En fermant les yeux...

En fermant les yeux, je vois

Là-bas... une humble retraite,

Une maisonnette

Toute blanche au fond des bois!

Sous ses tranquilles ombrages

Les clairs et joyeux ruisseaux,

Où se mirent les feuillages,

Chantent avec les oiseaux!

C'est le paradis!... Oh non!

Tout est là triste et morose,

Car il y manque une chose,

Il y faut encore Manon!

Act II, Manon, Jules Massenet

Julián Gayarre

"A virile, vibrant tenor voice with the most beautiful timbre. When it comes from the chest, it exerts an irresistible power, penetrating the ear and the soul like the roar of the sea... When it comes from the head, it is radically transformed, and the voice that just a moment before had resonated with ardent and captivating intensity, is suddenly transformed into something very small and very gentle, a feminine voice, a kind of sigh that fills one with emotion, delight, ecstasy. Gayarre's voice is the most perfect that one could desire, and undoubtedly the most perfect that exists today."
Critic and musicologist, Antonio Peña y Goñi, in Arte y patriotísmo: Gayarre y Masini, 1882

“He had a voice of wonderful sweetness, full of a strange fascination that brought to mind the sound of angels and caused shivers of emotion. I never heard another voice its equal. It was the voice of paradise, an angelic voice”
Italian soprano, Gemma Bellincioni, in her memoirs - Roberto Stagno E Gemma Bellincioni Intimi, 1943

"The stage artist's glory is like one night's dream. A painter, a poet, a composer leaves behind his works. From us, what is left?... Nothing, absolutely nothing. One generation that says to another: "How Gayarre sang!"... When my throat says to me: "I can no longer sing", what will remain of Gayarre? A name that will last as long as the people who heard me, but after that no one. Believe me, Julio my friend, our glory does not last longer, nor is it worth more, than cigar smoke."
Julián Gayarre in a letter to Julio Enciso shortly before his death in 1890

Julián Gayarre began his career in 1869 in Varese, as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore. His last performance was on December 8, 1889 in Madrid, as Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles. He died 25 days later at the age of 45. There are no known recordings of his voice.

Not all heroes are tenors...

Erwin Schrott in the title role of Don Giovanni

Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 11 June 2007

Deh, vieni alla finestra, o mio tesoro,
Deh, vieni a consolar il pianto mio.
Se neghi a me di dar qualche ristoro,
Davanti agli occhi tuoi morir vogl'io!
Tu ch'hai la bocca dolce più del miele,
Tu che il zucchero porti in mezzo al core!
Non esser, gioia mia, con me crudele!
Lasciati almen veder, mio bell'amore!

Don Giovanni, Atto II, Scena 3

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what,
And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;
'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes Sin's a pleasure;
Few mortals know what end they would be at,
But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure,
The path is through perplexing ways, and when
The goal is gained, we die, you know -and then -
Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I, cxxxiv

"Erwin Schrott is the most sardonic, seductive, witty and mercurial Don Giovanni I have ever seen. This hugely gifted Uruguayan bass oozes sex appeal, but he doesn't just preen his good looks and firm pecs - this is a subtle and thoughtful characterisation of an insouciantly self-centred aristocrat, sung with clarity and sensitivity. His comic timing was immaculate, the champagne aria fizzed, the serenade melted, and he was dragged down to hell with splendid heroic defiance. An enthralling star turn."
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, 13 June 2007

Orpheus

Orphée devant Pluton et Proserpine

François Perrier (1590 - 1650)

Quels chants doux et touchants
Quels accords ravissants!
De si tendres accents
Ont su nous désarmer
Et nous charmer.
Qu'il descende aux enfers!
Les chemins sont ouverts.
Tout cède à la douceur
De son art enchanteur,
Il est vainqueur.
Act II, Scene 1, Orphée et Eurydice, Christoph Willibald Gluck

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
Act III, Scene 2, Two Gentlemen of Verona, William Shakespeare

"Orpheus, the mythic musician of Thrace, who charmed men, gods, savage beasts, the very rocks with his song, was the quintessential operatic hero. His story was an explicit demonstration of the power of music, an operatic archetype. Orpheus, most celebrated of mythological musicians, specifically harnessed the rhetorical powers of music for dramatic ends, to persuade the god of the Underworld to release Eurydice from the bonds of death..."
Ellen Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre

Googling II

More search terms that led people to Voce di Tenore. The primary interest here was clearly not vocal technique...

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And of course...

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See also... Googling I and III

Sunset...

Il tramonto by Andrea Maffei (1798-1885)
Set to music by Giuseppe Verdi in 6 Romanze, No. 1

Amo l'or del giorno che muore
Quando il sole già stanco declina,
E nell'onde di queta marina
Veggo il raggio supremo languir.
In quell'ora mi torna nel core
Un'età più felice di questa;
In quell'ora dolcissima e mesta
Volgo a te, cara donna, il sospir.

L'occhio immoto ed immoto il pensiero,
Io contemplo la striscia lucente
Che mi vien dal seren, dal sereno occidente
La quiete solcando, solcando del mar
E desio di quell'aureo sentiero
Ravviarmi sull'orma infinita
Quasi debba la stanca mia vita
Ad un porto di pace guidar.

Happy Birthday Rossini!

Gioachino Rossini

Born February 29th, 1792

"Rossini, in music, is the genius of sheer animal spirits. It is a species as inferior to that of Mozart, as the cleverness of a smart boy is to that of a man of sentiment; but it is genius nevertheless."

- Leigh Hunt, Going to the Play Again (1828)

"The first characteristic of Rossini's music is speed - a speed which removes from the soul all the sombre emotions that are so powerfully evoked within us by the slow strains in Mozart. I find also in Rossini a cool freshness, which, measure by measure, makes us smile with delight."

- Stendahl, Life of Rossini (1824)

"The point is... a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn't even have a sense of humor. I tell you... there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part of the La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony."

- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)