The commented Björling discography that I mentioned above (with more than 100 sound examples!) is back online on www.historicaltenors.net (--> Scandinavian tenors --> Jussi Björling --> commented discography).

There is none such recording. The publication of reference in such cases is Daniele Godor's exhaustive commented Björling discography, published on the tenor website that was once run by Francois Nouvion; but since Nouvion is dead and the site is currently in the process of reconstruction, that Björ...

I don't concur with the notion of a "decline of interest" in opera. On the contrary, interest in opera is as (socially and geographically) widespread as never before in history. And that (I hate to say so as a fierce advocate of democracy and hence of the dissemination of culture, of education and o...

Smirnov was indeed superb in French repertoire (above all in Les pêcheurs de perles, not only in Russian but even more so in his 1920 Italian version of Je crois entendre encore), as was Antonina Nezhdanova (or are we talking exclusively about tenors here?), but I wouldn't go as far as claiming that...

Frankly, I don't find it so odd that nobody has anything to say about Kaufmann: there is in fact not much to say about him. He is a decent tenor with a distinctive timbre but very unremarkable vocal and interpretative skills, and the size of his voice is totally insufficient for the roles that he si...

LaGioconda is right, the second Youtube version linked here is in correct speed, the first one is not.
Generally spoken, all de Lucia speed issues have long and definitely been solved - Christian Zwarg's complete de Lucia edition is the know-all-end-all version of each of his recordings.

Thank you nonetheless, Vlamgat.

But no one seems to be interested in it. Oh well, I certainly am. Other than thanking you for your interesting account on Khromchenko, here is a really tough question about rare & unknown Soviet singers (would perhaps deserve a separate thread, but since I have you here, Vlamgat, here we go): who t...

Not sure, either, what you mean, onions; but beyond doubt, the Vanzo recording is no good example of mezza voce. Actually, it's no example at all: Vanzo IS singing falsetto, totally unable to achieve mezza voce, which is of course very difficult. To understand mezza voce, you always have to go to Ma...

1. Libiamo, libiamo
2. Libiamo, libiamo
3. Libiamo, libiamo

No concert with more than one singer involved can do without "Libiamo, libiamo". Everybody is singing it, bassos, baritones, mezzo-sopranos... just as if there was no other imaginable encore in all operatic literature.