MUSIC : The Grand Seigneur of Lyric Tenors

So you think the art of bel canto is dead. You are convinced that no one sings these day with bona-fide elegance and refinement, with poise and poetry, with sweetness and purity. You believe that the aristocratic phrase died with the dodo bird.

You know that none of the contemporary facsimiles of tenors can sustain a flexible legato line with delicacy, suavity and endless breath. You are convinced that no one appreciates such virtues as the subtle inflection and the delicate nuance, much less the sustained pianissimo.

Then turn on your radio Saturday morning and savor the broadcast of Massenet’s passionately romantic, delicately perfumed “Werther” from the Metropolitan Opera. Listen to what may be the last, lovely gasps of a golden age.

Listen to the young voice that belongs to the grand seigneur of lyric tenors, Alfredo Kraus.

The voice is indeed young. It is slender, pliable, wide-ranging, remarkably fresh in timbre and warm in tone. The master technician who owns that extraordinary instrument happens to be have turned 60 last November. In this case, however, the statistic is meaningless. Kraus has made it meaningless.

The biggest names in the tenor business these days--and business definitely is the operative noun--belong to the ubiquitous Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Both command voices that are, by nature, bigger, darker and heavier than Kraus’. But neither has treated, and preserved, his resource with comparable care. Neither has shown comparable devotion to the same lofty artistic goals.

Pavarotti sacrificed the limpid, liquid quality of his voice, and severely compromised the top range, years ago when he began to take on the burden of heavyweight challenges (“Aida,” “Trovatore,” “Turandot”) in addition to the stresses of musical-circus stardom. Domingo, a chronic over-achiever now contemplating his first Tristan, pushed a healthy spinto tenor into the treacherous Otello zone while trying desperately to outsing and out-hype Pavarotti.

Neither gentleman is the pirate of the high Cs that he used to be. One wonders where both gentlemen will be when they reach 60, and how they will sound.

Kraus, the thinking-person’s tenor, eyes the so-called competition with a certain disdain.

“Friends often ask me why I have made no big publicity, like these two. It is a good question.” He shrugs and smiles.

Kraus speaks in carefully modulated tones. Trim and vital, he resembles a man of 45, at most. Oddly, he projects a more youthful image in his hotel room than often is the case on the stage.

“People sometimes wonder why the masses do not regard me as a star. People ask why I have not worked to create a great popular image. I answer that it may be because I started too early. Perhaps the values of my generation are different. You must be known for what you do, I think, and for how you do it. That has been enough for me.

“I don’t care if the man in the street doesn’t recognize my face or know my name. He may not understand what I do anyway. I care about the people who go to the opera. I care about the art I try to serve. For me, that has been enough.

“I know I seem old-fashioned. I look around and I worry. The situation is getting worse and worse.”

Kraus never strained for a sound beyond his reach, never attempted roles unsuited to his fragile lyric gifts. He has good reason to deplore current trends.

“It is the same everywhere. Singers start too early. They want too much, too soon. Today everyone screams. The era of bel canto is finished. The audience wants to hear loud singing all night long. Nobody does mezza-voce. Nobody does a diminuendo.”

He doesn’t feel the singers should shoulder the blame alone.

“The problem is that the conductors don’t know what to do anymore. They don’t teach the singers. They don’t even know voices. Their egos come first. They are happy just if you follow them.”

Once, some time ago, Kraus bowed to pressure and sang Rodolfo in “La Boheme.” He did record the opera, under specially controlled, artificial conditions, but always wanted to skirt the challenge on the stage. It was the heaviest assignment he ever attempted, and an experiment he didn’t repeat.

“They begged me to sing the role,” he explains, “in Lisbon. They begged me every year. I did it as a favor, and I did it my way. I sang Puccini as if it were bel canto . This verista , it doesn’t exist for me. I don’t believe in screaming all night.

“It wasn’t a disaster. Many people complimented me, in surprise, because I did not transpose the aria as other tenors do. The high C never was a problem for me. Still, the orchestra can be very heavy, and the pressure on the middle voice can be a problem.

“I know what is not right for me. I know where trouble can lie.”

Kraus’ repertory never was huge. He always was most celebrated for his handling of the high-flying, ornate roles of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, and for two Verdi specialties: the Duke in “Rigoletto” and Alfredo in “La Traviata.” In recent years, this most courtly gentleman from the Canary Islands has made a specialty of Gallic heroes: Gounod’s Romeo and Faust, Offenbach’s Hoffmann, Bizet’s Pearl Fisher and Massenet’s Des Grieux in addition to Werther. The repertory, however, may be shrinking.

“I have given up ‘Puritani,’ ” he says, “and most of the Rossini parts. It isn’t because I don’t like them. It is that I have matured away from them. These roles are very difficult but, given the context of the operas, not always very rewarding for the tenor. They also demand a kind of ensemble that one cannot seem to find any more.

“I would love to sing ‘La Favorita’ again. Where is the mezzo-soprano for the title role?

“Perhaps I should have sung more Mozart, but, even though my father had been born in Vienna, I never was comfortable with German. I could manage the arias in ‘Die Zauberflote,’ not the dialogue.

“Among the Italian Mozart roles, I did ‘Cosi fan tutte’ only on records. I sang Don Ottavio in ‘Don Giovanni’ but did not find the experience rewarding.

“One of the greatest difficulties comes with the recitatives. Most conductors don’t understand how important they are, how the words must flow with natural stress. Karajan actually conducted them with strict control. It was like a straitjacket. I was not happy.”

Kraus still sings Tonio, the wistful hero of “La fille du regiment” who must pop off volleys of high Cs with ease and relish. “I always had facility with the top voice,” he says. “I wanted also to have technique. It is one thing to sing a high C when one is young and fresh. I wanted to have the top for my whole life. I studied to conserve it.”

He normally vocalizes up to a D-sharp, and “for fun up to an F.” For fun.

He has never ventured the highest note, however, in public. “In ‘Puritani,’ I did not sing the famous F. It comes in the middle of a dramatic phrase. Falsetto would be wrong here. The important notes are the Cs and Ds. I have enormous respect for what the composer wrote. But the most important thing for me always is style.”

Style is, of course, a flexible thing. Purists were surprised to find that Kraus omitted the cabaletta from Alfredo’s aria in a recently released “Traviata” recording with Maria Callas.

“In the mid ‘50s, when this live performance took place, it wasn’t customary to sing the cabalettas,” he explains. “One didn’t even bother to learn them. Now, although that has changed, one must not make blanket rules.

“I think the ‘Rigoletto’ cabaletta is helpful only musically. It poses a dramatic problem. The Duke is in such a great rush to get to Gilda. Why should he stand around singing? In ‘Traviata,’ the cabaletta is helpful emotionally and musically. It reveals the other side of Alfredo’s character.”

Although no one would ever expect Kraus to attempt the heroic role of Radames in “Aida”--it requires leather lungs--he did record the tenor’s famous romanza in an aria recital. Some critics were surprised to discover that the most tasteful of lyric tenors ignored Verdi’s nearly-impossible request for a diminuendo on the final B-flat (the composer asked for a pianissimo that literally dies away).

Kraus smiles almost sheepishly at the reminder.

“Perhaps I should have tried the diminuendo. Of course I could do it. But it was such fun for me singing this big, dramatic character, just for a recording. Somewhere back in my mind I remembered a performance in Parma. Carlo Bergonzi sang the pianissimo morendo exactly as Verdi asked, and they booed him.”

In general, he expresses no great enthusiasm for his commercial recordings. “I never liked working in the studio. I realize that records are important, that they create documents for the future. Nevertheless, they are not definitive documents. They cannot be. They often sound phony, contrived. Also, financial considerations often outweigh artistic ones.”

Some of his most distinguished work has been preserved not on discs bearing famous labels but on pirated mementos of live performances. Most singers resent these amateur efforts, partly because of the primitive sonics often involved and partly because the pirate efforts provide no royalties. Kraus disagrees.

“I don’t mind these private recordings. In fact, I am happy that they exist. They preserve a live performance, the real truth. I don’t care if there is no pay.”

Kraus admits to no new career ambitions. “I have done it all,” he declares with finality.

Then a visitor mentions Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s “Onegin” and Riccardo in Verdi’s “Ballo.” The tenor stops and contemplates the suggestions.

“Well,” he grins, “you never know.”

He has engagements booked well into 1990. “It is getting more difficult,” he says. “There are not so many choices. I insist on rest periods between strenuous engagements. That is absolutely necessary. Also, I can afford to be fussy, very fussy, now when it comes to choosing theaters and productions.”

He doesn’t speak of retirement.

“I will sing as long as I have the strength, as long as the physical conditions are right. If I lose the high notes, I suppose I will adjust. In this profession, one needs more than voice. The ironic thing is that I have more to say now than I did 10 or 20 years ago.”

It isn’t ironic. It is comforting.