Opera Scotland

Celebrity Concert 1958Victor Hochhauser

Read more about the opera Recital

A few months earlier, Mario Lanzo gave a concert in Glasgow.  A second Glasgow appearance as part of this tour, is to be confirmed.

Full details of the programmes also to be confirmed.

 

Victor Hochhauser presents

MARIO LANZA

Tenor

 

Constantine Calinicos    piano

 

Dundee Courier & Advertiser: Saturday, January 25 1958 (Library cuttings)

Mario Lanza to sing in Dundee        

'Mario Lanza, the film tenor, will include Dundee in his second tour of Britain in March.  During that month he will sing at 13 or 14 big halls and net a figure around the £30,000 mark.

'The Scottish dates are Edinburgh, 25^th; Caird Hall, Dundee, 27^th; and a probable return visit to Glasgow (23^rd). His recent tour, in which Glasgow had his only Scottish appearance, was a complete sell-out.

'Mr George Gill, concert booking manager with Larg and Sons, said last night that Lanza’s tour is being promoted by Mr Victor Hochhauser, who brought Gracie Fields to Dundee for the first time. The Lanza concert seats will range from 3s 6d to one guinea. Opening date for booking will be announced later.'

 

Dundee Evening Telegraph: Monday, March 24 1958 (cuttings p34) 

Lanza will sing

'Mario Lanza, the tenor, who cancelled his concert in Birmingham on Friday night due to bronchitis, will definitely appear in Caird Hall, Dundee, on Thursday this week, according to a statement today by Mr Victor Hochhauser, promoter of Lanza’s British tour.

'Mr George Gill, manager of the concert booking agency of Larg’s, Dundee, told the Evening Telegraph he had spoken to the promoter in London by phone this morning and received this assurance.

'About 2400 seats out of 3000 available in Caird Hall for the concert have been sold so far.'

 

Dundee Courier & Advertiser: Friday, March 28 1958 (cuttings p42)

Lanza Refuses calls for 'More' - Big Audience left waiting

The Mario Lanza concert in Caird Hall, Dundee, last night provided some shocks for the audience,  which was just a hundred or so short of the hall's 3000 capacity.

'To begin with, people were charged 1s 6d for the programme. Then the tenor appeared in an American-cut lounge suit and striped tie, informing the audience that he’d just got to the hall by automobile and his clothes (evening dress) were ‘still on the plane’. He came over from Rome at the beginning of the week. Later, his manager said he didn’t know when the clothes would catch up with them.

'The concert started 15 minutes late, because the party motored from Edinburgh by Perth. They were supposed to travel via Tay Ferries, but, said the manager, they thought they might not be able to get on the boat.

'The concert finished at 9.15. Lanza sang the 13 songs he was down to sing and not one more. At various times there were shouts from women in the audience for one or two of his film and recording favourites, but he gave no encores. The audience was left sitting waiting, clapping, and wondering. Mario finished his last song on the programme, blew a few kisses, and disappeared.

'Requests by reporters to see him in the artistes’ room afterwards were refused - for a time. His manager, asked if it wasn’t unusual for an artiste to decline interviews and to leave his audience without a reappearance, replied, ‘’Mr Lanza is an unusual man.’’

'Mario saw reporters for a few minutes. He declared he was feeling fine. His bad leg was giving no trouble, though he is wearing an elastic stocking. He had sung his full programme. He thought the Caird Hall’s acoustics were ‘’tremendous.’’

'He went out the back way into his car and several hundred people waiting in City Square were disappointed.  When he left he was still carrying two carnations which he had brought on the stage at one point of the concert.

 

Best with the stops out

'Not many famous tenors have sung in Caird Hall in 35 years – John McCormack, Tauber, Gigli – all wonderful voices of different types. It is difficult to type the voice of Mario Lanza, the ‘’film Caruso’’ along with these three. One could say he matched Gigli in power of voice – at times – but had not the beauty of tone characteristic of all three named.

His voice, art and personality are theatrical. He was at his best in impassioned melodies, with all the stops out, and vocal tricks of scoop and glide used to electrify the effect.

'Possibly many of the audience were disappointed there were not more popular numbers in his programme, but it was cleverly arranged to present Lanza as an operatic, ballad, and sentimental singer. If proof of versatility was the aim, it succeeded, because there was no doubt of his skill and agility in early and late Italianate arias.

'The well-known Puccini aria from Tosca – ‘E lucevan le stelle’, could be described as the popular operatic test. In this, Lanza sang the sensuous melodic phrases with compulsive power. As a test of vocal technique, a scampering Scarlatti came glibly off in Italian. In fact, eight of his thirteen songs were in Italian, that facile singing language, but he was artist enough easily to hold the attention. An entertainer, too, - his explanations of songs, jokes with the audience, struttings like a boxer entering the ring – showed his effervescent Latin temperament.

'Turning to the ballad type of song, he showed that he could sing and phrase an English test song artfully - if the theatrical gestures were treated with tolerance (“Tell me, o’ Blue Sky” by Giannini, and “The House on the Hill,” by Charles). In his Neapolitan songs (two by Tosti) he showed the volatility of temperament combined with force of tone which they need. The song from The New Moon – “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” proved of the most popular items towards the programme’s end.

'Constantine Calinicos, the pianist for Lanza, played Chopin competently and Debussy (“Clair de Lune”) sensitively during the singer’s breaks.'