Re: Franco Corelli, opera's most thrilling voice, dies at age 82

> I just thought I would mention that Corelli did record one Wagner
> item:  Der Engel from the Wesendonck Lieder:
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wesendoncklieder

There is actually a group dedicated to the Wesendonck Lieder?

Corelli, however, did have a bit of a spat with everybody's favorite
Wagnerian, Birgit Nilsson.  In the early 60s, the Met mounted a
production of Turandot with Nilsson, Price, Corelli, and Stokowski on
the podium.  I have to admit to little knowledge of Turandot.  I know
"Nessun dorma", that its Chinese, that there's a riddle, and there's
these Ping, Pang, and Pong dudes.  During the Met's (then) annual
spring tour, in Boston, Nilsson and Corelli ended an act or a scene
with a duet.  For one reson or another, Corelli was unable to hold the
final note of the duet for very long while Miss Nilsson continued to
hold hers in full cry.
Sir Rudolf Bing in his memoirs quotes:
"...and he just walked off the stage.  I was not in the hall:  an
emissary came to me in the lobby and said, 'Mr. Bing, we are losing
our tenor.'  I went backstage, and even  before I neared Corelli's
door I heard him screaming, his wife screaming, the dog barking.  He
had slammed his hand on the dressing table, and had picked up a
miniscule splinter.  There was a drop of blood on the table, and Mrs.
was calling for an ambulance.  I calmed them down as much as I could,
and suggested to Corelli that in the love scene in the next act he
could get even with Miss Nilsson by biting her ear.  That cheered him
a great deal; in fact, he liked the idea so much that he told Miss
Nilsson about it, which gave him all the satisfaction of actually
biting her without doing it, thank God."

Miss Nilsson also related a story from the same production. 
Apparently, singers have clever methods of combatting dry mouth when
they are not singing.  Miss Nilsson, for example, had chocolate
bonbons sewn onto her costumes so at appropriate moments she could
just pull one off and eat it.  Corelli liked to leave wet sponges
scattered around the stage and on his person.  Nilsson claimed that at
one point when she was singing directly to the audience, Corelli was
facing her with his back to the audience.  He went for a sponge that
he had placed in the waistband of some rather unmanly trousers
(Nilsson specifically referred to them as 'panties').  Unfortunately,
the sponge had fallen down inside.  Miss Nilsson said she was beside
herself trying to sing while watching Corelli grope himself.

I heard Corelli a couple of times in Don Carlo and Werther.  He,
indeed, looked better than any other tenor.  The voice was wonderful
tho not necessarily at the top of the line for clarity.  I always
gathered that he fell into the 'difficult artist' category. (see
below)


> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ken B Lane) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > Franco Corelli, opera's most thrilling voice, dies at age 82
> > 
> > Ever since I heard his debut at the Met in 1961 (in Il Trovatore , debuting
> > with Leontyne Price, Maestro Fausto Cleva at the helm), I, with legions of the
> > public, performers and audiences alike, attended his performances with the
> > anticipation that no matter what else occurred that day, his singing would cap
> > the visceral excitement of the day.   

Sir Rudolf writes of Corelli in this performance:
"I cannot describe the combination of blandishment and threat I had to
use on Franco Corelli after his debut at the house, which
unfortunately occurred on the same evening as Leontyne price's debut,
which meant that the press paid virtually no attention to him.  'I
don't want to sing with that soprano again,' he said the next day at
my office. . .but he did; and he stayed more than ten years, giving us
one wonderful performance after another, while I and my staff serviced
his every need."

RICK