After that Nessun Dorma, it is entirely possible that no one who heard it would ever sleep again.

My ears were bleeding while hearing that last guy sing Nessun Dorma. I'm sure Puccini's descendants are happy that he's dead and did not live long enough to hear this man kill one of his masterpieces.

The great singers are not machines even with cracks they are great !!!

I'm a professional pianist, and I say shame on that accompanist for not catching Caruso! Were they that bad, or just trying to prove a point?? I've even dragged pit orchestras with me to save a singer's mistake

I love Tebaldi as much as I love Callas. They were never boring and had so much passion and such powerful voices. They were wild and sometimes they messed up and that's part of it all. Not these fake, woofy and plastic opera singers of today... might as well live in the past.

The Cesar Suarez Puritani disaster was in San Francisco, not at the Met. I was unfortunately backstage when it happened. Beverly Sills nearly dropped her teeth.

And as if that Nessun Dorma singer was bad enough, who was that woman howling along in the background?? Unbelievable, and unforgettable....

Martinelli is hilarious - he must have known the opera backwards so God knows what he had been drinking - I just love the way the baritone valiantly keeps to the score until at one point he seems to give up in astonishment.

Funny things happen live on stage as you well know. I've sung a lot of Bohemes. Almost everyone had a diaster. Musetta fell through the bottom of a cane chair during her waltz. Marcello fell though a platform that was was set upside down. We had a fire on the table during Schunard's little song. Lot's of people forgot the music or the words. In Barber as Basilio my Bartolo just walked off stage during our recit scene leaving me alone on stage to improvise. He'd forgotten the key.

If in doubt.. just sing Der Ring

08:56 he holds this note as if he just doesn't want to go on to the finish...wishing he could disappear.

I somehow admire Cesar Suarez. Joan Sutherland once said, we need to have faith in the high notes during performance, instead of singing it over and over again in the warmup. Pavarotti also said, before the high note was out, he was never sure whether it is going to be there. Maybe Cesar Suarez should have thought more about whether that was a good occasion to 'test' the note. But he definitely had the note. Otherwise he wouldn't have sung it. If he wanted to sing it he had no choice but to just sing it. The high note is never ready. It just has to be sung or it will only stay in the practice room.

I can actually forgive the vocal mishaps, but the Helmut Lotti's Nessun dorma was atrocious! What's worse is that the audience loved it.

Gracias por tu compilación. Nos recuerda que todos somos humanos. Todos tenemos fallas y al nivel de grandes cantantes un pequeño desliz se convierte en algo grande. Gracias y cada día amo más a la ópera.

I just stumbled upon a recording where Olvis sings Cavaradossi and Tosca's love duet, also in baritone key. I remembered this Martinucci excerpt in the exact moment. I had a good chuckle.

I heard Suarez in Puritani at SF Opera. He had tried the F at the opening performance. He hadn't rehersed it. It was his little surprise. He missed it - let out a strange schriek - that reduced Sills and the chorus and orchestra to shambles. He was not asked back. Martinucci is in good company. I heard McCracken lose his voice twice (Otello), Pavarotti and Domingo once each (Lucia and Pagliacci).

I pretty much totally forgave Caruso's Tosca flub decades ago. Gotta remember that he personally knew Puccini and created the role of Mario Cavaradossi. In fact, when he first sang for Puccini, the composer asked if God had sent him. The aria was new back then, not the well-worn warhorse it is today.

I hate hearing Tebaldi sounds so bad when she was so good.

Quello che più non comprendo è come certa gente possa applaudire e, soprattutto, perché vada ad ascoltare una forma d'arte di cui non capisce assolutamente niente. Ma è mai possibile che qualcuno possa trovare godimento assistendo ad uno spettacolo di cui non ha la minima comprensione? Questo è davvero drammatico. Se questo pubblico ascoltasse in sequenza Corelli e Lotti applaudirebbe tutti e due allo stesso modo. Anzi temo che, qualora Corelli cantasse qualcosa di poco conosciuto e Lotti la propria riscrittura del Nessun Dorma, applaudirebbero di più Lotti. Roba da pazzi. Povero mondo.

I wonder why everyone thinks they can sing Nessum Dorma. I don't want to hear it at all any more.

Call me crazy but I actually like Suarez's "high F". It sounds like some kind of strange jazz vocal.

Oh my goodness, I feel like a horrible person, but Suarez' Puritani F is hilarious ahhh

For experts in Italian: what does "WOA WOA WOAAA WOAAA" mean in this special edition libretto of Turandot?

No one notices your pain, your hurt and even your tears but everyone notices your mistakes!

Don't forget it was at the end of her career, she did very good in this opera compare to some singers of teday, Tebaldi was exciting on stage, i saw that performance myself at the Met, she was great and also she looked great.

Thanks for answering! Its quite sad when a singer doesn't know her/his limits... One thing is to have a bad performance because you are sick or something went out of normal conditions... Another completely different thing is to singing everything that comes to mind without any sense of what you are singing and it was the case... Just because the woman made some great albuns in the 60's and 70's it doesn't mean her vocal technique is good... It happens to perfectly fit Soul music, nothing more!

Tebaldi was great in the Poker scene. There is more than high notes in opera.

Well, Tebaldi, always had problems with the high C. It was a marvellous voice, but the best note was the high Bb, I think

Yes she was, You should have heard the audience when she said Tre Ace in paio - the audience went wild. Peoples knew that her top notes were not that great, but they did not care. I will never forget it. It was the greatest moment in my life.

The high F Suarez attempted (your example, at 5:31 in), during the 1977 San Francisco Opera production of this opera opposite Beverly Sills, was 10 times worse, funnier and more embarrassing than this. Being in the chorus then (and having a bootleg recording of it), I can tell you, we in the chorus were biting our tongues trying not to laugh, and I could swear Miss Sills's eyes crossed when he "skewered himself," according to the review in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I think everyone gets a pass on Puritani. Nobody can really be expected to be able to sing an F5. That said, it was clear from the sound of the preceding D that he should have just stuck with the D substitution.

You wanted to say, Lotti is totally unbearable. This is pure hell!

There are "cracks" Franco Corelli crack: Met’s Roméo et Juliette from Boston in the mid-seventies, where he cracked on his high B-flat. Back in the 70's when his voice declined. Jussi Bjorling has also, read Mario Lanza: Singing To The Gods By Derek Mannering, when Lanza saw Bjorling and he cracked horribly stopped the orchestra and did the piece over. Lanza loved Bjorling. IT was Di Quella Pira. Cracking is not always about technique, it could be the person is tired, they have a cold etc

Thanks so much for posting this compilation, I totally enjoyed it, though I really wish that Villazon recovers. I agree, Lotti is killingly funny!

Oh, it must have been so exciting listen to her live. Good for you. Greatings.

Lotti turned Nessun Dorma into a night club ballad.

I once sang O sole mio to some friends, in the street and when I attempted the high note is was like: 'ma naaaa ... big crack!!! (everybody laughing at me) ... aaaa tu sole! They were super stoned, but still they realized how fucked up that was So I won't ever sing something out of my reach

That totally drunk Carmen was beyond repair.....

Why is Netrebko a star? It must be her looks, because it certainly isn't her singing.

Jajaja, que ida de pinza más estratosférica la de Caruso. Él, erre que erre y el pianista, más, como si le diera gustito dejar bien clara la metedura de pata del cantante. ¿Cómo lo conservaron?

Another appalling phenomenon about those singers who are not opera singers attempting to sing opera, is that after such atrocious renderings, the audiences go wild with applause.

The Nessun Dorma was terrible, none can deny it, but I think the problem was that Helmut tried to sing "Classical Music" with a "popular voice" and not a "lyric voice" so he was like puting a cube in the shape of a triangle that's all. Pretty much already eh?

It means that there is no recording of that. And I'm certainly not going to read a book on Lanza - please provide the complete date instead. What was the year?

Wow, poor Tebaldi! And what to say about Netrebko, will someone tell her she just doesn't have that High E?! it's always a wreck when she tries it

To be fair, that Caruso record wasn’t sold during his lifetime.

I'm curious to hear what you would enclose of those two.

Calleja ist ein sehr guter Tenor. Er hat bei der Lucia-Vorstellung in Berlin keinerlei Schwierigkeiten gehabt, die Rolle - ohne zu schreien und schön singend - kraftvoll durchzustehen. So etwas ist eher selten. Man wird sich wohl damit abfinden müssen, dass bei jedem Sänger die Meinungen geteilt sind. Was ich nicht nachvollziehen kann, ist diese unglaubliche Aggressivität und Arroganz einiger Musikliebhaber, die davon überzeugt sind, die alleinige Wahrheit zu verkünden.. Kervineus

we may all have a bad night.....but what were some of these thinking. As per Lott and the Nessun Dorma..... I HAD to turn this off.

Actually, Bjoerling cracks the high C in the commercial recording of Butterfly with de los Angeles. The engineers simply brought out the brass to cover it, but you can hear it nonetheless...additionally, Bjoerling rarely sang high Cs in public. He transposed a lot...

Thanx 2 the author, the great job has done, a very interesting research, really. The only thing 2 criticize is, in my opinion, that u shouldn't have put there Tebaldi because many singers, even great ones can't walk away in time and go on till such moments despite they can't cheat with a nature. The line loss by Tito Gobbi and Caruso was interesting but wasn't really necessary either among the horror of untuned singing and vocal weaknesses. Special thanx 4 your comments on Netreb and Villa.

I have a Rigoletto from St. Louis in the 40s? with a local talent as Gilda, who loses her place in the Quartet, making all the wheels fall off. The conductor had to stop them and get them started again midway through

I think I need to go listen to Bastianini or Zancanaro in order to wash that Tito Gobbi out of my brain at 3:05

There is no recording of that performance. Hence, there is no crack of Björling in "Di quella pira" on record. Harald Henrysson has written an extensive book on Björling's recordings (commercial and private) after a lifetime of research. There is no such recording.

Caruso simply didn't know the music yet. You might want to draw a distinction between those who sang badly on one occasion and those who always sang badly. I consider Martinelli one of the latter. He typically sour, stiff and pinched. people forget how he became famous. The Depression hit and the Met couldn't match the fees that were paid in Italy. Gigli went back but Martinelli stayed. He became the leading tenor at the Met or the most cost-effective. Gobbi is simply running out of support. That's a high phrase that goes higher. If it weren't for that phrase I could have sung Scarpia (I'm a bass). Gobbi never had good high notes. Martinucci was a great singer in an old fashion kind of way. He was a great Calaf. He was probably the best dramatic Italian tenor after Corelli and Del Monaco retired. He had froggies that day. BTW I heard Domingo and Pavarotti do worse live. See enough performance and even the most reliable singers will have a bad day. Tebaldi lost her voice, as I remember, about 1965. She came back to the Met doing Lecouveur but it was never the same. I heard her is a solo recital about this time with Corelli. When the line got high Corelli step in front of her and cover her voice. Everyone in the hall heard what was going on but everyone loved her. I don't know why you say Saurez made a famous bad high F in New York. He made a really really bad High F in San Francisco. I saw him at a subsequent performance. He was undoubtedly the worst singer on stage I have ever seen. It was Puritani so there were lots of high notes. Saurez would flounce about until there was a high note. He would then stop and point up with his finger. He had interpolated the High F in the opening night performance as a surprise to the conductor and Beverly Sills. He missed it badly and let out a kind of shriek yodel. Sills got rattled and the performance fell apart.

Villazon is such a sad case...:/

Every voice has its ups and downs....

@AfroPoli just curious wht to u mean by a plastic tenor? =)

Saw and heard Lotti in a concert and was amazed that even when he sang bad, he still sang better then a lot of other singers I know. Since then, i´m a big fan but you are absolutely right! he should stick to the stuff he is good at. Nessun Dorma isn´t one of them ...

Hasta los grandes caen.

yes in rubini's time notes above the staff were sing in unsupported falsetto or voix mix

Many people says Di Stefano had not technique, but i never heard him cracking like this nor anything similar (And i listened ALL his available recordings of live opera and concerts...)

Oh My God!! The Othello!! I may never recover!!

Martinelli was 63 when he performed this....clearly past his best years....give the guy a break....did you know that he sang a Tristan in German with Flagstad in Chicago ...1931 I think...Flagstad was SUPER impressed and urged him to keep singing the role. He really looked the part. Probably the best looking Tristan she ever worked with.

One sidelight of this collection is that it introduced me to Friedrich Dahlberg, whom I had not heard before.

Don’t care what anyone says Caruso was in error that’s all and the only time ever to be heard by me. Singers are human let’s not put ourselves on pedestals thinking we could do better professionally especially when we’re not. I never saw a record being sold or a concert ticket to hear Afro Poli did you ?

Tebaldi might have lost some notes by 1970 but her c. 1960 recording of Minnie in TGotGW was straight up stellar! I'm not sure if extra takes were required to get it there but it sure sounded pretty decent!

As I was pratising, my teacher sometimes would say I was as flat as a pizza. I guess the same applies to Helmut Lotti. And I might be bashed for saying this: Don't call yourself a cross-over singer unless you have sung at least one opera live.

I think the only one we can forgive is Helmut Lotti,he is not an opera singer and so one cannot expect him to sound like one. The others (being proper opera singers) should know better,and I hope they learn by their mistakes,but somehow I doubt it. Thank You AfroPoli for posting this funny(at times) horrifying(more) but always entertaining video. I am off now to look at your other posts.

Joge Lagunes is a mexican tenor (son of an opera tenor with a beautiful voice, the firts Snow White prince for the Dinsey Movie in spanish) who had to change to baritone roles because technique problems. May be Mr. Villazon could consider this like an option for himself too!

A parte tutti i crack...il nessun dorma è improponibile per una voce di musica leggera!

Nothing, which was precisely my point, unless there lurks some secret recorded disaster the public is unaware of. Corelli's studio 'out-takes', which he did not want released, proved to be perfect in every sense when finally out. It is also said of Ponselle (perhaps this is even a Callas quote) that she never gave a less than perfect performance.

Per rispetto di sé, dell'Autore, del pubblico, quand'è indisposto il cantante non dovrebbe cantare.

Netrebko showed huge promise. She sang Ludmilla in San Francisco when she was just 18. In rehearsal she sang her 'awakening from trance' line while sitting up from fully supine. She pulled it off in rehearsal and the blocking was left in place...but every performance there was a glitch.

Yikes, I can' t stop the bleeding from my ears !

@rockmanx23 hey Got on stage and sang their all. Mistakes happen, and as much as everyone hates Netrebko on here, I've seen her live, she sings beautifully. She makes mistakes. I've heard plenty of people crash on stage that nail it %100 of the time in the rehearsal room. It happens.

That “Nessun Dorma” though… 😳 I have to assume that this was some guy after a few drunken hours at a karaoke bar who, instead of attempting to sing “The Rose”, chose to put THAT out into the world. I also must assume the mournful wailing “obligato” was his drunken mistress. The whole stinking pile of steaming hot mess was uncalled for.

Martinelli in all fairness was shot by then. I saw Bardelli in Philly in 1977 as Il Conte in Il Trovatore

I love Vincent at the end so funny

that Nessun Dorma makes me laugh a lot.

As I mentioned Jussi cracked horribly in Di Quella Pira "Mario Lanza: Singing To The Gods By Derek Mannering," I think in modern times, the tenors are more recorded, people have tape recorders, and its more difficult. All things considered though, the "crack count" is not really all that high when you stop and think how many performances there were.

To William Morris - your remark was hilarious!

Afropoli, I admire your keen ear for operatic catastrophes. In all fairness, you should also present the atrocities committed by today's pop stars. Average audiences are either deaf or their hearing has been genetically modified to consider out-of-tune singing, nasal timbers, poor diction, raspy voices, feeble voice projections, and pathetic embellishment (or note smears) as characteristics of phenomenal artistry.

i don't understand the mistake of Caruso?!?!? someone can help me??? please

Just goes to prove....even the Greatest can have a Bad Day!

No effin with Calleja! I guess the man might not be perfect but God I saw him in the ROH twice; in 2009 as Alfredo in La Traviata, last summer in Simon Boccanegra. He has such a beautiful voice, a very warm timbre and a quality I hardly hear but with for example older Di Stefano recordings (being able to sound introvert and soft like heaven), and such emotion! He got more ovation than Placido! And he deserved it. Some stuff might not be his repertoire though, he can't handle too high.

holy crap that was terrible... helmut jumped to like a E at the end... and it was flat. thanks for the video!

Some of them sound like Danny Kaye singing "mock" opera. lol

Lo que es tener un buen agente!!!!!!! Calleja hace 40 años no hubiese cantado ni "la cena è pronta".

From 5:05 to 5:11 - I thought I was listening to Florence Foster Jenkins..LOL!

Para un o una cantante de Opera simplemente son anecdotas fastidiosas que carecen de importancia ya que hacen sonar el instrumento más dificil que existe y en Vivo, el aficionado verdadero no le da importancia. Lo conocido de el Gran Caruso fue un despiste quizas provocado por la estricta duracion de los discos de 78 RPM . No importa una nota, importa la trayectoria de estos fantasticos artistas.

@AfroPoli You are missing the Greatest operatic distaster Ever by a non-operatic singer: Aretha Franklin singing Nessun Dorma at the 1998 Grammy Awards! I only knew she sung it because she was apparently very proud of it in an interview... My question is that HOW did the Grammys allowed her to attempt that?? I have a Lot of respect for Aretha singing Soul at her prime, But she is one of those Huge Ego singers that thinks she can sing Everything! Plus her prime ended more than 30 years ago! :/

Tebaldi's Girl of the Golden West was one of the most exciting nights at the Met.. Even at the end of her career she gave it everything. But some of these singers should have just said 'Not tonight'.

He was quite old here, I believe. His career was nering its end when the two Otello recordings were made. Who knows what problems...memory etc.

Your voice gives out & you have to keep singing, just to keep the performance going forward.

Helmut Lotti : Opera :: Mona Lisa keychain : The Mona Lisa

Non opera singers trying to sing opera and murdering it? Try Michael Bolton.

@XP11XP Calleja is what we call a plastic tenor.

You know not to be rude or anything by budding in, but I remember hearing this from somewhere as well, years ago, I think the story is true if I recall and in those days the media didn't always like to report such things. You would know though, if they didn't go into to much detail about an important aria or note. I didn't realize it was also in a book on Mario Lanza.

Why does Netrebko sing roles she cannot sing? (see also part 2 of this Perle Nere compilation). Ridiculous. And for Villazon: his voice is so beautiful, he has a very nice timbre but seriously, although I am not an expert, I can agree on the "technique is killing his voice"-statement.