Four operas, four tenors

All the operas I'd seen so far were by the same composer, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). His operas are pretty much cornerstones of the repertory. Tosca (premiered 1900) and Madam Butterfly (1904) are still performed in opera houses around the world. He began to make his name with his third opera, Manon Lescaut (1893), but it was his fourth opera, La Boheme, (1896) that really cemented his reputation. (Turandot was his last opera, uncompleted when he died.)

La Boheme (Bohemian life) tells the story of four artist friends living together in a garret in Paris. Based on a novel by Henri Murger, it has itself inspired a musical, Rent, and its combination of tragedy and comedy has ensured that it is one of the most popular operas in the world. Boy meets girl: Rodolfo meets Mimi, and inevitably in opera terms, tenor meets soprano. In his aria of introduction, Che gelida manina (What a cold little hand or known more poetically as Your tiny hand is frozen), Rodolfo introduces himself to Mimi.

And here to sing it are four of our now familiar tenors: Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Giacomo Aragall.

Welcome to the blog!

One may as well begin with some autobiography...

I wasn't brought up on opera or classical music; I was a Motown child. But I remember classical music being played as I went in to school assemblies and from there learnt the names of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Holst.

I always liked the sound that an orchestra made and thought I might be responsive to opera. But the problem was always where to start. Who was who and what was what? Hopefully, this blog will help answer some of those questions for you.

The big breakthrough came in 1990, when The Three Tenors (Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti) gave a concert in Rome. From the concert, two arias by Puccini from his opera Tosca stood out. There was the way in. I received a video of Tosca as a Christmas present, then moved on to other Puccini operas, borrowing recordings from the library and reading the inlays for further information and guidance.