Greg Stanford
In May, 1967, the fledgling Ear was a 19-year-old student born and bred in a small Midwestern town in Illinois. Despite rarely having been farther from home than the 45-minute drive to St. Louis and growing up in an area not known for its embrace of the Arts, I was irresistibly drawn to the nearest place to catch the Metropolitan Opera on its annual tour, which turned out to be Memphis, Tennessee, 400 miles away. Strangely, the need to do this (and it really was a need) was sparked by attending a double feature at the local movie theater with my little brother six years before.
We went to see The Three Worlds of Gulliver and stuck around for the second film, The Student Prince—a filmalready seven years old and an unlikely companion piece for an audience almost entirely of children. Originating as a Mario Lanza vehicle, the film had finally been made without Lanza but with his voice issuing from the lips of actor Edmond Purdom. Mario Lanza had become a famous film star and recording artist when I was a small child—he had died at 38 almost two years before our Gulliver outing. As soon as Lanza’s voice hit the first high note in “Drink, Drink, Drink” it changed the course of my life. I felt a thrilling shiver up and down my spine, a feeling often repeated before the words “The End” sent the kids rushing for the exit. The next day, my mother was amazed to hear me request an advance on my allowance in order to buy the soundtrack of The Student Prince. Mom was so impressed that she offered to buy it for me. It is serenely appropriate that my 84 year old mother is the first to read the report of that memory in this, The Ear’s debut piece. I gradually sought out every Lanza LP available, even including some collections of operatic arias, and retreated to my room for several years. My position as the family oddball was soon permanently established, my father in particular spending a lot of time shaking his head in bewilderment.
A few years later, I read an article comparing Mario Lanza quite unfavorably with another dead tenor, Jussi Bjorling. I went to my university’s Music Library to find a Bjorling record to prove that Lanza could put this fellow to shame—that evening, the first aria quickly put me in my place. Bjorling’s superiority was obvious even to my untrained ear. The next turning point was becoming aware of the Met’s live Saturday matinee radio broadcasts. The first one I heard was Turandot with Birgit Nilsson, Mirella Freni and a tenor named Franco Corelli—all in their prime. I had previously heard the two sopranos and each impressed me immensely. All I had known of the tenor was that he was famous, handsome and tall. But that voice!
6 months later, I was on a bus to Memphis to see Franco Corelli, Renata Tebaldi and Cornell MacNeil in the Met’s new La Gioconda. 400 miles to Memphis with a return trip just a couple of hours after the opera ended. Could a performance be worth all this? At 8 P.M. an answer began to unfold. When Corelli entered singing his first note, the crowd went wild, almost stopping the show. The amazing power and beauty of that unique timbre and the man’s appearance and stage presence had me in a state of ecstasy.
After Act Two, I wrote Corelli a note. I summoned up the courage to request a private audience at the opera’s conclusion. A stagehand delivered my note to the tenor. Franco Corelli then sent word that my audience could begin immediately—right in the middle of the opera! Though my Italian was then nonexistent and Corelli’s English little better, we got along fine with the assistance of his wife’s much better English. The tall tenor kindly leaned back against a wall and slumped a bit in a considerate effort not to dwarf me with his impressive height and treated me with great courtesy and kindness. This was the temperamental terror I had read about?
The conversation had gone on for about 20 minutes when I suddenly heard the music begin for the first scene of the third act. I immediately thanked the Corellis and started to leave, but Franco said I was free to stick around for another 20 minutes or so since he wasn’t in that scene. I could hear the performance from the dressing room area, but even if that hadn’t been possible, I was in no hurry to leave. In the end, I was with him for about 40 minutes before he said it was almost time for his next entrance. I proceeded to the rear of the auditorium for the second scene of Act Three with a personally inscribed photo in hand. For the last act of the 4-act Gioconda I went back to my seat. My new “friend’s” magnificent singing continued until his exit on an effortless high C near the end of the opera.
I never recovered from the experience and an opera fanatic was born. A lifetime of study, live performances, broadcasts and recordings slowly transformed that naive boy into The Operatic Ear. I have been inspired by such well known writers on opera as Francis Robinson, J.B. Steane and Paul Jackson. Mr. Robinson was a true mentor, as he was a personal friend from 1969 until his death in 1980. My plan is to approach these articles in his spirit. The aim of The Operatic Ear is to stimulate budding interests which may lead to deeper enthusiasms, so see this as just the Prelude to what I hope will be a long performance.