In opera, as in life, discretion can be the better part of valor. Last month the Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli announced that she was canceling her debut as Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, scheduled for next year. The reason? Her command of Russian isn’t good enough, as she candidly admitted: “After studying for more than a year, the language, alphabet, and pronunciation continue to elude my grasp. To hope for a ‘miracle’ can only put the production at risk.” Chicago’s Lyric Opera duly hired a native Russian singer to replace her, but will be hard-pressed to match Frittoli’s combination of warm tone, musicality, and striking good looks. These attributes can be seen on DVD’s of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater from EMI; of Puccini’s Turandot on TDK; and of Verdi’s Falstaff on Euroarts. Frittoli is not allergic to foreign languages per se. At a La Scala song recital this February, she sang some French music, but showed a clear preference for her native tongue by choosing vocal works in Italian, even rare ones written by Beethoven and Schubert.
Music fans have long grown resigned to hearing linguistic massacres like the Spanish tenor José Carreras’s singing of the all-American role of Tony in Bernstein’s West Side Story or the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne’s mangling of the French spoken dialogue in Bizet’s Carmen. The Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, in a recently reissued set of Romantic French Arias from Deutsche Grammophon, displays stunning platinum pipes, but scant attention to linguistic niceties.
Should listeners care about poor pronunciation? Mastering a language, being able to express emotion in a foreign idiom, is a challenge equal to singing the mere notes of any musical work. Some non-native speakers of French have become superb singers of the language, like the Texas-born mezzo-soprano Susan Graham in an unexpectedly idiomatic CD of music by Reynaldo Hahn on Sony. Or the British soprano Felicity Lott on an EMI Classics DVD of the Offenbach operetta La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein. The Japanese-born mezzo-soprano Mitsuko Shirai has mastered the German language completely, and her CD’s of lieder by Brahms, Schumann, etc., are widely considered among the most authoritative and exemplary recorded anywhere.
Singing with a distinct accent does not obviate real understanding of a language, as the British tenor Peter Pears’s performances as the Evangelist in Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion and in Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle, for instance, prove. Classical singers who downplay respect for a foreign idiom are sending out the wrong message to “crossover” pop superstars. Grating recent examples in the pop realm include the British soprano Sarah Brightman and tenor Michael Bolton, both of whom perform the Puccini aria “Nessun Dorma” with scant attention to the words they sing. All the more reason to cheer Barbara Frittoli’s resolve not to display her lack of expertise in Russian; would that more classical singers shared her high standards and capacity for self-criticism.
