Andrea Bocelli and Bryn Terfel: Au Fond Du Temple Saint - from Bizet's Les pcheurs de perles (HD)

[question everything]

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[Ocelot II]

1. The legendary recording, with Jussi Bjorling and Robert Merrill.

[question everything]

2. Beautiful! Thanks for posting. I am familiar with Merrill but admit to never heard of Bjorling

[Ocelot II]

3. Bjorling was one of the greatest tenors of the last century.

We don’t hear those old recordings much anymore, but this one from 1950 is a classic.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

4. David Byrne with Rufus Wainright

[Ocelot II]

5. Gaah! They shouldn't have even tried.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

6. He introduced it to so many people.

I'm glad he tried.

[Ocelot II]

7. Unfortunately it's not a very good performance. The voices are very strained - it's too far out of their vocal range.

The big difference between this and the Björling/Merrill performance (and even the Bocelli/Terfel performance, though Bocelli isn't anywhere near as good as Björling; his voice is so much weaker than Terfel's and he tends to flat) is that they couldn't pull off the requirement for this piece that their voices would soar instead of strain, which also caused inaccurate pitch. Opera requires some unique skills which pop singers who attempt opera almost never can pull off, one of which is making it sound easy, which it is not. I appreciate that sometimes they introduce a classical piece to an audience who might not hear it otherwise, but a mediocre performance doesn't do the music the justice it deserves.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

8. Okay...

I would have never started enjoying opera without folks like Byrne introducing it to me.

I'm grateful.

Happy Holidays

[Ocelot II]

9. And I'm very glad they did introduce you to it.

But if you listen to their performances side-by-side with the others you'll clearly hear the difference. I'm all in favor of making opera accessible, but with top-notch performances by actual opera singers so the best aspects of the music are presented.