Fernando de Lucia - His Vocal Technique

His Vocal Technique

Although De Lucia's stage career was closely tied to works by his contemporaries Mascagni and Leoncavallo, the vocal method that he exhibited in their operas was not the strenuous, declamatory mode of singing normally associated by modern listeners with the verismo movement. Because his voice was not overly powerful or extensive in range, he needed to rely on his histrionic skills to project the drama fully. When it came to his actual singing, he delivered the music at hand in a flowery and fluttery way that has no modern equivalent.

De Lucia's recordings of arias and duets from Rossini's Barber of Seville ('Ecco ridente', 'Se il mio nome' and 'Numero quindici', for example) show off his vocal characteristics to an even greater extent than do his records of verismo pieces (or even lyrical Verdian parts, such as Alfredo in La traviata). They contain a studied display of fioritura, rubato, limpid phrasing and portamento which appears to be a deliberate re-statement of the so-called bel canto style practised by previous generations of Italian tenors; or perhaps more accurately, a re-statement of that style's surviving mannerisms. These mannerisms were already dying out in the early 1900s when audiences came to prefer their tenor idols to sing in a more full-blooded, robust and straight forward way.

George Bernard Shaw wrote tellingly of De Lucia in June 1892. Having seen his L'amico Fritz, he stated that: "Signor De Lucia succeeds Valero ... as artificial tenor in ordinary to the establishment. His thin strident forte is in tune and does not tremble beyond endurance; and his mezza voce, though monotonous and inexpressive, is pretty as prettiness goes in the artificial school." In 1894 Shaw speaks of De Lucia as a tenor of the Julian Gayarre school, without the "goat-bleat" of its extreme disciples. This comment of Shaw's provides a clue. Like Valero, Gayarre was taught by Melchiorre Vidal in Madrid. Another of Vidal's pupils, soprano Rosina Storchio, was closely associated with verismo premieres. De Lucia, who sang in Spain in the 1880s, may have imbibed the example set by those who studied with Vidal.

By referring to De Lucia as an artificial tenor, Shaw is associating him with other pre-World War I Italian tenors who employed a similar vocal technique and were inclined to phrase their arias in the same sort of lingering, self-conscious way as De Lucia. They include Alessandro Bonci, Giuseppe Anselmi and Fiorello Giraud. The voices of these three tenors had a fast vibrato which is only too apparent on their gramophone records. Musicologists debate whether this is a genuine stylistic hand-me-down from the "bel canto" singing tradition founded by the virtuoso tenor Giovanni Rubini (1794–1854) or merely a flaw, attributable to inadequate breath support, in the vocal method adopted subsequent to Rubini by some Mediterranean tenors.

It should be noted that many other famous Mediterranean tenors active in De Lucia's day, such as Francesco Tamagno, Francesco Marconi, Francesco Signorini, Emilio De Marchi, Francesco Vignas (a Vidal pupil, paradoxically), Giuseppe Borgatti, Giovanni Zenatello and, of course, Enrico Caruso, did not 'tremble' like De Lucia and his ilk when they sang, but their repertoire was often in heavier roles. This fact is borne out by their recordings. (Unlike the other tenors mentioned above, De Marchi did not make commercial discs; but he can be heard singing part of the role of Cavaradossi on brief cylinder recordings made live at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1903.)