Vocal Character
In addition to a 'haunting' beauty of timbre, Santley's technique and musicianship made him a master in the singing of Handel or Mozart, where a fresh and accurate management of rhythm and roulade created an effect of spontaneity, vigour and ideal phrasing. His ensemble singing was also noted, for example, as Figaro and in Fidelio. Henry J. Wood observed that his compass ranged from the bass E-flat to the baritone top G, and was exceptionally even throughout. 'All his low F's told – even to the remotest corners of the largest concert-hall while his top F's were as a silver trumpet.' His clarity and freedom from strain enabled him to continue singing with remarkable freshness throughout a career lasting more than 60 years, perhaps partly because he had not over-taxed his voice by remaining for too long on the operatic stage.
George Bernard Shaw, who first saw him on stage as Di Luna in Il trovatore, considered that Santley's dramatic powers were 'blunt, unpractised, and prone to fall back on a good-humoured nonchalance in his relations with the audience, which was highly popular, but which destroyed all dramatic illusion. He was always Santley, the good fellow with no nonsense about him, and a splendid singer.... The nonchalance was really diffidence....' He played Valentin, in Faust, 'in an unfinished, hail-fellow-well-met way.' Later on, as Vanderdecken, etc., 'his dramatic grip was much surer; and at the present moment, on the verge of his sixtieth year, he is a more thorough artist than ever.'
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