Giordani

One of the good things about YouTube is that it allows you to check out singers you may be unfamiliar with.

This clip from William Tell is my first view of Marcello Giordani. Not many tenors can do this music at all and he makes a great stab at it. William Tell is a crossroad in opera, a place where opera completely changes directions. One of the main events of the era was the change in the importance of the tenor in operatic repertoire, a change from second or third man to first man (primo uomo), accompanied by a change in the way in which tenors sing. Rossini wanted to show he could do it, but doesn't quite. The part is a bit too high with too many high C's for the tenor who sings in full chest. Giordani gives it a go, doing the part entirely in a reasonably heavy technique. Clearly Rossini only makes the transition about half way, a fact that he fully realized.