Word: tenoritis
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...video cameras and tape recorders grind, Welliver and the champs back up and take another crack at Kathleen. This time the melody sparkles. Welliver, after all, is no tyro. He has been singing tenor in the Omaha Central Statesmen Chorus for 14 years. But like most of the 6,500 barbershoppers here, he will admit, he isn't quite competition caliber. The bystanders applaud, and Welliver hustles off, tightly clutching for posterity the two-minute videotape of his gig. "This," he confides, "is something you dream about all your life...
...Edsel. Old quartets endure as much for their catchy names as their sounds. The Gala Lads and Chord Busters are here. The Four Hearsemen, who swept the 1955 sing-off garbed as undertakers, have trekked south from Amarillo. But now they are minus their lead tenor, who has passed...
...lanky tenor named Franklin Spears, swigging a can of Lone Star, lends his insight. "The nice thing about barbershopping," he confides, "is you don't know what the guy singing next to you does for a living, and you don't care." Spears happens to be a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and he gloats, "I've been here three days, and I haven't talked about a case...
...such problem for the Chiefs. For a week their tenor and baritone have been battling colds. The tenor popped antibiotics and hunkered in a sauna. Maybe the lack of hard practice helps. In gray tuxes, they captivate the crowd with a medley of lilting love songs. Vowels echo rich and uniform down the darkened rows of fellow singers. Their voices have caught the elusive bird, and the overtone rings clear and shrill. Afterward, as they pace backstage awaiting results, someone is afraid that they missed the real essence. The judges disagree and give them first prize...
Sometimes, alas, it is business as usual. This year's season opener, Giacomo Meyerbeer's hoary grand opera L'Africaine, typifies the ills that have afflicted the company. As Vasco da Gama, Tenor Placido Domingo sounds tired and wan, Maurizio Arena's conducting is enervated and Mansouri's own stage direction merely serviceable. Only veteran Soprano Shirley Verrett, as the regal Selika, captures the fiery spirit of Meyerbeer's diffuse and improbable last opera...