Freddie De Tommaso (tenor)
Passione
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Renato Balsadonna
rec. 14-18 November 2020, The Colosseum, Watford
No texts
DECCA 4851509 [53:18]
British lirico-spinto tenor Freddie De Tommaso has been making something of a stir of late, winning various prizes in singing competitions and debuting at both Covent Garden and the Vienna State Opera. Raised in Tunbridge Wells, he here celebrates his Italian heritage in his debut album, a programme of sixteen Neapolitan, classic and popular Italian songs by such as Tosti, Puccini, Leoncavallo and even Mantovani, in opulently scored arrangements of the kind favoured by Corelli and Del Monaco. It is dedicated to two Francos, Corelli and De Tommaso’s father, but also marks 2021 as 'The Year of the Tenor', with four milestone centenaries: the births of Mario Lanza (31 January), Franco Corelli (8 April) and Giuseppe Di Stefano (24 July) and the death of the greatest of them all, Enrico Caruso (2 August).
The Decca label has a long tradition of signing up tenors to their stable and is obviously pinning its hopes on De Tommaso being the latest in a long line going back to Del Monaco, Di Stefano, Bergonzi, Pavarotti et al. He is only 27 years old and, on this showing, is a singer of great promise: the voice is dark-toned and even a tad husky but evenly produced throughout its range, with some powerful top notes such as the high B which concludes “L’alba separa”, track 3 and the brave, sustained top C which forms the climax of “Dicitencello vuje”. Just occasionally they sound a bit windy, but his vibrato is perfect and doesn’t loosen as he goes up. He has taken pains to study and acquire an authentic Neapolitan dialect and obviously relishes the Italian lyrics – so it is a pity that Decca does not provide them for us to follow. I have read elsewhere criticism of his use of “unremitting forte”; that is not quite fair as he does employ some falsetto and softer singing – especially in the flowing “Fenesta che lucive”, understandably but mistakenly attributed to Bellini and, in any case, these are mostly not songs to be crooned. I am not sure, however, that concluding ppp top A on “Torna” is “Ideale” is entirely successful. He has clearly based his interpretative style on the forthright manner of his idol Franco Corelli as it can be heard in his EMI double fforte recital, for example, and if he doesn’t have quite the ring and squillo of his illustrious predecessor, or the ability to fine down his voice without losing body, who does?
“Sole e amore”, track 9, will come as a surprise to those unaware of how it was recycled in Puccini’s La bohème and is, to my mind, the best sung item in this recital. Another success, is Respighi’s “Nebbie”, sung with extraordinary weight and intensity, even if one fears that De Tommaso is close to forcing his voice and for purposes of comparison, I played Pavarotti’s version of “Nebbie” and we enter another world of both vocal beauty and interpretative nuance. The contrast with the following, softly sung “Ideale” could hardly be more striking, but that song reveals a weakness in De Tommaso’s armoury which is a lack of vocal variety and colour. The Mantovani hit song, “Cara mia” strikes me as banal but things look up with the last two songs, which are perhaps my favourite Neapolitans. Well performed as they are here, however, De Tommaso cannot compete with Carreras in his prime, whose youthful voice was of such outstanding beauty that it puts all others in the shade. His recitals made with much lighter orchestral accompaniment from the ECO between 1978 and 1980 for Philips, Pavarotti’s song albums for Decca and Corelli’s EMI recording mentioned above all permit us to hear just what is missing in De Tommaso’s worthy account; there is simply so much more warmth, sunshine and elan in their voices. Perhaps such comparisons are unfair but I would not be reviewing honestly if I did not point to what moves and delights me more than the recording under consideration.
The orchestral accompaniments from the LPO are indeed lush and even a little soupy but this is music which can take that treatment and conductor Renato Balsadonna is most accommodatingly flexible towards his soloist, giving him all the time in the world to indulge in the full gamut of rallentando and rubato the idiom demands. The Producer’s note explains that for this album arrangements by such as those made by Cecil Milner for Pavarotti and Del Monaco in their own recordings for Decca in a similar repertoire have been recreated to conjure up a period feeling. That shimmering string sound is of course typical of Mantovani and it is certainly atmospheric, even if at times I could do without the corny mandolin being so prominent, and a little less orchestral swooping and sliding.
The trilingual notes provide brief but adequate background for each of the songs. At just over fifty-three minutes, this is rather short-measure by modern standards and it is a pity that there are no texts. I also wonder why the cover and booklet have used photographs which uniformly depict De Tommaso frowning and glowering; presumably they want to project an image of smouldering, passionate intensity, as per the title of the album, but I find it faintly comical.
Ralph Moore
Contents
1. Carlo Innocenzi: Addio, sogni di gloria (arr. Mancini)
2. Paolo Tosti: Marechiare (arr. Chiaramello)
3. Paolo Tosti: L'alba sepàra dalla luce l'ombra (transcr. Hazell)
4. Arturo Buzzi-Peccia: Lolita (arr. Milner)
5. Eduardo De Capua: I' te vurria vasà (orch. Negri)
6. Rodolfo Falvo: Dicitencello vuie! (orch. Negri)
7. Ernesto Tagliaferri & Nicola Valente: Passione (orch. Negri)
8. Guglielmo Cottrau (attrib. Bellini): Fenesta che lucive (arr. Balsadonna)
9. Giacomo Puccini: Sole e amore (orch. Quagliarini)
10. Giacomo Puccini: Mentìa l'avviso (orch. Quagliarini)
11. Ottorino Respighi: Nebbie (orch. Respighi /Di Vittorio)
12. Paolo Tosti: Ideale (arr. Mercurio)
13. Ruggero Leoncavallo: Mattinata (orch. Luck)
14. Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (as Tulio Trapani) & Lee Lange (Bunny Lewis): Cara mia
(arr. Mantovani)
15. Salvatore Cardillo: Core 'ngrato (arr. Milner)
16. Stanislao Gastaldon: Musica proibita (arr. Milner)
