A Surfeit of Tenors

Since my early teenage years I have always loved opera.  I have no great love for opera houses and their often uninterested, self-indulgent audiences who uncritically applaud famous names and often seem to be there only because they believe it to be the thing to do.  But I listened to opera for the most part on gramophone records and CDs.  My oldest memory is of playing old 78 rpm records on a small record player and then a radiogram.  My teenage years coincided with the introduction of the vinyl LP and then the stereophonic vinyl LP.  I recollect that I received a 45 rpm EP record that had excerpts for Puccini's La Boheme as a present on my 15th birthday.  I still have that disc, nearly sixty years later and still I enjoy the singing of Guiseppe di Stefano in Che gelida manina and in the duet at the start of Act 4 which he sings with Robert Merrill.  I got to know many operas at a time when we were blessed with some wonderful operatic performers — but especially, tenors.

Today there are few great tenors.  Pavarotti is dead and Placido Domingo — at the end of his career — although a great singer is a baritone/tenor, who cannot reach the highest notes.  But between 1950 and 1970 we had many great tenors and with the benefit of high quality recordings, we can still hear them today. 

The 1950s saw the end of the career of Benjamino Gigli — the finest Italian tenor of the 1930s — but his place was taken by a clutch of great singers.  The picture above shows five of them.  From the left : Richard Tucker, Jussi Bjoerling, Franco Corelli, Guiseppe di Stefano, and Mario del Monaco.  Jussi Bjoerling died in 1960, still not 50 years old and what a voice we lost then.  The aria Nessun Dorma has become a tenor test piece now but Jussi Bjoerling set the standard with his recording in 1944.  His finest performance on record is probably his La Boheme with Victoria de Los Angeles in the performance made in New York off the cuff with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting.  As a recording of this opera, it has never been bettered.

Mario del Monaco was one of the great voices of the 20th century.  An immense voice that could fill any concert venue; a huge voice that was never soft — the instruction pp had no place in his arsenal — but he had a vast range from the lowest of low notes to top "C" s that sounded as no more than the middle of his range.  No tenor had a voice that sounded so secure.  Guiseppe di Stefano, however, had a voce that ultimately proved fragile and only allowed him a short career,  But compare his Che gelida manina with that of Mario del Monaco.  Guiseppe di Stefano sings a love duet while the vast sound of del Monaco — every note audible in the back row of the gods — sounds as if it will blast Mimi off the stage — it is almost as though he were about to invade some neighbouring country or something equally dramatic.  But del Monaco as Othello is unequaled.

Franco Corelli at his best was incomparable but on occasions he could go so OTT that the song or aria was ruined.  But in Verdi and Puccini he was superb. Richard Tucker, the American tenor at the Metropolitan Opera for many years was a very Italian tenor capable of some splendid singing and a joy to listen to.

I have not mentioned others like Carlo Bergonzi, Nicolai Gedda, Fritz Wunderlich and a number of others.

One tenor of whom I have particular recollections is Luigi Infantino.  Like Guiseppe di Stefano, he was born in Sicily and exactly contemporaneously.  I had bought a ticket for a recital by Di Stefano in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1957 or 1958 but the great tenor was indisposed and his place was taken by Luigi Infantino.  At the time, I had never heard of him.  But he was beautiful tenor with a voice like Gigli who gave a memorable concert with 8 or 10 encores.  He died in 1991 and has now been almost forgotten.  Few of his recordings are still available — perhaps because he was a good tenor that sang during a period when the world had many great tenors.  I have just been listening to Luigi Infantino again on You Tube as I type this — and still with great pleasure.

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Putting Books on Shelves

Putting books on shelves; seems simple enough but which shelf — aye, there's the rub.  I was reading Gaby Hinsliff's — former Political Editor of The Observer — occasional column in The Times on Friday.  In this she tells us of the problem of books.  One thing handed down by her father and father-in-law to she [her?] and her husband is a voracious love of reading, which, she says, "Is lovely."  but shelving the ever growing collection is becoming a nightmare.  I understand completely, although, I suspect that the couple have rather more books than I have.  What is a good sized collection of books in a domestic environment?  I have no idea.  I have about 3000/4000 books and I have filled a lot of shelves.  I have them housed in bedroom No2 , which serves as my primary library — with an over-spill into the lounge and bedroom No.4, serving as my office.  But, is my arrangement a library?  I see libraries as [a] public buildings housing thousands of books which are lent to local citizens and are collections that strive to navigate through the waters of popular fiction, classic fiction, contemporary literature as well as provide an extensive collection of non-fiction and reference books.  They are institutions regulated by public service within the limits of available cash.  Then there are [b] libraries that exist in stately homes and are filled with lots of leather bound books of considerable age that no-one actually reads.  I am not sure of the purpose of such rooms except as a means of preserving old books.  Some old books are valuable for all kinds of reasons but surely not just as investments.

Gaby Hinsliff tells us that "obviously, all our books are organised by genre in their new house."  But sub-dividing inside each genre — "aye, there's the rub."  Is it?  Again, I need to know how many books they are trying to store.  My limited book collection is set out on shelves with little in the way of order.  Some books by a single author have managed to be put together on the same shelf and most of my books on history — particularly social history — are together.  But for the most part the layout is random.  On one very short piece of shelf next to my desk and the computer on which I type this blog, are eleven books and they are as follows : The Wrong Kind of Snow — a day by day examination of the weather over the centuries; Misadventure in the Middle East by Henry Hemming — a lovely book about the author and artists discovering the Middle East; Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie —a tour of the North of England by a Wiganer; Death on a Galician Shore by Domingo Villar — crime novel set in NW Spain; Anthony Burgess by Roger Lewis — a fascinating biography of the famous novelist, who, I believe is best remembered for his use of language and his autobiography rather than his novels; The Devil's Acre by Matthew Plampin — a fictitious crime story linked to the short-lived factory [1853 - 1857] established by Samuel Colt to manufacture his guns in London; Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton —a popular history of nutmeg and the spice trade; The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg — a history of the English language and a good read; We Danced All Night by Martin Pugh — a social history of Britain between two world wars; two volumes of Chris Mullin's Diaries — a diary that demonstrates the futility of MPs attempting to achieve anything at all as a minister.  

This set of books may not be a complete cross-section of my reading but it is a reasonable representation of what I like to read.  I read few modern novels — apart from crime fiction — but I do like to read. Get a book on the short list for the Booker Prize and, for me, it is the kiss of death.  I just know that it is highly likely that each will be a pseudo-intellectual road to boredom.  Books fascinate me and I can never resist buying more.  I have no great urge to read on-line but I do have access to a dozen or so books that I read occasionally  

Gaby Hinsliff finally admits that her filing of books is little better than random and that by the time that she has finished, no-one but her will be able to find anything.  That's my system.  I have to remember where I put every book.  It is a system that can work most of the time but — I have to admit — it's not foolproof.

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The Last Post

I love newspapers.  Their popularity has been falling for years and no newspaper can claim the giant circulations of yesteryear.  But still, I love 'em.  Most days I buy two national newspapers and I will probably continue to do so as long as newspapers are published.  All around the world, newspapers are slowly losing out to electronic publications, on-line news and so on.  But I like them.  As I have travelled the world; I have read newspapers in many countries and always they give an immediate flavour of the place — explaining in some depth the daily events of our planet.  Some that I have read have been very good some not so good.  But the loss of any newspaper is always sad.  Another one dies to day.  The Liverpool Post, one of the oldest newspapers in Britain will today print its last edition.

The newspaper was the first penny newspaper in Britain and was launched in 1855 by Michael Whitty operating from a small printing shop in Lord Street, Liverpool and in its first addition reported on the conflict at Sebastopol in the Crimean War.  The Post was there to report the onslaught of the Blitz in Liverpool during the early years of WW II and the 'paper has had a proud record of defending the ordinary citizen against the forces of wealth, politics and bureaucracy.  The newspaper can no longer fight against the forces of neglect.  Young people rarely read newspapers.  For them news is obtained instantly via mobile phones and tablets; their's is a world of black and white of simplified news.  There is no interest in discovering the details of the what and why of daily events.  With declining sales local newspapers have relied increasingly on local advertising to cover the cost of production.  But that also is going on-line; it's cheaper.  The decline has seen the Liverpool Post shrink from a daily newspaper to a weekly in 2012 but that was only the prelude to closure.  The newspaper is no longer viable.

I have read the Liverpool Post only rarely but I still lament its demise.  Some of the journalists will carry on working but now for the on-line Liverpool Echo.  This publications is thriving and I can only wish everyone well for the future. 

Goodbye Liverpool Post

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Great Yarmouth

Peter O'Toole died at the weekend. The old boozer had managed to outlive all his drinking companions by a good few years.  At his best he was a great actor.  But often his performances were compromised by the booze.  He made his reputation in Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 But for me, his great performance was in Becket — the 1964 film based on Jean Anouilh's play.  In this he played King Henry II opposite Richard Burton's Becket.  The producers of this film hesitated in bringing two heroic drinkers together in one film while expecting to finish making it.  It seems that there were some spectacular drinking sessions in local pubs near the studios where the film was made, but it was made and on budget.  The film sticks in my mind because of when and where I saw it.  It was my "where were you when Kennedy died" moment.

It was February 1965 or 1966, in the days when I worked for The APV Company and I went up to Great Yarmouth with one of the sales guys to discuss a project with Birds Eye Foods.  Do they still have a factory there?  In those days, before the M25 getting up into East Anglia was quite a performance.  The first Dartford Tunnel had opened but getting to it was a struggle.  The normal journey took drivers via the Blackwall Tunnel — still a single bore with bends under the river that caused constant traffic jams as lorries struggled into the middle of the road to avoid hitting the tunnel walls.  Then it was onto the A13 into Essex and north to Great Yarmouth. It was a slow journey and we went up the day before our meeting to ensure we could arrive on-time.  The weather was terrible.  It was raining and a cold wind blasted the East Coast.  Have you ever been to Great Yarmouth in February?  It is a hellish, desolate, Godforsaken place.  We booked into a typical holiday hotel on the promenade, a place memorable for the quantity rather than the quality of its rooms.  How many people it would cater for in summer, I have no idea. In winter the number of guests was in single figures.  We had some tea and buns in the guest lounge — a large room sparsely decorated but full of a mixed collection of rather uncomfortable armchairs.  What shall we do this evening, we wondered?  The hotel bar was empty and depressing.  Nearby, a cinema was showing Becket with Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton.  So we decided we would have a meal — in a Chinese restaurant — and then go to watch the film.  It was a large cinema but on this mid-week night, there were few patrons.  We sat in the middle of the stalls in a sea of emptiness.  Did no one want to see this film?  Was the entrance fee — about 2/6d — too much?  Was the weather to awful for people to turn out to a cinema in mid-week?  I have no idea.  But the cinema audience was never a distraction; it was virtually invisible.  But it was a magnificent film and, in spite of the miserly heating and feeling chilly, I enjoyed every minute.  I still believe it to be one of the great films that I have seen.  

The film is not historically accurate — blame that on Anouilh — and the relationship between the two principals is theatre rather than history.  But the acting is generally superb and convincing.

The memories of this film do nothing in my mind for the image of Great Yarmouth.  I have never been there since and my memory is of a ghost town, one that epitomizes desolation, tragedy and a place never to be visited voluntarily.  I am sure this image is misleading — but, at times I am not completely sure.

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