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(By the way, on listening to the Il Balen you posted, I noticed that Stracciari seemed to aspirate vowels a bit and was wondering if that's an "Italianate" habit because Bastianini and Zancanaro did it too...)

That's a decadent verismo habit that I've always found very annoying. I suppose it started with the Italians, and they seem to be the most egregious offenders. You don't hear older baritones like Kaschmann or Battistini doing it, as far as I know. The only records Stracciari ruins for me are his own! :devil: (OK, he made some good ones as well.)

 

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Aspiration of vowels, whether or not we approve of it, didn't begin with verismo, though I suspect the more vehement style of verismo increased its prevalence. We do in fact hear it in Battistini's singing:

Notice that it occurs mainly on quick notes; in slower-moving passages he always maintains a smooth legato connection. But if you'll listen again to Stracciari's "Il balen" (assuming you listened to it before, given that you think he "ruined" his own records) you will hear that the aspirates occur, like Battistini's, on quick notes, and that his legato cantilena is impeccable - superior to most baritones we've heard since, certainly. The aspirate, if not used too much or in inappropriate places, could be felt to be a device of expressive articulation; I'm sure singers of the level of accomplishment of Battistini and Stracciari were not unconscious of using it, and it certainly doesn't represent a technical flaw or an inability to make a legato connection.

Stracciari, for me, is similar to Caruso in that he bestrides two eras and styles; he has the faultless technique and stylistic flair that show his bel canto origins, allied with the visceral excitement and power which musical styles of the late 19th and 20th centuries required. The result is the kind of singer which we've come to call the "Verdi baritone," of which I have never heard a finer representative than Stracciari.

Thank you, that's a good example of a Battistini record with aspirated vowels, so I stand corrected! I think that, not having listened to that record very attentively before, I'd been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure about aspirates as an affective device: I'm sure singers often did it intentionally where they did it at all, but it smacks of either carelessness or poor taste. Regarding the modern 'Verdi baritone' as a kind of verismo singer with bel canto roots, I prefer those who are more bel canto oriented than verismo oriented. One could put Stracciari in that category, but I don't like his voice much and the aspirates (more blatant than Battistini's) really bother me. Here's a more recent Verdi baritone who sounds to me like a bel canto throwback, in a totally good way: he's Pavel Lisitsian, singing Eri tu, and I prefer his recording to Stracciari's mostly excellent one- largely because his timbre is so much pleasanter to my ear. He certainly 'ruins' most other baritones of the LP era for me!

I could take you, bar by bar, through a Stracciari performance of "Largo al factotum" (he made several recordings) such as this one:

and show you the points of vocal superiority to this one by Bruscantini:

It would still be perfectly legitimate for you to prefer Bruscantini (a fine singer, certainly) on grounds of timbre preference or interpretation. Obviously the recorded sound is superior, if that is an issue for you.

I still say Peter Dawson's is better!

I'm in a library so I can't listen to the clips, but speaking generally this is what I think: while I do believe you have to allow for both limitations in recorded sound and "the style of the times," as well as the possibility that some of these singers weren't totally comfortable in front of a microphone, I have sometimes had the same experience as you, DavidA -- with, for example, Aureliano Pertile. No matter how many times I listen I cannot hear why he was/is considered so great. So while I do love certain singers from about the same time (Ponselle, De Luca), and I can easily hear their greatness on recordings, in general I just prefer more modern artists.

I have found the opposite effect. Nobody has set the bar so high that the others have been ruined.....actually the bar seems to get set so high by other opera fans for Callas, Tebaldi, and the other greats (and great they truly are) that I expect to get blown away but that doesn't always happen.

On the flip side, I almost never hear people rave about Beverly Sills. I borrowed a CD of hers from the library on a whim....and I was thrilled by her singing. .... And while I fully intend to indulge in the big names, I look forward to going off the beaten path from time to time due to pleasant surprises like this.

Reputations get exaggerated. Before the internet, critics wielded a disproportionate amount of power, and their enthusiasms for certain singers of the past and their aversion to others seemed to become received opinion. Lack of reissues on vinyl or even CD made it especially hard to reevaluate the reputations of singers whose recordings were deprecated or overlooked by the mid to late 20th century's arbiters of taste. I have shared Bellinilover's experience of disappointment with Pertile, an excellent example of a singer elevated to near godlike status whose records were in many cases really bad. Yet very frequently, Youtube yields excellent examples of singing from the same era by artists who may well have enjoyed success in their own time but whose names are a great deal less familiar to us than those of singers like Pertile, whose reputation is so towering and whose recordings are often so disappointing.

. As I say it's difficult to judge with ancient recordings but I've always found myself very puzzled when people come up with the view these people were incomparable. I've no doubt they were great in their day in the same way (say) Emil Zatopek was a great runner in his day. But Zatopek's times have been surpassed.

Many singers' times have remained unsurpassed for a century or more. There were some very rushed tempi necessary to get a whole aria on to a 10 inch record!

 

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Lisitsian was a superb singer, no question. His singing and style will get no criticism here. I do find Russian a bit hard to swallow in such quintessentially Italian music; he sounds great, while his gulped vowels sound as absurd here as they sound fine in Mussorgsky. Best of the postwar baritones? Maybe so, technically, but not my favorite baritone sound.

Yeah, Dawson's utterly delightful. As a voice, though? Come on now, be honest...

I agree that some singers have inflated reputations. It's inevitable. A few singers I don't "get"? Martinelli, top of the list. I find him positively horrifying. He sings like an elephant in heat. Pertile? Tend to agree with others here. Varnay: a ponderous, crude voice, a long way from bel canto. But I see the forgottenness of many great singers as more unfortunate than the overestimation of a few.

Well, this isn't supposed to be about singers we dislike, so I'll stop before I get into any more trouble.

Yes, the forgottenness of great singers is far worse than the overestimation of a few, no argument! I've been pondering the question of whether Peter Dawson had a great voice. I think he did, though it obviously wasn't quite as opulent a sound as those of the very greatest bass baritones of his time like van Rooy or Schorr (the latter a prolific 'ruiner' of other singers' records of Lieder). I love Dawson for his unassuming virtuosity and the unfailing tastefulness of his singing, and for a certain straightforward muscular Edwardian Britishness he had, more useful in the song repertoire associated with him than in operatic arias perhaps. I found this interesting recording of Iago's Credo on Youtube:

Perhaps he hasn't quite 'ruined' that one- a casualty of the English translation and not really sounding evil enough- but it's still good, and I can't help thinking his reputation would be greater if he had been Pietro D' Osonio and recorded arias in the original language, instead of being the British-based concert singer he was.

 

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I'm going to differ with you and say that Dawson was a great singer with something less than a great instrument. I really did enjoy this, but a bit more "opulence" of timbre is important to me. I know it's a subjective preference, but for Iago? Darkness and weight of tone really is needed. I can't believe Dawson is evil; just set him alongside, say, Gobbi. A difference of "Night and Day" (Dawson could sing that quite stylishly, don't you think? With a little Noel Coward attitude?). He has a veddy British sound, to my ears - sort of reedy. No offense, but I can't help visualizing G & S when I hear him.

"Batti, batti..." (I'm covering my head).

Interesting that Dawson and Gobbi were both unusually versatile singers, yet each projected a certain persona that suited some kinds of music very well and seemed slightly out of place in others, even while they sang very well. I've heard Gobbi in lighter music such as Tosti's Ideale where his voice seems a little too dark to be suitable, as if a certain villainous/antihero quality which he uses to very good effect as Scarpia/ Iago/ Rigoletto is inherent in the timbre of the voice itself and can't be put aside just because it is unsuited to the material currently being sung. Dawson has a similar yet opposite problem in the Credo: the character is villainous but he sounds hearty and likeable, which is arguably appropriate for the Iago who is dissembling in the presence of the other characters but inappropriate for a soliloquy in which supposed to be revelling in undisguised villainy. Of course, I am not discounting the fact that Gobbi, while he could not change the basic timbre of his voice, was a distinguished operatic actor whereas Dawson (his turn as 'Hector Grant' aside) was content to be very much himself in everything he sang.

To the extent that I'm any kind of connoisseur of singing, two British (according to a broad definition of 'British'!) singers are responsible, and they are Peter Dawson and John McCormack. Both recorded popular material prolifically, and their records were the first records by great singers that I encountered (before I had heard any opera or 'classical' material), and together they set an incredibly high standard of baritone and tenor singing which the most celebrated continental and American singers should be held up to. To this day, I think that all baritones and basses chantantes should be subjected to the Peter Dawson test: can they sing the Largo al factotum, or Schubert's Erlkoenig, or Honour and Arms (or whatever) as cleanly, easily and elegantly as that great and underrated Australian bass baritone did? There is of course nothing wrong with associating him with his core repertoire of G&S, rousing patriotic songs etc, which were to him what Verdian and Puccinian villains were to Tito Gobbi. To get back on topic, sort of, Dawson has comprehensively 'ruined' the song repertoire associated with him for any other singers. I can't listen to anyone else singing 'The Fishermen of England' or 'The Road to Mandalay' (I hope Wood forgives me for secretly enjoying such obnoxiously rightwing, imperialistic songs as the latter, but it's an amazing Dawson performance nevertheless.)

PS If you find Dawson too reedy, you may enjoy Robert Easton. He came the closest to 'ruining' Gounod's Mephistopheles for me, in the English language recording conducted by Beecham in 1929-30. He has the elegance, the poise, the beauty of voice, but I was hoping for a little more thunder and rumbustiousness in 'Le veau d'or', where he is rather too well mannered (as was Plançon). Youtube has his 'Vecchia zimarra' from the complete Act IV of Boheme, which shows off his beautiful voice and tasteful singing, the latter always a relative rarity in Puccini:

Here he is in the Peter Dawson repertoire- a setting of the Kipling poem 'Boots', frustratingly lacking the last few bars.

And here is Dawson himself, so we can decide whether he has in fact quite 'ruined' the song for the more opulent voice of Robert Easton:

 

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Dawson is certainly fun to hear in his native metier. I fear I shall never find his timbre to my taste in Italian opera, or feel much identification with songs like "The Fishermen of Mandalay" (oops!) or "Boots", but I do enjoy the excursion across The Pond and the decades. So, thanks.

Easton has a clear, resonant voice indeed. That Boheme is charming (I'm listening right now). The lightweight voices make Rodolfo and Mimi sound like kids, which is not inappropriate. They aren't going to replace the likes of Bjorling and Tebaldi, but that's all right.

"Boots" made me laugh, by the way. Is it supposed to?

I assumed 'Boots' was meant to be sort of funny: Boer war gallows humour. The way Easton sings the line 'Omigod keep me from going lunatic' did actually make me laugh out loud, and I also like how Dawson let his Aussie accent show nicely on the first syllable of 'going' to convey the wry, earthy humour.

That Boheme recording is indeed a beauty, and has totally transformed how I think about that opera. I thought I had heard it years ago but I was obviously wrong as I remembered it being in English, which it isn't. I think Heddle Nash is a little reminiscent of Schipa in his elegance (and slightly strained top). I really wish they had recorded the whole opera!

 

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The late John Steane highlighted the debate between old and new. Some people are "genuinely at a loss to understand how anyone with standards, anyone who is aware (say) of Boninsegna and Battistini, Muzio and Lauri-Volpi, can tolerate, let along praise (say) Pavarotti and Caballe." Others are also at a loss: "when they hear distinguished modern singers they sound perfectly acceptable to them; when they listen to famous old 'uns, they sound ghastly!"
Stein says of the debate "it Is probably as old as civilisation. It certainly goes back to Francesco Tosi who complained that, 'Italy hears no more exquisite voices as in times past.' That was in 1723!"

I think I'm in the first camp, although I wouldn't like to say with 100% conviction that late Lauri-Volpi is always absolutely better than early Pavarotti! With slightly better chosen examples (though Steane presumably meant not the octagenarian Lauri-Volpi, but that tenor in his 1920s prime) it's true for me that early 20th century singers pretty much 'ruined' the standard operatic repertoire.