Much Ado About Tenors

The tenor makes a fresh debut . . . Exclamations of pleasure and surprise greet his first melody . . . yet this is but the prelude to the emotions he is to stir before the evening is over . . . A number comes during which the daring artist, stressing each syllable, gives out some high chest notes with a resonant fullness, an expression of heart-rending grief, and a beauty of tone that so far nothing had led one to expect. A petrified silence reigns in the house, people hold their breath, amazement and admiration are. blended in a mood akin to fear. There is, in fact, reason for fear until that extraordinary phrase comes to an end. . . --Hector Berlioz, Evenings with the Orchestra*

In the 104 years since Composer Berlioz made his observations there has been little change in the perilous artistic life of the operatic tenor. His concern about whether the next high C will crack and degenerate into an ignominious squeal--or whether his voice will simply refuse to make any sound at all--keeps him in a constant state of apprehension. Moreover, the whole business of singing at the top of his voice and range presents an additional physical hazard. The fact that good tenors are always in short supply aggravates the other problems by encouraging the poor fellow to sing more than is good for him. It all adds up to a disease that might be called tenoritis. Symptoms:

P: Elephantiasis of the ego. The star tenor tends to swagger in company as well as on stage; he is quite sure that women have a yen for him--and so, usually, is his wife. He lords it over his colleagues and is inclined to feel that he need not rehearse with the rest of the cast. Like most singers, he thinks he is better than the impresario does, and demands starring roles too early in his career.

P: Volatile temperament. Germany's Wagnerian Tenor Hans Beirer is not ordinarily temperamental, but at one rehearsal he went into a pet and refused to sing until somebody brought a couch on stage for him to lie on. Hungarian Sandor Konya, rehearsing for the German premiere of Menotti's Saint of Bleecker Street, was scheduled to pick up a knife to stab. When it turned up missing, he flew into a rage and took a walk. It was replaced, but another singer, all unawares, took the replacement knife to peel an orange. This time Kenya's curse-punctuated rage was uncontainable, and the rehearsal had to be canceled.

P: Hypochondria. Because of the delicacy of his vocal organ, the tenor is forced to baby his voice. Many carry this to extremes, even denying themselves sex for 48 hours before a performance because it may coarsen their tone. (One contemporary tenor has refined this after learning by a process of trial and error that his voice is at its peak exactly three days after sexual intercourse.) Despite all his precautions, the tenor tends to feel himself hoarse as a wolf at curtain time, and often decides he has a cold. If he can be forced onto the stage, his natural ability will usually carry him through. If he cannot, a substitute must be found quickly. The tenors who confine their tenoritis backstage are more numerous than their brothers who become public spectacles. These sometimes blow up on stage, e.g., David Poleri, who three years ago walked off Chicago's Civic Opera House stage just before he was supposed to stab his Carmen; or display such neurotic symptoms as getting too fat, e.g., Mario Lanza; or become overtly adventurous, e.g., Caruso was arrested for making a pass at a woman in the monkey house of the Central Park zoo.

A Gambler at the Met. Common as it is, tenoritis has rarely infected U.S. tenor Richard Tucker, who pined and paraded about the stage of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House one night last week as Don Jose in Carmen near the end of his finest season yet. A onetime cantor in a New York synagogue, he is one of the top tenors, and some think the best, in the world today. "Caruso, Caruso, that's all you hear!" Met General Manager Rudolf Bing once said. "I have an idea we're going to be proud some day to be able to tell people we have heard Tucker."

Brooklyn-born Richard Tucker, 41, is gifted with vocal equipment capable of a lyrical, sensuous legato and a ringing, exciting fortissimo. Beyond that he gives credit for his eminence to 1) the late Tenor Paul Althouse for teaching him, 2) former Met Manager (and former tenor) Edward Johnson for bringing him into the Met, and 3) Rudolf Bing for elevating him in roles and income. "I was making $6,000 as a cantor when Mr. Johnson offered me $95 a week to join the Met," says Tucker. "When Mr. Bing came here, I was singing for $350 a week. When I went in to sign my contract, I asked for $750 a performance. He just looked at me, then offered me $650. Finally, I asked him if he was a gambler. He never took his eyes off me, nodded yes. So we tossed, and he won. It cost me $2,600 that year. I talked to my wife about it, but she didn't care. She always wants me to take it easy." Today, counting concert performances at $3,000 each, some 40 Met performances a season at $1,000 each, Tenor Tucker is in the $100,000 bracket. He is a big seller in the operatic record field. The latest: Starring Richard Tucker (Columbia LP), one of the finest one-man recitals on records.

A heavy-set man (180 Ibs.), Tucker leads as dedicated a life as any tenor. On performance days, he rises at 10, has coffee, juice, perhaps cereal, for breakfast. Around 4 p.m., he has eggs, toast and coffee and then nothing until after the performance, when he eats a sandwich. "The day I sing, I'm a stranger in the house. Talking is hard on the voice, so I don't talk." His three sons know better than to talk to him very much on those days.

The Best Is Last. Well aware that tenors at their best last to about 50, Tucker nurses his talent carefully. Next season Tucker will sing Halevy's La Juive (The Jewess) in Chicago; this role is unusually beautiful for the tenor voice, but the opera is rare because of its outdated, long-winded style. Someday, he may accept an offer from the operatic Mecca, Milan's La Scala. In five years, or whenever he thinks he has reached his vocal peak, he may tackle the more heavily dramatic parts such as Radames and Samson. Otherwise, he finds himself a fairly unremarkable fellow. "You know, in Europe, tenors are gods. In America, you maybe the greatest tenor in the world, so what?"

* First published in 1852, Berlioz's Les Soirees de I'Orchestre is being reissued next week in an excellent new translation by Jacques Barzun (Knopf, 376 pp.; $6). An immediate bestseller and rarely out of print from the day of first publication, it is a delightful series of satires, morals, gags and yarns about music supposedly spoken by a group of opera orchestra men who lean on their instruments and chat when they should be playing.

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