Word: tenorizing
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...embellishing each role with small dramatic touches of his own-a twitch here, a little shuffle of surprise there-that bring character to life. Son of a well-to-do Roman family, De Paolis made his debut as the Duke in Rigoletto at Bologna in 1919, later sang tenor leads at virtually every major house in Europe. But, he says, "I never had a large voice; I knew that I could go on being a tenor of the second rank forever -but suppose I could become the best character actor in the world?" He made the switch...
...ready to escape. He lasts no more than four minutes onstage before he is forced to flee through the trap again. But to Offenbach fans at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera, the sequence is one of the comic highpoints of the evening. The man responsible: Italian-born Tenor Alessio de Paolis (pronounced: Pow-o-lees), 64, who in a quarter-century at the Met has sung some 50 secondary roles and emerged as the finest character actor in opera...
FRANCO CORELLI, 37, has risen so rapidly that in Italy he is nicknamed "the Sputnik Tenor." One reason is that he has a classically handsome head...
MARIO DEL MONACO, 42, has, over the years, built an unwholesome reputation succinctly summed up by Soprano Joan Sutherland when she recently canceled a performance with him. Del Monaco was, said she, "far too noisy a tenor." It is true that Del Monaco, who began his singing career in the Italian army and made his big-time debut at Covent Garden, likes to shout down the opposition, and that he is often tight and rasping in the middle and lower registers. But his top register can be glorious, and he often makes up in sheer strength and virility for what...
...while Corelli's extracurricular antics-he punched a spectator he thought had insulted him, stabbed Basso Boris Christoff with a stage sword-drew attention away from his sizable gifts as a singer. His large, solid dramatic tenor is darker than most, has almost a baritone's quality; at his best Corelli uses it with an animal vitality and drive that leave no audience bored. In Italy bobby-soxers periodically mob him at the stage door, and there is every evidence that he may do for tenors what Ezio Pinza did for bassos. Says he: "I attract mostly young...