Category: Opera

Tenor John Osborn has released a new disc of operatic arias on the Delos label, and it’s a beauty. While three of the four composers represented are Italian, all of the selections are sung in French. The operas from which the arias are culled were all associated with Gilbert Duprez (1806-1896), who has always been credited with inventing the “do di petto” (the high-C from the chest).

Mr. Osborn had an exciting success as Rodrigo di Dhu in Rossini’s LA DONNA DEL LAGO at The Met in 2015; his singing on the night I saw it really perked up a pleasing but rather staid evening. The new Delos album shows the tenor’s artistry to striking effect, and he receives admirable support from Maestro Constantine Orbelian, the Kaunas City Symphony, and – in Arnold’s great scène from GUILLAUME TELL – the Kaunas State Chorus.

The disc begins with two arias from JERUSALEM, the adaptation of his 1843 opera I LOMBARDI that Verdi made for Paris in 1847. The first of these, “Je veux encore entendre ta voix“, is a lilting melody so familiar in its Italian setting (“La mia letizia infondere“). The opera’s hero Gaston, captured and imprisoned while on the Crusade, sings of his longing for his far-away beloved Hélène. The aria is a perfect introduction to Mr. Osborn’s singing, which is graceful, poetic, and full of affecting colors. Dynamic control is this tenor’s long suit, and his beautifully tapered phrases fall sublimely on the ear. Maestro Orbelian conspires with the singer to conjure up some lovely rubato effects, and the first Duprez-like foray to the top is really impressive. Mr. Osborn finishes off the aria with an easy ascent to a ringing high third before the final cadence. 

The second JERUSALEM selection is less well-known: “Ô mes amis, mes frères d’armes“, in which Gaston, wrongly accused of murder, pleads with his comrades-in-arms to end his dishonored life. One again, Mr. Osborn shows a heartfelt mastery of mood, shading his singing with a sense of vulnerability. For all the drama of the situation, the tenor’s vocalism is wonderfully fragrant, most especially at the phrase “Je pleure, hélas, comme une femme…”

The first of the disc’s four Donizetti arias is next: the poignant “Ange si pur” from LA FAVORITE. Fernand, on the eve of his marriage to his beloved Leonor, learns that she has been the mistress of the king. He seeks refuge in a monastery where he recalls his brief happiness and laments the shattering of his dream. Mr. Osborn’s rendering of this aria ranks with the best I have heard: imbuing his singing with such sweet sadness, the tenor astonishes with his ascent to the aria’s treacherous high-C. A remarkable cadenza and the singer’s spectacular mastery of the dynamic spectrum left me in a state of awe.

LES MARTYRS was Donizetti’s French treatment of his opera POLIUTO, a story of Christian martyrdom which met with censorship just before its Italian premiere in 1838. Withdrawing from the fray, the composer moved to Paris and revised the opera specifically for Gilbert Duprez. In the aria “Oui, j’irai dans leur temple“, the Christian leader Polyeucte vows to go to the Roman temple to fulfill a vow of faith, despite the promise of martyrdom. The aria is a statement of resolve and a call to action; with God’s protection, Polyeucte will cast down the Roman idols. Mr. Osborn delivers it magnificently, reveling in the Duprez-inspired high notes and ending in thrilling fashion.

Inexplicably, I have never listened to Hector Berlioz’s epic BENVENUTO CELLINI all the way thru; this makes no sense, as the composer’s TROYENS, BEATRICE ET BENEDICT, La Captive, and the magical Les nuits d’été are among my all-time favorite works. In the two CELLINI arias which John Osborn includes on his disc are so cordially sung that my curiosity to hear the full opera is now piqued (though finding the time will be another matter…) 

“La gloire était ma seule idole” finds the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini anticipating the arrival of his beautiful mistress Teresa. This expressive aria begins over a delicate accompaniment but soon blooms into a paean to the artist’s beloved. John Osborn brings a delicious feeling of tenderness to his singing here. The second verse is more extroverted, and ends with a prayer that heaven may protect Teresa, and protect their love. Here Mr. Osborn does some of his most affecting singing in an already-affecting program.

The second CELLINI aria, “Sur les monts, les plus sauvages” is this disc’s ‘secret treasure’. It begins with a very Berliozian introduction leading to a pensive recitative in which we can again savour John Osborn’s gift for colour and verbal acuity. As the drama builds, Cellini rails against his destiny as an artist. When the aria proper begins, the sculptor longs for the life of a simple shepherd; herein, Mr. Osborn treats us to  beautifully sustained and reflective singing with a deliciously plaintive quality. The music becomes slightly more restless, and I am put in mind of Hylas’s lovely aria of longing for his homeland: “Vallon sonore” from LES TROYENS. In the second verse of Cellini’s aria, Mr. Osborn’s vocal control is so impressive, and the music’s rising passion brings us some superbly sustained notes and the singer’s congenial flexing of his dynamic muscles. The aria’s conclusion is superbly rendered.

From Donizetti’s LUCIE DI LAMMERMOOR, we have Edgard’s great final aria of lament for his ill-fated love for Lucie; here given in the “Duprez/French” setting as “Bientôt l’herbe des champs croîtra“, the desolate young man awaits a duel with Lucie’s brother among the graves of his forefathers. 

Though it may seem like an over-abundance of praise, I must again remark on Mr. Osborn’s fascinating account of this very familiar scene, for he begins the opening recitative “Tombs of my ancestors…” in an incredibly hushed piano, and his sense of exquisite grief is palpable; his despair over his thwarted love draws us in deeply. A plangent swelling of the tone marks at the recitative conclusion marks Edgard’s hapless expression of longing for death.

The aria proper is awash with heartbreak, the tenor’s phrasing so persuasive, ravishing in its eloquence. The concluding cadenza is nothing less than fabulously passionate, yet Mr. Osborn then sinks the voice to a sustained delicacy before a final expression of hopelessness. Masterful!

In Donizetti’s DOM SEBASTIEN, the title character is the king of Portugal. Following a devastating battle against the Moors, he stands alone on the battlefield, surrounded by the dead of both armies, and longs for the consoling sight of his beloved. With its atmospheric harp introduction, the aria is unusually lovely for it’s sad setting. Mr. Osborn’s phrasing is elegiac, and his meshing of the top note into the fabric of the melody is so skillfully handled. The cadenza here again left me in a state of true admiration for the singer.

The program concludes with the GUILLAUME TELL scene in which Arnold summons his courage – and that of his Swiss countrymen – to throw off the yoke of the cruel Austrian governor Gessler. Constantine Orbelian and his players set the scene in the melancholy introduction, and Mr. Osborn commences the recitative’s “Do not abandon me, hope of revenge” with sublime softness. 

A GISELLE-like motif sets the aria proper – Asile héréditaire – on its way, with John Osborn’s easy ascents to the high range impressively handled. The melody expands in breadth before a gentle reprise; the tenor’s tender coloration of the phrase “…pour le derniere fois…” is yet another moment to savour. Then comes the fiery cabaletta, “Amis! Amis, secondez ma vengeance!“, an irresistible call to arms which Mr. Osborn ends on a triumphantly sustained high-C.

To say that this new Delos offering pleased me greatly would be an under-statement. Perhaps the highest praise I can give is to say that the disc joins my long-time favorite tenor collections – Carlo Bergonzi’s first Decca album and Luciano Pavarotti’s all-Donizetti program – to form a triumvirate of tenor trophies which I will turn to often.        

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Gilbert Duprez (above), the tenor who inspired the new Delos disc, was born in Paris in 1806, studied there, and made his operatic debut at the Odéon in 1825. When his career failed to develop, he sought greener pastures in Italy and was most successful there in Bellini’s IL PIRATA. In 1831, at Lucca, Duprez sang Arnold in the Italian-language premiere of Rossini’s GUGLIELMO TELL and stunned the audience by introducing a high-C from the chest (as opposed to the falsetto approach to top notes which was then the custom). Thenceforth, the tenor’s Italian career burgeoned, including the premiere of Donizetti’s LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR in 1835.

Duprez returned in triumph to Paris in 1837 and became a great favorite of Parisian audiences. But by 1844, his voice was beginning to decline, and by 1851 he had stopped singing. It was thought that, despite his revolutionizing of a new sound to high notes, his overall technique was insufficiently grounded.

He lived on to the grand old age of 90.