Lanza and the Press: Concerts/Live Appearances 1954-58
Armando Cesari, Vince di Placido, LeeAnn Cafferata, and Stefanie Walzinger contributed acrticles to the press sections. Notes by Derek McGovern. Sources of newspaper quotes: Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy, by Armando Cesari (Baskerville, 2nd ed., 2008) and Mario Lanza: Singing to the Gods, by Derek Mannering (U of Mississippi P, 2005).
1954-1957
1954-1957
After his 1951 concert/recital tour, Lanza did not sing again in front of a live audience until 28 October 1954, when he performed "E Lucevan le Stelle" and "Some Day" on the live CBS television show Shower of Stars. [Video available here and essay here.] For his efforts, Lanza received a memorable review in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin from noted critic Max De Schauensee (see below). The appearance on Shower of Stars was actually his second on the show; four weeks earlier, Lanza had been roundly criticized in the press when he lip-synched to three- and four-year-old recordings. (The fact that his co-stars also failed to perform live somehow escaped the ire of journalists.)
In the ensuing brouhaha, he had felt obliged to prove to a skeptical press that he still had a voice, and subsequently gave an impromptu concert at his home on October 4.
Little more than five months after his successful second Shower of Stars performance, Lanza again attracted negative press headlines when he failed to appear at the opening performance of a highly lucrative two-week engagement at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. The remaining performances were cancelled by the hotel management, depriving Lanza of some much-needed income.
However, it was not until 14 July 1957, when he was coaxed into performing a single number at a dubious political rally in Naples, Italy, in front of an audience of reportedly 500,000, that Lanza sang in public again. (The tenor had by now moved to Italy, where he would remain until his death.) Seven weeks later, under far more relaxed circumstances, he gave an impromptu performance in the town square of Filignano, the birthplace of his father.
Lanza's most important live appearances of 1957, however, took place at the venerable London Palladium two months later. On November 18, 1957, he headlined the Royal Variety Performance, singing three selections (one of which can be heard here) to an audience that included Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip and the Queen Mother. Six days later, at the same venue, he repeated the program on the televised Sunday Night at the London Palladium. On both occasions, Lanza received a tumultuous reception. The Daily Express reported on November 19th that Queen Elizabeth had told Lanza that, "I never knew that human lungs could produce such volume. I thought your hands were very expressive, and I enjoyed your singing immensely." The local music critics were also impressed:
Little more than five months after his successful second Shower of Stars performance, Lanza again attracted negative press headlines when he failed to appear at the opening performance of a highly lucrative two-week engagement at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. The remaining performances were cancelled by the hotel management, depriving Lanza of some much-needed income.
However, it was not until 14 July 1957, when he was coaxed into performing a single number at a dubious political rally in Naples, Italy, in front of an audience of reportedly 500,000, that Lanza sang in public again. (The tenor had by now moved to Italy, where he would remain until his death.) Seven weeks later, under far more relaxed circumstances, he gave an impromptu performance in the town square of Filignano, the birthplace of his father.
Lanza's most important live appearances of 1957, however, took place at the venerable London Palladium two months later. On November 18, 1957, he headlined the Royal Variety Performance, singing three selections (one of which can be heard here) to an audience that included Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip and the Queen Mother. Six days later, at the same venue, he repeated the program on the televised Sunday Night at the London Palladium. On both occasions, Lanza received a tumultuous reception. The Daily Express reported on November 19th that Queen Elizabeth had told Lanza that, "I never knew that human lungs could produce such volume. I thought your hands were very expressive, and I enjoyed your singing immensely." The local music critics were also impressed:
"Mario Lanza's 'live' voice is nothing short of superb"—--News Chronicle, 19 November 1957
"Mario Lanza proved that he is in better voice than ever. There were no tricks, no striving after effects"—--Melody Maker, November 1957
"Mario is good and he knows it. His robust top notes almost tore the roof off"—--Sporting and Show Business Review, 22 November 1957
The 1958 Tour
In January 1958, Lanza embarked on his final tour, performing 22 recitals in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. (Coincidentally, he had also performed 22 recitals on his previous tour in 1951.) The tour began in Sheffield, England, on January 4 and ended in Kiel, Germany, on April 13. In between recitals at London's Royal Albert Hall, where he performed twice without a microphone in front of audiences of more than 8000, Lanza also sang on the live UK television show Saturday Spectacular on ATV.
Audience reaction at the concerts, with the exception of a truncated recital at Paris's Olympia Theatre on April 2, was reminiscent at times of Lanza's 1951 tour, with over-excited fans in Munich storming the stage at the end of the performance, and the tenor afforded a generally rapturous reception. His critical reception, on the other hand, was mixed. While he received some excellent notices from the British press, some of the Continental reviewers found fault with him on stylistic grounds.
Audience reaction at the concerts, with the exception of a truncated recital at Paris's Olympia Theatre on April 2, was reminiscent at times of Lanza's 1951 tour, with over-excited fans in Munich storming the stage at the end of the performance, and the tenor afforded a generally rapturous reception. His critical reception, on the other hand, was mixed. While he received some excellent notices from the British press, some of the Continental reviewers found fault with him on stylistic grounds.
The tour was also marred by illness and resulting cancellations. On January 18, Lanza slipped on the steps outside his old friend Lana Turner's London home, badly bruising his rib cage. He went on to sing on television that evening, and at the Royal Albert Hall the following day, but was obviously in discomfort. Three days after the fall, pain in his right leg signaled the onset of (potentially lethal) thrombophlebitis—possibly triggered by the accident. Lanza persevered with the tour for a further week, giving two of his most enthusiastically received recitals (in Munich's Kongresssaal des Deutschen Museum on January 24 and Stuttgart's Liederhalle on January 27) despite feeling unwell. He had, in fact, sought medical advice prior to the Stuttgart recital, and had learned to his dismay that he was suffering from inflamed phlebitis and very high blood pressure. However, the music critics at both recitals—unaware, presumably, that the tenor was ailing—were decidedly qualified in their praise:
"Munich saw and heard the much-publicized Mario Lanza last night. It also saw and heard what the Hollywood mills had made of him. There is no doubt that such vocal cords are rarely bestowed by nature. . . . He has been trained like a Caruso or a Gigli, but no one has told him that there is more to these immortals than air in the lungs and vocal cords in the head. His show numbers are put across with plenty of power and embellished with high notes to make them effective exhibition pieces. There was no overriding sweetness---no satisfying 'piano'---and the public raved"—--Dr. Karl Schumann, Suddeutschland Zeitung, 25 January 1958. [Translation from the original German]
"Undoubtedly the tenor has a beautiful lyric voice with an unmistakable timbre and sweetness all its own, and had he the perception to use his strengths more successfully for the climax, then no words would be sufficient"—--Stuttgart-Zeitung, 28 January 1958. [Translation from the original German]
"He brought an especially Caruso-like brilliance to the Tosca aria. But only in this respect did he have the voice of a great artist"—--Stuttgart Nachricten, 28 January 1958. [Translation from the original German]
London, March 1958
Exhausted after the Stuttgart recital, Lanza suspended the tour and returned to Rome, where he was hospitalized for part of February. Against medical advice, however, he resumed the tour on March 4, with pain killers and a walking stick his only concessions to his doctors. Remarkably, it seems that neither his vocal quality nor his energy was compromised by his ailments, and, notwithstanding the occasional critical drubbing—e.g., in Rotterdam, where the reviewer of the Het Parool (8 April 1958) labelled him "an unpolished diamond" and "a vocal superman who is happiest singing as if he were in his bathroom"—the critics found much to admire:
"Without ballyhoo American tenor Mario Lanza strolled casually onto the stage at Kings Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester, and captivated a capacity 6000 audience with the glorious power of his voice. . . .The voice that has sold millions of gramophone records did not disappoint"—--The [Manchester] Guardian, 7 March 1958.
"There is no equal to this naturally beautiful tenor voice in the world today. The free-flowing 'bel canto' is an irresistible attraction, the unsurpassing strength flowing from the heights of falsetto to a deep, coaxing urgency. . . .Nothing could deprive the evening of the infatuating attraction of the voice. Indeed, the enthusiastic reception knew no bounds"—--Hanoverische Algemein, 12 April 1958, reviewing Lanza's recital at the Town Hall, Hanover, the previous evening. [Translation from the original German]
However, the tour ended on a sour note, when at the last minute Lanza was obliged to cancel a sold-out recital in Hamburg that had been rescheduled for April 16 after a cancellation two and a half months earlier. According to Lanza's accompanist, Constantine Callinicos, the audience swiftly turned into a "lynch mob." Yet Lanza's excuse for cancelling—inflamed vocal cords (admittedly aggravated by a night of arguing with one of his entourage, punctuated with impromptu extracts from Verdi's Otello by the tenor in full voice) and a bad cold—was verified by two doctors, one of whom also diagnosed extremely high blood pressure and liver damage. Lanza was told bluntly that his health was in a precarious state, and that a sustained period of rest, coupled with complete abstinence from alcohol, was essential. After flying back to Rome, all remaining dates on his itinerary, which included additional recitals at the Royal Albert Hall and a concert at the World Fair in Brussels in May, were cancelled. Time Magazine and Newsweek—never admirers of Lanza—each had a field day with the Hamburg fiasco, with the latter magazine opining that the tenor's excuse for cancelling was "the old theatrical bromide that he was suffering from a cold." Lanza responded in an interview with the New York Tribune in May:
I caught a cold that was so bad I sounded like [hoarse comedian] Andy Devine, and people were paying to hear Lanza. Dr. Shaake, the Hamburg State Opera's own physician, examined me before the concert and told the impresario: 'I won't allow him to sing. If he wants to sing with this kind of a throat, the last responsibility is up to the artist.'
At the time, Lanza still had every intention of embarking on further concert tours in spite of his by-now significant health problems. His plans included tours of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Had he realized, however, that the embarrassing Hamburg cancellation would mark the end of his public performing career, at least he might have had the consolation of knowing that his final recital—at the vast Ostsee Halle in Kiel on April 13—had found him in peak form:
"[Lanza] really can sing. The material belonging to this wonderfully melodious tenor is a natural gift. Lanza has a 'strad' in his throat and he understands how to use it. It is difficult to know what to admire the most. The faultless breathing technique, the elastic precision of his wording, the light 'piano.' The constantly disciplined 'forte.' The well-synchronized join between registers. Lanza sings emotionally, a smoldering fluency. His delivery is not a technical exercise but an event of blessed southern sensuality. Characteristic of the singing are the famous 'tears' in the voice, that small pretence learned from the sobbing of the nightingale that most Italian tenors put on, but here is a completely natural sound. When he is not singing, he seems a little nervous, perhaps the aftermath of a serious illness. When he sings, he is fully relaxed. He pulls his tie undone, opens his collar because of the heat. Applause, and more applause. An encore is dragged out of him---or is it two? Then, with a gesture of typical romantic panache, he says goodbye"—--Dr. Kurt Klukist, Lübecher Nachricten, 14 April 1958. [Translation from the original German]
