File:Alessandro Bonci - Aimé Dupont - The grand opera singers of to-day (1912).jpg

Identifier: grandoperasinger02lahe (find matches)
Title: The grand opera singers of to-day : an account of the leading operatic stars who have sung during recent years, together with a sketch of the chief operatic enterprises
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Lahee, Henry Charles, 1856-1953
Subjects: Singers Opera
Publisher: Boston : L. C. Page
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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ndles them even with a certain grace andquiet that make them need no other veil butthe charm and perfection of his singing. Heis no heroic, dramatic, or romantic tenor. Hisvoice is as light as his body, but is of an ex-quisite and enticing brightness, clearness, pli-ancy and smoothness. It is of purest tenorquality, and the most austere master might notplausibly quarrel with his use of it. He is asinger of delicate voice and perfectly masteredartistry. Only Madame Sembrich, of the familiarsingers on our stage, is to be compared with thistenor in knowledge of the art of song and in thepractice of it. Its refinements, its graces, itssubtleties are alike at his command. Mr. Boncimight be of the eighteenth century instead ofthe twentieth in his skill with the ornament ofsong. He is master of exquisitely sustainedand ordered tone in flowing and songful pas-sages. He can spin his voice with a pliancethat our generation has almost ceased to expectin singers of his sex. From his lowest to his
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Copyright by Aim6 Dupont ALESSANDRO BONCI The Manhattan Opera-House 151 highest note his voice is of a smooth and flaw-less suavity. The brightness of his tone is al-most crystalline, and the undulations that giveit life are delicacy itself. His singing flows inperfectly rounded phrases, and he has the senseof pure song as a painter has the sense of finecolor, or a writer the sense of the intrinsicbeauty and power of words. He was born forsuch music as Mozarts. He has the scrupulouselegance of diction and the little graces andardors of song that suit the music of WilhelmMeister, and Puccini. The pleasure of Mr.Bonci is the pleasure of the beauty of a puretenor voice that is an emotion in itself, and ofan artistry that is fine intelligence and taste.Carusos eulogists have said that his voice isgolden. By the same comparison Bonds issilvern. At the opening of the season of 1906, whenBonci was being compared with Caruso, thefollowing criticism appeared, and it seems tosum up the comparat

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