Five Famous Male Opera Singers in the First Half of the 20th Century

Have you ever thought that any past time was better? that the people of the past were giants dwarfing us? Me? I have never believed to be a sentimentalist, more often than not the opposite is true and I believe in the progress of humanity. However, In the opera world in particular, and when I compare the Opera singers of the past with the present ones, I can't stop thinking about that golden times really existed, as cheesy as it sounds, and sadly they will never be again.

Fortunately, we have recordings of those times to help us to remember part of that glorious past. In this Hub I am going to list five of my favorite male opera singers of the past, that any opera lover should listen at least once.

Of course that the first spot in this list is for Caruso. He practicaly changed the way in which an Opera was sung and "inspired" the next generations of tenors with his singing. And that without mention that he was one of the pilars of the recording industry of that time with more than one million records sold.

When you are speaking about fame in the opera world and in the male opera singers’s continent in particular, you are speaking about tenors, nothing more. So, what is doing a bass here, you may be wondering? The truth is that Chaliapin was one of the most famous and greatest opera singers, not only of the beginning of the twentieth century, but of all time and only other true great artist as Caruso can compete with him. Chaliapin had a power in his voice, an extraordinary range and flexibility, and such expressiveness that almost makes you forget that the Opera remembers him for making the drama and the acting equal with the music.

No singer in the history of the opera became so famous in so short amount of time as Miguel Fleta did. He was a Spanish tenor who started to sing at the beginning of the twenties. A beautiful and potent voice with a warm color made him one of the most acclaim tenors of his generation. He sang with a voice full of expression and sensual warmth, but with a well-developed technique that permited him to show all the qualities of his amazing registry. The audience practically stirred into a craze when he sang. A pity that he haven’t left us more records to enjoy his art.

Poise, style, grace, clarity and purity, are the words that attempt to describe the singing and voice of Tito Schipa. For me the best way to describe him is saying that he was unique, a one of a kind singer that you recognize instantaneously. I think that never an opera singer achieved so much with so little. Don’t misunderstand me, he had a beautiful light voice that can ring within a certain range, but his technique enabled him to produce his light voice to carry it in the world’s largest houses, like the Teatro Colon or the Metropolitan. From his debut in 1910 to his last concert in 1962 he was certainly one of the famous opera singers of the twentieth century.

The best way to describe Beniamino Gigli is saying that he was a popular singer. He has a style of singing that on one hand lack of certain refinement, but on the other hand can truly move his audience. But whatever his shortcoming could have been they were more than compensated by his voice, considered the most beautiful tenor voice of the century. And it is certainly true that opera fans could be moved by many things in their appreciation of the Opera as an art, but they certainly are moved by nothing quite so much as by beauty.

Some time ago I was listening L'ultima canzone by Tosti sung by Georges Thill and did a search in the Internet to read the lyrics of the song. To my surprise most of the google first page was full with the version of Andrea Bocelli, and I could not stop thinking that If the Internet had existed in the first half of the past century, the Gigli version surely would have been first. That was almost too much for my faith in the progress.