning of his career he appeared as Ernesto and Alfredo--and couldn't be heard. Then he pioneered a lowered-larynx technique taught by Arturo Melocchi, who had learned it in China from a Russian--the technique previously was unknown in Italy. It gave Del Monaco a powerful, brassy sound, but there were tradeoffs: the sound was thick, sometimes muscular, and he had limited ability to color, to modulate between loud and soft and to sing with agility or legato. Often the sound was constricted in the passaggio (the area of the voice where head resonance begins to predominate over chest resonance).
Corelli, to overcome these drawbacks, modified the technique: whereas Del Monaco held his larynx very low at all times, Corelli caused his, in his word, to "float." Overall the result was more satisfying even if Del Monaco's B-flats were more trumpetlike than anyone else's. In any case, the standard repertory sung with a lowered larynx is as anachronistic as Bach played on a concert grand--although the result can be thrilling. (Corelli's rejoinder is that in today's theaters, with today's louder and more brilliant orchestras, singers need the power and steel that come from the lowered larynx.)
On The Singing Volcano Del Monaco is heard in what is generally considered his prime. Although not thought of as a singer who modulated his voice, on several selections he even makes diminuendos on the Italian vowels "i" and "e," which is more than many can do.
The end of his Butterfly aria packs a wallop. He sings the climax without taking a breath before the B-flat, which he still manages to hold a long time. The note peals forth. (In his autobiography Del Monaco credited this same Butterfly B-flat for the success of his breakthrough audition.) One doesn't think of him as an exponent of the lyric French repertory, which depends largely on nuance rather than might. Yet in "Ah! non mi ridestar" (Werther) his voice by itself satisfies, and he does have a diminuendo at the end of the first verse.
On early records many singers have squillo. Since then, it has become hard to find apart from those who lower their larynxes. In any case, this tape affords an opportunity to experience it in all its excitement.--Stefan Zucker
P.S. Del Monaco was preoccupied with the tuning pitch, even to the point of having an article ghost-written for him on the subject for Opera News. (It's full of mistakes; see Opera Fanatic magazine, Issue 3--not the catalog.) In the video studio I assumed the Werther aria was pitched in the mid or upper 440s, common in Italy at the time, but the voice sounded "off." Suddenly it dawned on me that the orchestra may have tuned to A=435, the diapason in use in France when the opera was composed. Del Monaco may have demanded the French pitch. In any case, it gave a result true to his voice (The rest of the tape is pitched in the 440s.) Available Formats & Price Differences:
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