Discovering Mario Lanza

Last month, PBS had a program about Mario Lanza. The handsome Italian took pop entertainment by storm in the 40s and 50s after a promising start to an opera career. The digest version of the story is Lanza couldn't decide between respectibility and limited fame in opera, or stardom and lame roles in Hollywood for a short time. He eventually died young in a resort. Bottom line—Lanza was immensely popular.

I listened to this record, "You Do Something To Me" (1963) and it's superb. No, really.

I was all set to be above it, to bat it aside expertly as a hokey 50s thing, trying to force a classical voice into pop to sell some records and movie tickets, etc. And the first track didn't let me down: Lanza does all the wrong things on the title track, everything you expect an opera guy to do with a pop song. I thrust my eyebrow skyward, sharpened my Waldo Lydecker goose quill dipped in venom and readied the havoc. Lanza himself interceded.

Out of nowhere, he sang the next songs like a musical theatre king, like a John Raitt (Excellent) with the FATTEST voice ever. His phrasing was expert and was even subtle where necessary. Whenever opera guys do non-opera, subtlety gets the same treatment as a 2-1 fastball to Barry Bonds in 2004: it gets sent far away in a big ol' hurry. Not Mario Lanza—I heard a good singer.

On Side 2, Lanza carressed the opera people who loved him as much as the pop-buying teenyboppers and housewives. He knocked out a piece from Bizet's "Carmen" which, while not the best ever, was still part of a lovely production. But he amped it up next with breathtaking arias from Puccini's "La Boheme" and Verdi's "La Forza del Destino," a huge finish.

But these were after a couple more pop selections, and it was these songs that really got me. The selections were beautiful to begin with, and with expensive production under Lanza's marvelous execution, the effect was rare—goosebumps from a record that should have had me in postmodern stitches.

A friend just rediscovered how good Y&T's "Earthshaker" is. I listened to that and it's its own kind of great (and the deserved subject of another post). I gotta tell you, finding out that Mario Lanza is good is as satisfying.

Sorry, Waldo. We'll get 'em next time...