Florez has already
released a number of critically acclaimed
recital records and complete opera recordings.
He is now at the stage of his career
when there is a tendency for the artist
or his management to want to consider
extending repertoire and venturing into
new territory. For a tenor leggiero
such as Florez, with such a specific
voice and repertoire, there must always
be the dangerous temptation to wander
into other, heavier territory. Still,
for the sensible singer, there are examples
from the past to advise and warn. A
tenor such as Alfredo Kraus is the paragon
for how a tenor with a specific style
and voice could use it with elegance
and endure with remarkable longevity.
Pavarotti, a tenor who like Florez started
out by dazzling with his high Cs in
Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment,
provides another type of career path.
And finally, you have the singers who
have attempted to move into heavier
roles and simply fallen by the way-side.
I raise all these issues
because, having previously explored
Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti, Florez
expands his wings on this disc. At first
sight, the selection of composers could
be a little worrying. Verdi, Puccini
and Halévy are not guarantors
of vocal health in a tenor leggiero.
But the selection of items on this disc
is both reassuring and cunning.
Florez starts by going
backwards, including arias by Gluck
and Cimarosa. He then continues his
explorations of Rossini and Donizetti,
before proceeding to early Verdi. The
choice of something from Un giorno
di regno is apt as in these early
operas Verdi was still indebted to his
predecessors in the treatment of the
tenor voice. The choice of La Donna
e mobile is understandable and is
the only really hackneyed selection
on the disc. Halévy’s La Juive
is most famous for the heavy tenor role
of Eléazar, which was Caruso’s
last new role. But quite sensibly, Florez
sings the lighter second tenor part.
Finally, we get an aria from Gianni
Schicchi.
The French version
of Gluck’s Orpheus legend has not been
lucky on record. In producing such an
edition, Gluck adapted it to French
taste and recast the title role as a
haut-contre rather than a castrato.
In baroque music this tricky, distinctively
French voice type (a sort of high tenor
with a falsetto extension) has, under
William Christie’s guiding hand, made
something of a come-back with various
singers showing what can be done in
the music of Lully and Rameau. However
they do not yet seem to have reached
Gluck and the standard recording for
the French version of the opera is still
the one made by Leopold Simoneau.
Here Florez approaches
the aria from a full-throated, Italian
point of view. Stylistically, this is
not really what I want in this aria,
but Florez is a musical singer and his
technique is superb. The result is appealing
even though I can’t but help wonder
what Paul Agnew would sound like in
the role.
Napoleon banned the
use of castratos. Well before this,
Italian opera had started to develop
a thriving tenor culture, partly because
castrati tended not to appear in opera
buffa. The result was something akin
to the French development of the haut-contre
so that by the early 19th
century the range of some tenor roles
was quite spectacular. The aria from
Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto
finds Florez in charming form exploring
this early example of the Italian lyric
tenor’s repertoire. And in fact Cimarosa’s
style is remarkably prescient, prefiguring
the early 19th century music
on this disc.
It is with Rossini,
that we come to the more outrageous
demands made on the lighter tenor. In
Naples, Rossini had a variety of tenors
at his disposal and he delighted in
comparing and contrasting them. Nevertheless
his earlier operas generally have only
a single main tenor role. Here Florez
gives us an aria from Act 2 of Semiramide
in which Idreno is intent on impressing
his future bride by his virtuosic tour-de-force.
The tenor voice in this repertoire has
lagged behind the female voice, so that
on Sutherland’s recording of Semiramide,
John Serge sounds attractive but technically
he is frankly disappointing. Here Florez
is in stunning form and would impress
any prospective bride.
He also includes Lindoro’s
opening aria from L’Italiana in Algeri.
Lindoro is a tricky role, but this piece
is a particular hurdle over which many
tenors stumble somewhat. In recordings
of the complete opera from the late
1970s and early 1980s by Marilyn Horne
(on RCA/Erato) and Luciana Valentini-Terrani
(one on CBS and one on Acanta, now on
Arts), their tenors manage to negotiate
the difficult fioriture but quite often
at the expense of tone quality. Quite
frankly they don’t always sound nice.
But Florez gives us a master-class in
negotiating this music with charm and
vocal quality. It helps if you have
a flexible, supportive accompanist and
here I had some doubts. Carlo Rizzi’s
speeds are generous, he never seems
to rush his singer, but I felt that
he was a little inflexible. Listen to
Claudio Scimone on RCA/Erato to hear
how a conductor can bring accuracy and
suppleness to a recording.
Moving on in time to
Donizetti, Florez gives us two slightly
unusual arias. He has already recorded
the famous aria ‘Ah, mes amis’ from
La Fille du Régiment which
involves a sequence of 6 high Cs. For
the Italian version, Donizetti replaced
this aria with one from Gianni di
Parigi. Nowadays this aria from
La figlia del reggimento is something
of a rarity, but in earlier times of
course it was the Italian version of
this opera which was current. The replacement
aria may only have one high C rather
than six, but it is no less impressive.
The other Donizetti aria is a replacement
aria for Lucrezia Borgia written
specifically for the tenor Mario who
gave the first London performance of
the opera, singing the character of
Gennaro. Though calling for an element
of virtuosity it also draws upon those
other elements in the tenor’s repertoire,
legato and a sense of line. Florez does
not disappoint and it is welcome to
hear him making an impression without
cascades of notes. This particular aria
does not get an outing very often; on
the Caballé recording Gennaro
gets no aria at all and on the Sutherland
he gets the other alternative aria which
Donizetti wrote for Nicolai Ivanov.
Before continuing on
to Verdi and Puccini we must make a
brief sideways visit to France. The
high lyric tenor role continued to be
a feature in French opera; witness Donizetti’s
taking advantage of it in La Fille
du Régiment. In Halévy’s
La Juive, the principal tenor
role, Eléazar, might be a dramatic
one, but the substantial second tenor
part, Prince Leopold, calls for a more
traditional French lyric voice. Here
Florez sings a rather simplistic but
quite charming serenade from the opera.
And so, on to Verdi.
Listening to the aria from Un giorno
di regno one is aware of how much
Verdi was indebted to his forebears.
In ‘La donna e mobile’ it is something
of a revelation to hear the aria sung
by a lyric voice (probably the heaviest
part it would be wise to undertake)
rather than as one of the lightest roles
left in a heavier tenor’s repertoire.
Florez sings the aria admirably, but
sitting amongst this earlier 19th
century Italian opera, one become aware
not only of how much Verdi has taken
from the earlier operas but also how
much more regular and four-square his
melodies can seem – or is that Carlo
Rizzi just being a little too inflexible.
And finally to the
most recent music on the disc, Rinuccio’s
aria from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi;
it is reasonable for Florez to sing
this, after all it is young man’s music,
written for a young lyric tenor to sing.
But it seems to require a different
technique from all the other music on
the disc, needing more push from the
voice. It was only here that I felt
that Florez might have exerted his voice
a little.
This is a well thought
out recital. After doing two devoted
to early 19th century opera,
this widens the net a little so that
the disc does not become repetitious
and throws in one or two Italian novelties.
I am not sure that
this is a disc to be listened to at
one sitting, but I thought that about
Florez’s other recital discs. This is
a voice type that was designed to impress,
to stun, within the confines of an opera
involving a number of contrasting voice
styles and I don’t think that this type
of virtuoso tenor aria is heard at its
best one after the other. But, if I
have to hear sixty minutes all in one
sitting, then Juan Diego Florez is definitely
the man to do it.
Robert Hugill
Juan Diego Florez (tenor) 
DECCA
475 6187 [58.25]
