Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Cesare Siepi is dead

When I heard on the radio that Cesare Siepi had died, I thought...wait...he was still alive?

Amusing as that is--to me, anyway--it's not meant to make light of him. In fact, it exposes something quite positive - Siepi was one of the finest bass voices of the recorded era, so fine that I associate him inexorably with that near-superhuman class of voice which essentially ceased to exist after the 1960's. In short, most everyone with a voice of that caliber is long dead!

Consider his Mozart -



Talk about Chiaroscuro! And...his Rodgers and Hammerstein?



...it's pretty awesome too. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

RIP, signore Siepi.

No comments: