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BARRY R ASHPOLE
p.28
Twenty years on, Tito Gobbi (1913-1984) is not without his detractors. Nonetheless, the Italian baritone was unquestionably one of the truly great operatic figures of his time. Throughout his celebrated career there were few who could match him as a singing actor, with the exception perhaps of Maria Callas. Gobbi distinguished himself in a variety of roles, and has left an indelible imprint on certain of opera's larger-than-life characters, among them Puccini's Michele (Il Tabarro), Scarpia (Tosca) and Gianni Schicchi, and Verdi's Falstaff, Macbeth, Rigoletto and Simon Boccanegra, and Rodrigo in the musician from Busseto's Don Carlo.
Gobbi's interpretations, his portrayals, established an artistic benchmark against which his contemporaries, and just about every baritone since, are inclined to be judged. And, like so many of the singers of his time, his voice was distinctive, easily recognizable within the opening bars of almost any piece he sang. Lamentably, that cannot be said of most of today's singers. One might be able to argue that classically taught singers today are, musically speaking, more accomplished than in generations past. However, they -- and, consequently, many of the characters they portray -- often lack personality or even a measure of individuality. For the most part, they are a boring lot to listen to and observe, and, perhaps unwittingly, have squeezed out of opera performance today the key ingredients of melodrama and good theatre.
Gobbi helped to write a brilliant chapter in the history of opera performance that dates, approximately, from the earliest years of World War II through until the late 1960s, although his last stage performance was actually in 1977. Where are the spinetingling performances that once were nightly fare? The arias, duets, quartettes, etc., that left audiences...