Enrico Caruso's Vocal Transformation Pt. 2

Read Pt. 1 here

Caruso’s vocal transformation started in the 1907 when he first began to sing Verdi's opera, Aida. This opera is notoriously difficult for the tenor. It requires a robust and resilient voice to compete successfully with Verdi's dense orchestration, as well as one with the facility to take on its challenging melody lines (which at times rest uncomfortably high, for example, in the tenor aria Celeste Aida). As Caruso began to sing Aida on a regular basis, music critics and fans alike began commenting on the “change” in his voice. To anyone’s ear, his voice became noticeably bigger, heavier, and more resonant, while still retaining its remarkable flexibility and agility.

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Enrico Caruso's Vocal Transformation Pt. 1

Enrico Caruso began as a lyrical tenor in the late 19th and the first several years of the 20th century (the lyrical tenor voice is relatively light as compared to “heavier” voices). His voice, however, became deeper, more powerful and resonant as his career unfolded. When he reached full artistic and tonal maturity toward his mid to late forties (1913-20), his new “dramatic tenor” voice caused both amazement and controversy. How could Caruso’s voice resemble a baritone’s in both its color and energetic substance, yet could also have, when artistically required, the range, agility, and smooth, silken finish of a highly polished lyrical tenor?

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Verdi, Wagner, and The Verismo School Pt. 2

After Verdi, between the years 1875 to 1900, an entire generation of composers (mostly Italians) came along who continued to reshape opera by giving it true, earthy passions and plots. Giacomo Puccini (La Boheme), Georges Bizet (Carmen), Ruggiero Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticanna), and Pietro Leoncavallo (Pagliacci) are the most important creators of the Verismo school of opera—operas that were meant to be true-to-life.

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Verdi, Wagner, and The Verismo School Pt. 1

If Rossini, with his innovations, caused the door of operatic change to fly open, it was with Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) in Italian opera and Richard Wagner (1813-1883) in German opera, that the door came off its hinges. Both composers wrote denser, more complex music where the melody lines were dictated by the music (the composers) with even greater fidelity than it was with Rossini. It also followed that Verdi and Wagner asked something more from their singers.

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The Full-Voiced High C Makes Its Entrance

As far as the evolution of the tenor voice is concerned, Gilbert-Louis Duprez’s contribution is both momentous and mildly humorous. In a word, he was the first famous tenor in history to sing a high C (C5), full voice, without resorting to falsetto tones. While singing in Rossini’s opera William Tell, and being fearful that his small voice would not be able to perform adequately a difficult passage, Duprez decided to go for broke: “It required the concentration of every resource of will and physical strength. So be it, I said to myself, it may be the end of me, but somehow I’ll do it. And so I found the high C…” This impulsive act of vocal desperation changed the history of the tenor voice (non-Wagnerian) forever.

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