Voice in the Night
by Derek McGovern
page 2
Derek McGovern
My love of opera by this time had inspired me to learn Italian, so in 1982 (shortly before I started university) I travelled to Italy, with the additional aim of meeting some of Lanza's associates.
The Rome telephone book that year contained the numbers for several of Mario’s conductors, including Paul Baron and the esteemed Franco Ferrara. At that stage I was too unsure of my Italian to call Ferrara (much to my later regret), but Baron agreed to meet me in his swanky apartment overlooking the Vatican.
The Rome telephone book that year contained the numbers for several of Mario’s conductors, including Paul Baron and the esteemed Franco Ferrara. At that stage I was too unsure of my Italian to call Ferrara (much to my later regret), but Baron agreed to meet me in his swanky apartment overlooking the Vatican.
I had a happier experience when I visited the Villa Badoglio in Parioli, one of the swankier suburbs of Rome. Situated at 56 Via Bruxelles, the Lanza family’s former residence now housed the Chinese Embassy. Within moments of my pushing the buzzer, a Chinese security guard appeared, demanding to know my reason for being there.
Meeting Baron and Savina
The visit didn’t get off to a good start. Baron kept me waiting outside the apartment for several minutes after I’d pushed the doorbell, and I could hear him from inside yelling on the phone to someone in Italian.
Meeting Baron and Savina
The visit didn’t get off to a good start. Baron kept me waiting outside the apartment for several minutes after I’d pushed the doorbell, and I could hear him from inside yelling on the phone to someone in Italian.
Paul Baron (left) with Lanza, October 1957
When he finally opened the door, I tripped over an extension cord that was dangerously placed at the entrance, and then further annoyed him by sitting down in his armchair. “No you don’t!” he yelled. “You sit over there.” So much for pleasantries.
Of course, had I known then that Lanza had abruptly terminated his association with Baron after the latter had demanded a sizeable percentage of his future earnings, then I probably wouldn’t have gone near the man. For as it turned out, after 23 years he still hadn’t forgiven Lanza, and he lost no time that day in slamming him. “Ha! The man couldn’t read music!” “Del Monaco was better!” “Lanza wasn’t a tenor; he was a baritone.” Was Mario an intelligent person? I asked him. Baron: “You’re asking me if a man who screwed up his career was intelligent?!” And so forth. He even criticized Lanza’s fondness for driving his children to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport in his Volkswagen just to watch airplanes taking off and landing. “That man got a kick out of the damnedest things!” he declared.
Of course, had I known then that Lanza had abruptly terminated his association with Baron after the latter had demanded a sizeable percentage of his future earnings, then I probably wouldn’t have gone near the man. For as it turned out, after 23 years he still hadn’t forgiven Lanza, and he lost no time that day in slamming him. “Ha! The man couldn’t read music!” “Del Monaco was better!” “Lanza wasn’t a tenor; he was a baritone.” Was Mario an intelligent person? I asked him. Baron: “You’re asking me if a man who screwed up his career was intelligent?!” And so forth. He even criticized Lanza’s fondness for driving his children to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport in his Volkswagen just to watch airplanes taking off and landing. “That man got a kick out of the damnedest things!” he declared.
When I tried to explain—--in rather poor Italian—--that a famous tenor and his family had once lived there, and that I only wanted to look inside the gate, he ordered me to leave at once. “There’s no Lanza here!” he said. But the story had a happy ending. Across the road were two young-ish Italian men guarding what I seem to recall was the Iranian Embassy. They were curious to know what all the fuss was about, and when I mentioned the name “Mario Lanza”, they became surprisingly excited, even singing to me while waving around their guns at the same time. It was a surreal moment.
On my next visit to Rome in 1986, I discovered that Baron and Ferrara were no longer in the Rome telephone directory. (I later learned that Ferrara had died the previous year.) However, the popular conductor-arranger Carlo Savina, who had worked with Lanza on his final movie and arranged some of the songs on the great “Mario!” album, was listed and so I called him. What a difference! Savina was as glowing about Lanza as Baron had been damning. After praising Mario’s voice as “unica” (unique), he went on to speak movingly about the man he had considered “tanto dolce” (so sweet). He recalled a certain sadness in Lanza’s character, but he described him as a man of great heart who had put his very soul into his singing.
Interpretive Genius
And that, I feel, is the essence of Lanza’s interpretive genius. Whether he’s singing about “the angel glow that lights a star” on his sublime MGM recording of "All the Things You Are" or denouncing the French aristocracy on his 1950 Improvviso from Andrea Chénier, the words are everything to him.
On my next visit to Rome in 1986, I discovered that Baron and Ferrara were no longer in the Rome telephone directory. (I later learned that Ferrara had died the previous year.) However, the popular conductor-arranger Carlo Savina, who had worked with Lanza on his final movie and arranged some of the songs on the great “Mario!” album, was listed and so I called him. What a difference! Savina was as glowing about Lanza as Baron had been damning. After praising Mario’s voice as “unica” (unique), he went on to speak movingly about the man he had considered “tanto dolce” (so sweet). He recalled a certain sadness in Lanza’s character, but he described him as a man of great heart who had put his very soul into his singing.
Interpretive Genius
And that, I feel, is the essence of Lanza’s interpretive genius. Whether he’s singing about “the angel glow that lights a star” on his sublime MGM recording of "All the Things You Are" or denouncing the French aristocracy on his 1950 Improvviso from Andrea Chénier, the words are everything to him.
Savina described Lanza
as a man
of great heart.
Moreover, it’s that complete conviction in whatever he sings that can transform even the tritest of material into something worth hearing. As the late arranger/conductor Christopher Palmer once observed, “Lanza rarely sang trash, and on the rare occasions when he did, he made it sound better than it had any right to sound.”
Then there’s the instrument itself: that glorious lirico spinto sound, effortlessly produced throughout its registers, with its unique colour and undeniably sensual quality. To quote music critic Henry Foley, Lanza’s timbre is one that many singers “would kill for.”
As a singer, admittedly, Mario Lanza wasn’t always at the top of his game; the ups and downs of his life saw to that and unquestionably made the quality of his output variable at times. It’s also no secret that even on some of his greatest recordings, stylistic subtlety and musical perfection occasionally eluded him. But as Lindsay Perigo once observed of such criticism, “A diamond is still a diamond -- and a lot more interesting than a polished pebble.”
As a singer, admittedly, Mario Lanza wasn’t always at the top of his game; the ups and downs of his life saw to that and unquestionably made the quality of his output variable at times. It’s also no secret that even on some of his greatest recordings, stylistic subtlety and musical perfection occasionally eluded him. But as Lindsay Perigo once observed of such criticism, “A diamond is still a diamond -- and a lot more interesting than a polished pebble.”