Word: heldentenors
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...Heldentenor. Lauritz Melchior is not a natural tenor. Jealous Italians refer to him sniffily as a misplaced baritone. Actually, he is an authentic example of a very rare type of singer: the true Wagnerian Heldentenor (heroic tenor). Most tenors have fairly light voices: their honey-voiced wailing is orchestrated to an accompaniment that will not drown them out. But Wagner had no use for such lightweights: the true Heldentenor must be able to out-boom a phalanx of trombones. Richard Wagner's heroes are strenuous fellows, who would willingly break a blood vessel to get to Walhalla, and Wagner...
...publicity that attended Soprano Talley's debut, Melchior was practically overlooked. One critic described his acting as "barely more than awkward." But Melchior stayed on. Not long afterward, Soprano Talley's bubble had burst, and Manhattan operagoers began to think that Melchior was the best all-round Heldentenor they had heard since Jean de Reszke. As the years went by, and Wagnerian opera became the Met's specialty, sturdy Lauritz Melchior rolled up a world's record for Wagnerian trouping. To date he has sung 188 Siegfrieds, 138 Siegmunds, 104 Tannhusers, 54 Parsifals, 68 Lohengrins...
...While Heldentenor Carl Hartmann continued to win moderate favor as Tannhäuser and Tristan (Flagstad was the Isolde), the remainder of the debutant crop to date caused little excitement. Zinka Milanov (née Kunc), whose three-year contract had been promised only after she had agreed to learn three Italian roles and reduce 25 Ib. in three months, made her U. S. debut in II Trovatore (Leonore). Nicola Moscona, Greek basso, attracted the whole Greek colony to his Ramfis (Aïda). Sturdy American Baritone John Charles Thomas (Germont) saved a Traviata (with Vina Bovy and Nino Martini...
...Most important Metropolitan debutant was German Heldentenor Carl Hartmann, who had made previous U. S. appearances with the German Opera Company in 1931. As principal protagonist in one of the finest Siegfrieds in decades, long-legged, prancing Hartmann acted his role as though he were living it, sang and pounded his anvil with energy and musicianship, peeled the armor from sleeping Brunnhilde (Marjorie Lawrence) with a taxidermist's skill. Vocally he wavered once or twice, but he lived up to the excellent reports of his ability which had leaked out from rehearsals...