Franco Corelli

Courtesy Harmonie Autographs and Music, Inc., NY

Courtesy Harmonie Autographs and Music, Inc., NY

I wish to thank Daniele Godor for the picture with the car.

During a performance of Carmen, sung in French in Italy, Corelli sings La fleur in Italian and gets audience disapproval.

At the end, Corelli sings L'ultima canzone, and Nilsson sings Wien, Wien, nur du allein.

Here some operatic idiots tried to cause trouble during this aria and the entire evening.

The lengthy applause is cut in this version.

Corelli's career was not particularly long: studying to be a naval architect first, and working as a public official in Ancona while taking voice lessons (with a lot of teachers since he had a difficult time trying to find the one who was right for him), he made his debut only in 1951, as Don José at the Teatro Nuovo in Spoleto. After further studies at the studio of the Opera di Roma, he sang there throughout the period 1952 to 1955, while making debuts at other important theaters throughout Italy – above all at La Scala in December 1954.

His success there started his world career, which centered around La Scala itself (through 1965), the Arena di Verona (1955 to 1976), and the New York Met (1961 to 1975), but also encompassed lots of other theaters, of course.

The late start notwithstanding, Corelli quit the stage in 1976, and gave his last concert appearance in 1981, with no desire to ever sing again in public.

Now Corelli is always quoted as the paradigm of a male diva, and of a dumb tenor. What is true is that he and his wife and manager, Loretta Di Lelio, terrorized theaters, conductors, colleagues and everybody else wherever he sang: obviously the result of Corelli's unparalleled stage fright, which terrorized himself, to start with. So he was certainly difficult to work with; but unlikeable or even dumb, he was not. Stefan Zucker's long public interviews with Corelli, long after the latter's retirement, reveal a thoughtful, nice and actually very smart person, and the only singer ever that I've heard saying that booing in the opera theater is sometimes indispensable so as to make the concerned artists understand that their career has taken a wrong turn. Kudos! And also his timely (and definitive) retirement proves that he was anything but dumb.

Admittedly, it took me decades to learn to appreciate Corelli as a singer. The voice is spectacular, no doubt, but the tone he produces often reminds of disgorging rather than of singing; this feature has been described as "animal-like", where it's regularly just plain vulgar. His piano, whenever he's in that condition, seems like the wind howling in the chimney, and his embellishments (think of "Di quella pira") are a mere joke. Practically all his studio recordings are like that, and also many of his live recordings – particularly those from famous theaters like the Met or the Vienna Staatsoper: never forget his stage fright! I still cringe at the mere thought of ever again having to hear his "Solenne in quest'ora" with either Giangiacomo Guelfi (studio) or Ettore Bastianini (live from Naples), two kindred spirits who join with to Corelli so as to shout the music down until it gives in and perishes.

But... but there are also those other live recordings, typically from smaller theaters like Pasadena or Parma, where all of a sudden all goes well: Corelli's voice is well-projected, the piano well-supported, the breath seems infinite, the high notes are fantastic – and that way, it's finally possible to enjoy the fact that he never bores (not even in his worst efforts), and is actually capable of exciting interpretations. He was quite probably the best Cavaradossi ever (perhaps together with – Corelli's counter-example par excellence – Tito Schipa), and also the best Don Carlo. No, not in all his attempts. But in quite many of them!

Reference 1, reference 2

I heard through a friend that a person in Milan who went to Corelli's funeral, said that only two hundred people were there, and she found out about it by listening to the radio, that announced it only two hours before the fact. Nothing from La Scala. No music of any importance at the funeral except for some terrible organist there who played junk music. Hardly anything on the TV either. Media has been rubbish for so long, why should we be surprised?
It is sad that incredible artists who gave people so much joy, voices of the century who offered up their entire lives, are just ignored and forgotten.
When Gayarre, the great Spanish tenor died, thousands of people attended the funeral, all the streets were closed in Madrid and with no internet, radio and TV, the news came out rapidly among the media of those days.
It is strange! Two well known tenors and two Francos (Corelli and Bonisolli) depart at the same time. Don't expect the big names (great tenors) to come out publicly with some nice words. That's how it is. No sensitivity nor respect. Always a feud and a perpetual rivalry.

I wish to thank Tom Silverbörg for the recordings (Gioconda, Silenzio cantatore/Tu ca nun chiagne, Andrea Chénier, Huguenots, Norma).

I wish to thank Jacques Franken for the recording (Puritani).

Reference: Giancarlo Landini Franco Corelli, l'uomo, la voce, l'arte, Idea Books, 2010

Reference: René Seghers Franco Corelli – Prince of Tenors, Amadeus Press, 2008

Reference: Marina Boagno Corelli, a man, a voice, Baskerville Publishers, Inc., 1996