Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

243-4

text excerpt

Once, I remember, our party of four was joined by Tamagno when the celebrated Italian tenor was playing Otello at the Lyceum. We all had supper together after the performance and were in the  joiliest of moods. Tamagno had a slight cold on  the chest, but protested that it made no difference  whatever in the singing quality of his head tones.  Catarrh in the nose, he said, was fatal, but a chest cold made not the least difference to him. Upon this, Lassalle offered to wager that he could sing higher with his falsetto than Tamagno with his voce di petto. The challenge was accepted, and  forthwith the two began a vocal duel the like of  which I am certain I shall never hear again. Out came Tamagno's A's and B flats, as quickly  responded to with the falsetto equivalents from  Lassalle’s sturdy throat. Then the Italian went "one better"; and the Frenchman, in order, as he  said, to help himself up the scale, mounted his chair and emitted the B natural; whereupon Tamagno also stood upon his chair and brought out  not only a high C, but a ringing D flat. Lassalle was now for mounting the table, but, this being  “ruled out" as an unfair advantage over a less athletic opponent, he proceeded to get the neces sary notes from the eminence of his chair, amid  terrific applause from the rest of the company. Tamagno now made a bold dash for a D natural, but did not quite succeed; and as Lassalle fared no better, we pronounced the result a “dead heat.” Which, at that somewhat advanced hour of the  night, was perhaps rather a blessing for the neighboring occupants of the hotel.

excerpt from 'Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900' pp. 243-4 (290 words)

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