Lend me a tenor
La Cieca hears that bodacious Bryan Hymel will make his Royal Opera debut in June as Don Jose, jumping in for an ill (but recovering) Marcus Haddock. Two months before, Hymel will sing his first Énée for Netherlands Opera under the baton of John Nelson in a production by Pierre Audi.
Closer to home, Hymel sings tonight for Opera Orchestra of New York in a program hosted by beloved Metropolitan Opera commentator Ira Siff.
I did not say that criticism does not hurt. It does, profoundly. I just wanted to make the point that it comes with the job and always has.
And yes, I have a performing career and KNOW first hand how painfull that can be. Lindoro below me is correct, even if my phrase is extreme, it is basically correct – Not because of the way things should be, but because of the way things (and people) are.
I did not criticize his choice of singing Don Jose. I don’t believe he HAS a choice in fact, he either does it or never will be given the chance again. In fact 90% of the time the artist is a victim in this business.
La Cieca isn’t the only one nauseated by the half-cocked personal attacks that have been prevalent of late. She’s just the only one who can do something other than lurk and keep her opinions to herself.
“As artists people need to develop thick skin …”
I’ll agree if we modify that to say:
“As people, artists need to develop thick skin.”
But I would never say that a thin skin disqualifies their art.
Point well taken Alto and thanks for the insight.
Obviously you don’t understand vocal technique.
He is a great singer, and you are an asshole
Also, I understand that it can seem that some of us have a sadistic pleasure in finding fault with some else’s singing. Believe me that couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to me. I would love that Kaufmann, Villazon, Alvarez (or any of the younger tenors la cieca usually points out) outsang Caruso, Corelli, Roswaenge, Tucker, etc. And yes, I believe we should set our standards higher, or we will never get to them again.
Though, as some of us know too well, it’s possible to be both.
LOL! Oh sweetie, don’t make me laugh. It’s bad for the lines around the mouth…
Alto, have I told you lately that I love you?
I’m down with that Alto. And I agree with you on the other part too.
Dear me. I must note that Tucker’s debut role at the Met was…Enzo in La Gioconda, at age 32.
It seems odd to me that Hymel has been signed to replace an ill (but recovering) Marcus Haddock, as Don Jose next June! What in the world is poor Marcus recovering from?!?!
mrmyster: Hymel is about 30 years old. He was 19 in 1998, but I don’t know when his birth date.
I like the first two, but that Addio fiorito asil is downright amateurish. He sounds like a sheep, can’t keep pitch, and that B-flat is swallowed. This, at Covent Garden?
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but are these voices with that light, caprino sound becoming just a tiny bit in vogue recently? Calleja especially, but I’ve heard quite a few singers recently with this sort of tighter and faster vibrato. Anyone else hearing this?
Probably another face lift.
Thanks, Cruz. I think Hymel has an interesting voice, but from
these sound-impaired tapes I cannot tell much. I did think in the
Butterfly he did not keep adequate support and began to ‘lean’ on
the voice rather than ‘float’ it, but in the Bellini I found him more
than promising. The placement seems good — I just worry
about support.
Val, I don’t think I am hearing it here in two out of three; but
wait till you hear him live. I think this very brilliant voice is
by far best in person.
I’d love to hear him. He needs to work on stage deportment
and well, what shall I call it, personality?
I also have to add that sometimes, I cast people in roles in which there might be an aria they could sing, but in roles for which they might have been ill suited. I’m sure others do this too. My first experience with Moffo was Verdi Arias. So for me, that’s what every Verdi soprano should sound like. She sang a gorgeous O, Patria Mia, but I think she would have been overparted by Aida.
Valmont, I think you are right. There is something ‘old-fashioned’ about Hymel’s voice like there is about Calleja’s. I didn’t like Calleja the first time I heard him, but his singing has grown on me. Better a bit of caprino than Villazon’s throaty squeezing — he was just on the radio, so he’s top of mind.
John Graham-Hall is an excellent Basilio, but I agree, it’s ridiculous of the Met importing singers for such roles. Covent Garden regularly brings German singers for tiny roles which could be done just as well by Brits. Johnny Graham-Hall is probably the best (British) Basilio since Frank Egerton, but never mind. He won’t spoil your evening unless your Anglophobia is more important to you than your love of opera.
in Amsterdam’s Muziektheater with John Nelson as conductor. The Netherlands Opera openly admits to “voice-enhancement” as the house doesn’t have a good natural acoustic for singers. It has a “letter-box” shaped proscenium like the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg, which also isn’t great for smallish voices.
Some kind of cancer, I heard.
I believe a stroke. Let’s hope he recovers fully.
Marcus is quite ill.
Not sure if this has anything to do with Hymel’s singing voice or not – but he’s a smoker.
Ooooo. That can’t be good. I’ve heard of some singers doing this but I just can’t understand it. How could a professional monkey around with his money maker? That just seems crazy!
Wait, you do mean that he smokes cigarettes, right?
I certainly hear the caprino quality in his voice, but I personally don’t mind it. The color and musicality is much more imortant to me, which is why I am a huge fan of Calleja. I hope he’s better by the time I get to see Hoffmann in a couple weeks.
As someone that had a bit of a tongue tension problem that created the same kind of quick vibrato and poor low notes (leading everyone to think i was a tenor and not a baritone), I will agree.
But, all ‘problems’ aside, this could be the best way for him to make the best possible sound he can make, and it’s a good sound, so I’ll take it. If he figures out a way to make a better sound later on in his career, kudos to him, but for now I’d see him in many roles.
I thought only basses and contraltos were supposed to smoke…
justanothertenor:
having done a show with him, where he was singing a spinto role, I agree with you about David Pomeroy. He has a pretty lyric tenor voice and he is singing some repertoire that is bigger than healthy for him. I have no idea how old he is, so it’s not about that. I think he would be good in Mozart, and that is not at all to say that Mozart is for small voices. In fact, it used to be that Tamino, Ottavio, and Belmonte were the training grounds for heldentenors. And I own the recording of Richard Tucker singing Cosi, and it is truly wonderful (even in English). Some voices are better suited for Puccini or Wagner than Mozart, but I think everyone should strive to be able to sing Mozart. Like another poster said, he teaches you to sing.
The flaw in this reasoning has nothing to do with Mozart and everything to do with modern conductors and coaches.
If a Richard Tucker (or any other big-voiced tenor) walked into a rehearsal today, the very first thing he would be told is, “Stop screaming! This is Mozart, not verismo!” And then the coach or conductor would proceed systematically to coerce the tenor to sing as far off the voice and off the breath as he could manage. Because, after all, the public attends Mozart operas to hear the exquisite woodwind solos, not some big bellowing (ugh) vocalist!
Then, when the performance finally arrived, the tied-into-knots tenor would launch into his ppppp attempt at “Il mio tesoro” or “O wie ängstlich” only to find that the conductor has decided on the whim of the moment to take the aria at half the rehearsed speed, only occasionally kicking the orchestra to double the rehearsed tempo when there was a bit of coloratura the tenor constantly had trouble with during rehearsal and asked several times if the maestro could give him just a fraction of a second to breathe there.
The “balm” of Mozart will therefore leave our tenor voiceless, exhausted, and angry, with every bad vocal habit imaginable routined into his body. That plus he’d have to read dismissive reviews the next morning about how nowadays singers don’t master technique, and how they should sing only Mozart until they are at least 50.
If this technology to hear Sirius webcasts and to comment instantly on opera blogs had existed back in the 1950s, I guess we would have been saying things like “Leonie should stick to Senta, Sieglinde, and Elizabeth and should never sing Brunhilde or Isolde.” Although I think I would have been typing, “She should be singing Marie in Tote Stadt and Irene in Rienzi.” (Please don’t ban me retroactively for typing it now.)
Would we have warned Corelli that he was singing too loudly too early? “He should sing Ernani, not Pollione and Calaf!” And would we have predicted that Nilsson was going to burn out within five years?
You just can’t predict who is going to be Rysanek versus who is going to be Voigt…who is going to be Leontyne versus who is going to be Susan Dunn or Roberta Knie…who is going to be Dimitrova versus Elena Souliutis or Ursula S-F.
It’s not unreasonable to say “So and so should be singing Mozart in small European houses, not Verdi at the Met.” We’ve all read about so many singers who burned out early. I think a lot of this is just concern and worry on our part, not a desire to become casting agents.
Sorry to hear about Haddock. Hope he recovers and returns to the stage (Carreras did it). I much prefer his timbre to Hymel’s slightly-too-white sound.
Ask Mr Pape.
I have to agree with that la Cieca on that one. I do have an interesting story about that. Back in 96 the school where I was decided to do Giovanni. Pretty much every tenor in the school decided to come to the audition singing Dalla sua pace exactly as Cieca describes.
My teacher and I had yalked about it and I had expressed my intent to go and sing the audition with MY voice and MY idea of how mozart should be sung: At full voice and with plenty of support and add the dinamis prescribed. I wanted to sing the poetry and the feelings of the aria, more than just sing it like every other tenor would.
Well, I was given the role. The entire casting committee bitch and moaned about the fact that every other tenor had sung Mozart with a pee-pee voice; then a but was raised Lindoro didn’t. The casting committee’s reason to give me the role was that I was the only tenor in the school who showed up singing Mozart with his full voice and nuanced it from within the limits of my instrument.
That’s the reason why I can not stand Daniele de Nise’s Mozart and many of the current crop. Add to that Handel singers too. Handel contracted the best singers available for his operas, the big divas and divos of his time, they were not these undernourished singers that walk around like they are about to pass out due to lack of breath. For me, the last truly great Handel singer was Sutherland. These days Laura Claycomb seems to be doing quite well in it and let’s not forget David Daniels…
I believe Roberta Knie’s career ended because of real medical problems, not vocal problems. I saw her Isolde in chicago with Vickers in 79 and she was wonderful. but remember there was some real medical crisis involving surgery,etc. that ended her career. Don’t remember the details. On the topic at hand, heard Hymel last night at a gala honoring Renata Scotto at the New York Athletic Club. He knocked out Nessun Dorma with real stage presence and nailed it. I am not going to judge him based on one aria though, but I enjoyed his performance, The most impressive singer however was Angela Meade. This is a real Verdi soprano who seems to be ready for the big time. She was impressive.
That’s interesting given the fact that Meade just sang Lucia at AVA.