Here are a couple of clips from the yesterday's BBC programme What Makes a Great Tenor, presented by Rolando Villazon (with bonus Kaufmann). I haven't had time to watch it myself yet, but these extracts suggest Rolando is a born presenter.
The whole thing is available on the iPlayer (UK only).
UPDATE - found another one (with Juan Diego Florez):
MOAR UPDATE!!!! - go over the page for the full programme!
Thanks to Rolando's great fan Teresa of http://rolandovillazon.blogspot.com for uploading.
I watched the whole programme live last night, and, contrary to gloomy expectations garnered from the mind-crushingly ghastly Pop/Opera Star farrago, Villazon proved to be a naturally entertaining and intelligent guide to this fascinating subject. Fearing the worst, that there would be a lot of clowning about and it would all be about MEEEEEEE!, it turned out that Villazon's own sung contributions were limited but telling. His rendition of 'Una furtiva lagrima’ was quite lovely. Backed by thoughtful contributions from academics, conductors and other tenors, the history was clearly outlined, although Villazon’s Handel is hardly ‘pukka’ in the way that Mark Padmore’s is. I had not been aware of the major and provocatively sexy transition in the 1830s from the use of the falsetto to full-on chest-supported high Cs. It was also excellent to see and hear examples of the different tenor types (‘lyric’, ‘spinto’ and ‘dramatic’), with fabulous clips from Corelli, Pavarotti, Domingo et al. Unfortunately, Florez was not referred to as he should be using that beautifully elegant term ‘tenore di grazia’, for that is exactly what he is. His wonderful Tonio in ‘La fille’ last week still haunts my aural imagination.
Having deleted the programme, I regretted it immediately. Fear not. If you search your Sky box, you will find it’s on at 1.30am on Friday and twice more after that. Definitely a must-watch!
Apart from Pappano’s fine ‘Opera Italia’ series, this was by far the best of the one-offs. While I enjoyed Danielle de Niese’s Cleopatra at Glyndebourne, her ‘Diva Diaries’ began to reveal more than a few chinks, and not just vocally. I barely got through Stephen Fry’s Wagner/Bayreuth crisis which was ruinously trapped between apologetic self-indulgence and public breast-beating. Get over it! Fascinating though it was to see some film clips of Puccini composing and enjoying himself, Rick Stein’s attempt to link Italian opera and food took the proverbial biscuit and hurled it into the pigswill at the restaurant’s back door. Stein admitted at the start of the programme that he didn’t really know what it was about, and then spent an hour munching his way round Italy, maundering on the while, to try to prove his tenuous point. I don’t pay my licence fee, etc.......
Posted by: Hedgehog | 03 June 2010 at 07:22 PM
http://www.youtube.com/user/teresa59 the whole programme here...
Posted by: AskMeAboutOpera | 04 June 2010 at 10:37 AM
@AMAO thanks for the link - as you can see I have uploaded here.
Posted by: inter mezzo | 04 June 2010 at 11:18 AM