Mario Del Monaco

Examine Mario Del Monaco's voice it is not an easy task. As a matter of fact, only listening to him someone can catch the meaning of what is said about him by those who had the chance and the pleasure to ear him performing live on the stage.

On one side Del Monaco's voice was very powerful, but, on the other hand, was endowed with a variety of different harmonic tones.These features were supported by outstanding physical qualities like a large and powerful chest so that the tones seemed to come out of a musical instrument like a Stradivari violin.

Another characteristic of Del Monaco's singing was that the emission of his voice was consistently the same as Lauri Volpi remarked saying, “he master his voice so well that you are not able to find voids or empty spots in his tones.As a matter of fact, on the contrary of many other tenors whose voice seemingly grew weaker in high pitches, Del Monaco's ones grew stronger and more harmonious. Lauri Volpi declared that Del Monaco had the best B flat of lyrical music.

The great part of spectators considers Del Monaco as a dramatic singer, I would like to call to mind his performances as a lyrical tenor mainly in the first ten years of his career. For instance, his performance in the Menfistofele Faust by Arrigo Boito, as Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, as Maurizio of Saxony in Adriana Lecouvreur by Cilea, as Des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut.In all mentioned performances Del Monaco shows a wide-ranging phrasing, a terrific “legato”(legacy) and superb half tones.Mario Del Monaco material recorded in studio by DECCA.The live recording instead come from different sources and sometimes are of lesser quality.For the entire recorded works on Mario Del Monaco see the excerpt in the quoted book by Elisabetta Romagnolo put together by Arrigo Valesio.