Friends and Memories

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

89

text excerpt

The Carl Rosa Opera Company was performing in London about that time. Sir Charles Santley was a member of it, and it was while he was in that company that I heard him sing for the first time in the Trovatore, Fra Diavolo, and many other operas. His singing and exquisite phrasing were a revelation to me. I have heard him criticised as an actor, but at that time, as a singer, he was absolutely perfect. He possessed to a superlative degree all the qualities which make a singer stand head and shoulders above his contemporaries. The “timbre” of his warm baritone voice was quite beautiful, “simpatico” to the last degree, his technique superb (he had studied with Lamperti of Milan, the greatest professor of singing who ever lived, I suppose), and he had not only a great temperament, but he was a finished musician into the bargain, reading the most difficult music easily at sight, and able to express any and every shade of feeling. Whether the music were passionate or tender, graceful or virile, emotional or serene, sad or gay, he sang it with equal insight.

The Carl Rosa Opera Company was performing in London about that time. Sir Charles Santley was a member of it, and it was while he was in that company that I heard him sing for the first time in the Trovatore, Fra Diavolo, and many other operas. His singing and exquisite phrasing were a revelation to me. I have heard him criticised as an actor, but at that time, as a singer, he was absolutely perfect. He possessed to a superlative degree all the qualities which make a singer stand head and shoulders above his contemporaries. The “timbre” of his warm baritone voice was quite beautiful, “simpatico” to the last degree, his technique superb (he had studied with Lamperti of Milan, the greatest professor of singing who ever lived, I suppose), and he had not only a great temperament, but he was a finished musician into the bargain, reading the most difficult music easily at sight, and able to express any and every shade of feeling. Whether the music were passionate or tender, graceful or virile, emotional or serene, sad or gay, he sang it with equal insight.

The Carl Rosa Opera Company was performing in London about that time. Sir Charles Santley was a member of it, and it was while he was in that company that I heard him sing for the first time in the Trovatore, Fra Diavolo, and many other operas. His singing and exquisite phrasing were a revelation to me. I have heard him criticised as an actor, but at that time, as a singer, he was absolutely perfect. He possessed to a superlative degree all the qualities which make a singer stand head and shoulders above his contemporaries. The “timbre” of his warm baritone voice was quite beautiful, “simpatico” to the last degree, his technique superb (he had studied with Lamperti of Milan, the greatest professor of singing who ever lived, I suppose), and he had not only a great temperament, but he was a finished musician into the bargain, reading the most difficult music easily at sight, and able to express any and every shade of feeling. Whether the music were passionate or tender, graceful or virile, emotional or serene, sad or gay, he sang it with equal insight.

excerpt from 'Friends and Memories' pp. 89 (192 words)

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