There's a tear in your eye, and I'm wondering why,for it never should be there at all.With such pow'r in your smile, sure a stone you'd beguile,so there's never a teardrop should fall.When your sweet lilting laughter'slike some fairy song,and your eyes twinkle bright as can be,you should laugh all the whileand all other times smile,and now smile a smile for me. . . .
by KenIn the cruelly aborted audio clip above, everyone knows what's coming next, right? After all, it is perhaps the signature song of this great tenor. And a great tenor he indisputably was; we're going to hear a couple of other selections in a moment.CAN YOU GUESS THE "TEN GREAT [VICTOR] SINGERS"?The selection comes from a five-LP RCA Victor reissue set called Ten Great Singers, from about 1960, with one side devoted to each of the ten. My copy is incredibly beat up, which reflects not just its age but the fact that it got taken out and played from a lot over the earlier years of my listening. (I honestly don't recall whether I had anything to do with its acquisition. It may simply have been one of the few classical items in the family LP collection, since my mother had been an opera fan. I may just have appropriated it when I began collecting -- heck, I was the only one listening to the stuff.)Anyway, if you'd care to try to guess who the "Ten Great Singers" in this c1960 historical anthology were, I can tell you that the male-female distribution is even, and breaks down to: 5 sopranos, 3 tenors, 1 baritone, and 1 bass. And while they were indeed all Victor artists, that doesn't narrow it down for you all that much.Now I promised you would hear a little more of our featured artist. Let's start with an aria we've heard a lot, most recently here.DONIZETTI: L'Elisir d'amore: Act II, "Una furtiva lagrima" ("A furtive tear")
A furtive tearwelled up in her eye.Those carefree girlsshe seemed to envy.Why should I look any further?She loves me, yes, she loves me.I can see it, I can see it.To feel for just one momentthe beating of her dear heart!To blend my sighsfor a little with hers!Heavens, I could die;I ask for nothing more.I could die of love.-- English translation by Kenneth Chalmers
Now here's an English-language version of a lovely Rachmaninoff song.RACHMANINOFF: "O cease thy singing, maiden fair," Op. 4, No. 4 (in English) IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTThe answers, of course, and more music.#