Il Volo is an Italian singing trio (Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto, Gianluca Ginoble), combining operatic style voices with a pop ethos, created in emulation of the success of The Three Tenors. Unlike the original Three Tenors, I am not sure whether the members of Il Volo have any stage operatic experience, but they have created a striking product, are certainly photogenic and they represented Italy in the 2015 Eurovision Song Competition.
The group's arena concert in Florence in July, Un Notte Magica, is being released as a CD and DVD this week. Not a specially noteworthy event for this blog, perhaps, except that the concert included an appearance from Placido Domingo, one of the legendary original three tenors (and the event also had the support of the Fondazione Luciano Pavarotti).
I have to confess that I was always rather doubtful of the original Three Tenors phenomenon, but at least you knew that three (Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo) were able to give creditable (and more) performances as Calaf in Turandot live on stage as well as belting out 'Nessun dorma' in an arena with the benefit of significant amplification. Undoubtedly the singers in Il Volo have operatic style voices, but as none of them is over 25 even if they could sing Calaf they certainly shouldn't be singing that sort of repertoire yet. So you are left with the conundrum, if opera singers can turn crossover then why shouldn't other singers seek to emulate the same style? So is it popularisation or dumbing down?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Septura I first became aware of the brass septet, Septura , when noting their 2017/18 concert series Kleptomania at St John's Smith...
-
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos - title page Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments: Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann; London Handel Players, director ...
-
Retrospect Opera's recording of Stanford's Shamus O'Brien in rehearsal Charles Villiers Stanford’s opera Shamus O'Brien pre...
-
Stravinsky: The Rake's Progess - Act Three, scene one: the graveyard Frederick Jones, Jerome Knox - English Touring Opera (Photo: © Ric...
-
Rediscovering her Polish musical roots: Jennifer Pike on the personal connections in her latest discJennifer Pike (Photo Arno) With her latest recording, violinist Jennifer Pike has been rediscovering her Polish roots. The Polish Violi...
-
Poster for the première of Léo Delibes' Lakmé Léo Delibes: Lakmé; Haegee Lee, Elgan Llŷr Thomas, James Platt, Julien Van Mellaerts,...
-
Stephen McNeff: A Star Next to the Moon - Jacob Harrison (Pedro Páramo) - Guildhall School of Music & Drama (Photo: David Monteith-Hodg...
-
Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra I get all sorts of mail, people sending my information on concerts and recordings. Everything gets gl...
-
The Afghan Youth Orchestra On Thursday 7 March 2024, the Afghan Youth Orchestra makes its debut at the Southbank Centre at the start of its ...
-
Jonathan Dove: The Enchanted Pig - Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, 2023 (Photo Greg Milner) On Monday 29 February 2024, the Royal Birmingha...
No comments:
Post a Comment