Franco Corelli & Renata Tebaldi | The Voice of Firestone

The Voice of Firestone telecast of June 2, 1963 is a true winner. Corelli appears in great voice and sings a varied, interesting program. All starts with the original introductory commercial, presenting Firestone as a company producing materials for your house and your car (or your tractor!), and these people, who manufactor all the nice products, proudly present you The Voice of Firestone! Followed by a lovely American kitch chorus that serves as the upbeat for the introduction of tonight's guest: "The world thrills to the brilliant ring of his voice, thrills to the exciting swining of his acting, his name is Franco Corelli! In the brief span of a decade he has brought new glamour to the art of the Italian tenor, received cheers from audiences the world over, . . . and installed his own name amidst this glittering firmament." The narrator is so enthusiastic that he in fact continues speaking after Franco starts his ringing "Intanto amici qua"! And what lovely singing comes from the stereo-set there and onwards in the (we assume) lyp-synched operatic arias: vibrant, luscious tones, passionate phrasing, and cardboard acting within a picturesque, traditional setting. Unfortunately, the only one who seems to be on stage without a proper costume is our hero, who looks every bit as if he arrived too late to the scene to slip into his proper outfit. The "Addio alla madre" (we assume his EMI version) significantly gains from the staged environment, where one actually sees this charismatic Turridu. The singing is glorious, full of drama and what the Italians call the tear within. And here, where he has to express grief and ill fated foreboding, he also gets the message across more easily with expressions and gestures. All in all, those two magnificently lyp-synched Cavalleria Rusticana fragments from this June 6, 1963 telecast, give us a fine idea of what Metropolitan Opera House tour audiences witnessed when he sang his first ever Turiddus on stage in Minneapolis (May 17, 1963) and Detroit (May 25, 1963)! 

By 1963, "I'te vurria vasà" was rapidly becoming a schlager in his repertoire, and here, in his second filmed excerpt (he sang it earlier on the Ed Sullivan Show as well), we can see & hear that it fit his voice like a glove, as does the lyp-synched "Non piangere Liù" from Puccini's Turandot – a filmed setting that I always preferred to the earlier rendition of this piece in the complete, 1958 telecast of it in the complete opera. Here the role has grown on him, while the EMI recording is better than than the earlier Italian soundtrack. And whereas the Voice of Firestone's cardboard set isn't any better than the oneused for the Italian movie, the costume used in this Firestone telecast is very convincing.

D'Annibale's lovelorn Italian song "O paese d' 'o Sole" is another dropped as if it had come from a shell on the beach; he tosses it out in a seemingly effortless fashion, accompanied by The Voice of Firestone's chorus of lovely girls & handsome guys, who sing along in the best American Broadway–musical tradition. Once again, the choral style is pure kitch, and this Music for the Millions approach is quintessentially what The Voice of Firestone was all about, but I believe we aren't any the lesser for it: somehow it brought out the best in many opera singers appearing on the show, most notably our hero here, whose only misstep comes while concluding with a song composed by Ida Firestone, "In my garden." The chorus seems to have a better knowledge of text and tune than the largely miming tenor, who does his best to survive the 30 obligatory seconds. Here Franco followed in the firmly established tradition for all guest artists to perform "In my garden" with the Firestone chorus as the show concluded each week.