Steve Schwartz wrote:

>I first heard Domingo's Walter from Meistersinger, a nice way to ease
>oneself into Wagnerian repertoire from the Italian.  He thrilled me in the
>part.  I expected tremendous things, at least as far as complete opera
>recordings went.  He had the goods.  I wonder why he never went further.

Again, it's a recording, not a live performance.  He's a very intelligent
singer, only taking on those things that he can handle well.  That's why he
still sounds good at age 60.

>I've also heard that Wagner is murder on voices, although George Bernard
>Shaw characteristically debunks that idea.  Is it really terrible if one
>knows how to sing? It seems to me that Verdi and Puccini, especially for
>tenors, would wear on the voice more harshly.

They all have their particular difficulties.  The problem with Puccini is
that much of his writing lies in the middle of the range for long periods
of time over very thick orchestration.  This is indeed hard on the voice.
Verdi on the other hand often wrote parts that require both lyric and
dramatic singing in the same night, both for long stretches.  (Violetta
is a case in point, and it's a booger to sing well!) The real problem with
singing all of these composers, is that they are now produced in houses
that are triple the size that the composers intended and orchestral tunings
are being pushed higher and higher all the time.  The other problem is that
singers in the 21st century are too busy having international careers to
truly learn to sing.  Record producers and agents (Karajan was notorious
for this) slam singers into big roles for which they have neither the
appropriate voice, nor the experience and time necessary to sing the parts
well.  Vickers himself never sang a Siegfried, and he was smart no to!  He
knew it was wrong for his instrument (at least he felt it was) and he stuck
to his guns.  He was probably the last singer to so do!

Kevin Sutton