Page "Francesco Tamagno" Paragraph 13

Orchestral conductors of the calibre of Franco Faccio, Luigi Mancinelli and Arturo Toscanini partnered Tamagno during his heyday, and he appeared opposite some of the most illustrious sopranos, baritones and basses in operatic history.

Veteran opera-goers regarded Tamagno as being the legitimate successor to Enrico Tamberlik ( 1820 – 1889 ), the dominant Italian heroic tenor of the mid-19th century, while Jean de Reszke ( 1850 – 1925 ) was widely considered to be the finest of his tenorial coevals.

An elegant lyric-dramatic tenor of the French school, de Reszke's repertoire overlapped Tamagno's to some extent, and although he could never out sing his Italian rival, he had a rounder voice and a suaver stage presence.

He was also the foremost male exponent of Richard Wagner's operas to be heard on the stages of London and New York during the late-Victorian Era.

Tamagno, however, refused to perform Wagnerian works, even in Italian translation ; he believed that the tessitura of the music written for Wagner's tenor heroes lay too low to suit his vocal range.