Hi James. Thank you for you kind and very insightful comments. I agree with just about everything you said. For me, Sergio Franchi had the most supremely romantic voice of any tenor I have ever heard - live or on recording. Sergio did sing opera for a short period, in Italy and South Africa as you noted. I wholeheartedly agree with you as far as opera. Can you imagine him as Cavaradossi in TOSCA? The aria from his Cocoanut Grove recording is a brief but very convincing glimpse into what he might have done in opera. I don't think Sergio ever regretted his decision to move in the popular music idiom. I read an interview with him in which he said, and I think he was quite right, he would never have had the opportunity to make the amount of money in opera that he did in the concert and pop music world. Incidentally, I think the album SERGIO FRANCHI LIVE AT THE COCOANUT GROVE is without a doubt his finest album. Vocally he was in exceptionally top form and the electricity between Sergio and his audience is palpable throughout. I did see him in concert at the New Jersey State Fair in 1988 and he was terrific. And of course he sang "Core 'ngrato." He called it his "lucky song." Ciao!

Absolutely correct and Lanza was my total idol but Franci every bit as good if not better.

Your comments about Franchi are spot on. I would disagree with the tenor roles you mentioned. Cavaradossi yes, but Calaf or Canio, I don’t think so. Sergio, on the other hand, would have made an outstanding Romeo and Rodolfo. But that’s just my opinion. To hear what he could have done with Che Gelida Manina and Ah! Leve-toi, soleil would have been amazing.

@@marcgiardina4043 Sergio was a superb underrated opera singer, however, he was not better than Mario.

@@sherom Lol well idk I love them both !!!!!!!!!!Lanza was my favorite as a child.It's all good LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Bill! So glad you enjoyed the video. You are quite right, Sergio always included "Core 'ngrato" in his concerts. He called it his "lucky song." I saw Sergio in concert at the New Jersey State Fair back in the late 1980s. Such a wonderful talent, a complete artist in all ways. And yes, he died much too soon. A great loss. Ciao! - Tony

Yes Brian. He had it all; great looks, real acting ability and that voice! Sadly, Rudolf Bing, the GM of the Metropolitan Opera back in the 50s and 60s when Sergio cam on the scene, was a horrible snob and from all accounts not a very nice person. Anyway, he would not audition Sergio. He thought it beneath him and the MET to have opera singers that were also successful singing popular music. (By the way, it was the same situation with the magnificent soprano Eileen Farrell. But she told Bing where to stick it and that ended that. Eileen was singing Menotti's THE COUNSL when her jazz album came out, I GOTTA RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES). For me, Sergio Franchi had the most superbly romantic voice of any singer I have ever known. So very sad; he died at the premature age of 64 of a glioblastoma (brain tumor). All of his recordings are wonderful. But by far the greatest recording he ever made, in my opinion, was his LIVE AT THE COCOANUT GROVE. It's Sergio at his absolute best and the connection between him and the audience is electric. Ciao and Buon Natale! sergiofranchi.com/

@@TonyPartington Sergio Franchi was a fabulous singer. Sadly I have only come across him recently. Bing was a well-known ass-hole and Eileen Farrell put him in his place

Hi Rowlandph. I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. Yes, Sergio Franchi had a truly magnificent voice. For me, he had the most superbly romantic tenor voices of all time. I'm so glad I got to see him in concert before his very untimely death. I think you are right, the microphone was probably a boom mic above his head. One of the reasons I lke the Hollywood Palace performances is because the singers really did sing live and didn't hold a mic. The Hollywood Palace clearly used the finest sound technology available at the time. Here is a link to another Hollywood Palace performance I think is really terrific. It's Vikki Carr singing the beautiful "Quando caliente el Sol." Todays singers (i.e. Adele) would do well to study the vocal technique of Vikki Carr and Sergio Franchi. Perhaps if they sang properly, with the right support and vocal mix of the chest and head voice they wouldn't end up with vocal chord hemmorage and polyps. Ciao! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jteji5uotZuWfas.html

@@TonyPartington i don't hear any mixing in his voice. Mix voice is constricted.

He is not a pop singer. It is easy to hear that he was classically trained.

@@jenspflug7473 My point was that he had no career in classical vocal music.

Actually, Sergio did start a career - though a relatively brief one, early on - as an operatic tenor. Starting in the mid-1950's w/ operetta, and later singing grand opera lead roles in La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme and Rigoletto. Opera was his goal, but circumstances and opportunities provided him with an alternate path, and he took it. Seems like he certainly made a great choice, having a stupendous career!

You are correct sir. As anyone can see… the man is simply a dynamo. He finds the music deep within his soul and helps it to find expression so that the universe then reverberates with wonder & joy.

You are quite right about Mario Lanza being "the real goods." But you are in error when you state that Sergio Franchi was not opera material. Indeed, he sang opera successfully, in South Africa and in Italy. It is not just my opinion but that of others - not the least of these the late soprano Anna Moffo - that Sergio Franchi could have done well in opera and at the Metropolitan. It was the prudish and dictatorial Rudolf Bing who ultimately kept Franchi from singing at the Met. Bing couldn't stand opera singers performing anything but opera. An excellent example of this is the late soprano Eileen Farrell. As you may already know, Farrell had a very successful career singing Jazz all the while performing lead roles at the Met. Her album I'VE GOT A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES (1959) was vastly successful, much to the chagrin and frustration of Rudolf Bing. While Bing may be remembered for certain positives at the Met (during Bing's tenure the Met's artist roster became integrated for the first time. Marian Anderson became the first African American to sing a leading role in 1955) he was, to all accounts a tyrant, bully and elitist. I doubt that that bothered Sergio Franchi very much as he banked his millions earned by record sales and concert performances which commanded top dollar. In all events, comparisons are odious and what sounds like an operatic voice to you may not to me - and conversely. As for the tenor you mention, Mike Scarpelli, I was unable to find any recordings (live or studio) to listen to and form an opinion.

@@TonyPartington Thank you for your thoughtful reply. You won't find Mike Scarpelli anywhere except in the memories of some Bay area old timers. Everyone who ever heard him was very impressed. He was the guy that everyone was always taking about. I knew about him from singing in various operas and operettas. You would hear him being discussed by other cast members. But he was often kicked out of productions because he totally screwed up the show. He not only couldn't read music - he couldn't sing with anyone else. He was the master of the random entrance in ensembles. So if he was doing a trio or quartet he would come in randomly wherever he thought he should. Since he didn't listen to anyone else he was all over the place. He sang Italian songs with a guitar and everyone was amazed - literally just stunned. But he couldn't sing with others or an orchestra. He was the talk of the West Coast Met auditions one year. He was so much better than the tenor who won that year and sang leads at SF opera for several subsequent seasons. A series of people tried to make him into a marketable tenor but all failed. No sane person would let him on a real stage. No one quite believed that he had those vocal gifts and those musical shortcomings. He was also handsome and muscular. He didn't seem real.

@@TonyPartington I'm sure if Franchi had sung in a real opera in any opera house and I had heard him I would have liked him a lot. His problem was that while he was very good, he wasn't as good as Lanza had been. Similarly Pavarotti has always suffered in my appreciation because he reminds me of Bjorling but was never quite as good.

Ciao Patrick! You mentioned Mario Lanza. I must tell you some things about him and how he very much influenced my life. When I was a kid, my mother would always listen to the Met matinee broadcast on Saturdays. We were living in Minnesota at the time (my father helped Sir Tyrone Guthrie open the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. My Dad was the theatre's first production manager. He and Sir Tyrone first worked together on Broadway back in the 1950s when my Dad stage managed the original production of THE MATCHMAKER which Guthrie directed and started Ruth Gordon). Anyway, one Saturday afternoon my mother had the radio on to listen to the Met broadcast. I had listened with her on occasion and enjoyed it, but it never really knocked me out. This particular Saturday though I heard this voice, this incredible tenor voice and I was truly mesmerized. I stood there listening in, what I guess I could describe as, disbelief. I finally asked my mother what was that. She said, oh it the Saturday broadcast. I said, yes, but who was that singing, who was that? Well, as it turned out the radio station in Minneapolis had technical problems with the connection to the Met that Saturday, so they were playing records from the station in Minneapolis. The album they were playing was THE STUDENT PRINCE and it was the voice of Mario Lanza I had just heard sing "The Serenade." I knew then that this was what I must do. I want to sing like that, I told my mother. She was thrilled about my enthusiasm and said that she and my Dad would do whatever they could to help me pursue a career in music. I was 13 years old at that point. A rather ignorant neophyte to be sure. Long story short, seven years later I was in New York City auditioning for Maestro Constantine Callinicos the man who conducted Mario in the brilliant recording of THE STUDENT PRINCE that had had such an affect upon me. Life can indeed be stranger than fiction. Maestro Callinicos accepted me into his studio and he encouraged me to come to New York to work extensively. I told him I was living in Virginia at the time and had no where to stay in New York. He said, let my wife and I worry about that. Three days later I got a call at home in Virginia. It was Maestro Callinicos. He told me to take this address down, 19 West 70th Street. This would be my new home in New York City. It turned out that Constantine and his lovely wife Annemarie had a friend, who was living in Germany, that had this beautiful one bedroom apartment in a lovely brownstone between Columbus Ave and Central Park West. She wanted someone responsible to look after it. The rent was $300 per month. Even back in 1977 that was incredibly low. It was, for me, an amazing time. To be working with the man, the fellow musician that knew Mario's voice better than anyone else. When I was working with Maestro Callinicos he had already been conducting opera at the New York City Opera, the Pacific Coast Opera and regional operas both here and abroad. He had heard the tenors singing while Mario was alive and, after he passed away so prematurely at the age of 38. Constantine told me, on more than one occasion, that Mario Lanza had the greatest voice of any singer he had worked with or heard. So, I do indeed owe a great deal to the Maestro and to Mario. They have been an inspirational and inseparable part of my life for over half a century.

I am also a Tenor and have performed throughout my 57 years. All Professions and sports have what we call the 1 Percenters. Those are the superstars who everyone knows. Sergio was a well known and accomplished Opera singer as well as a performer in mainstream venues, but he was not the 1 Percent who got all the recognition. I have known and sang with singers who blow away some of these so called superstars, but they did not get the breaks and the pathways to lead them to stardom. The Great Beniamino Gigli said his brother had a better voice than him, but his path was a different one, and he sang in the church not the Opera houses.

Sono così felice che ti sia piaciuto il video. Sergio Franchi è stato davvero sottovalutato come cantante classico. Aveva la voce più superbamente romantica di qualsiasi tenore del suo tempo. Ciao! - Tony

Bauf.......

It is indeed

No, it isn't. In no way is that last Bb nasal. He opens up on it, yes, but that does not equate to 'nasal'. The Bb is a fantastic sound from beginning to end, as Franchi clearly shows.

@@swissarmytenor You have a total mess in your head, sorry...

Ya he only sang all over the world and appeared on television, made multiple records and was signed to contract by all the big names including RCA Victor, Columbia, United Artist, and many more. He still has a annual Memorial Concert in his name and performed to this day. He made a ton of money but still found time to create and give to charity......I would say pretty darn good for JV

@@kevinbraden798 Sopranos quote.. Junior sang this song.

Why not!!!! Supremely talented. Farrrrrrr better than these c--p singers of today who really can’t sing but make all their money on nudity / special effects etc. Unfortunately people like Sergio are neverrrr appreciated by the masses/ only by people who know pure talent!!!!!And there aren’t many of us left.

Thanks for your comment and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I would, however, not describe Sergio's singing of this song as crooning. But, different strokes...

Where do you hear the crooning? He sounds full and engaged.

@@TonyPartington Agreed. Bing Crosby was a crooner, Sergio Franchi was a Tenor who could have been at the Met if he had the training and the desire. Mario Lanza had the desire and was about to make the crossover to a path to the Met but unfortunately passed away at age 38. He would have made his debut at the Met at age 40, like his contemporary, also born in 1921, Franco Corelli, The Prince of Tenors. My favorite renditions of my favorite Neapolitan song Core n Grato are Corelli, Lanza and Franchi. RIP my three favorite Tenors and thanks for posting Tony Partington.

it's fairly ridiculous to call it "crooning." @@TonyPartington

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@@adrianpentek1 Correct. Not many better than Lanza