Salvatore LICITRA
CD Sony 82876788522
Prod. 2006

For a few minutes one listens to this Forbidden Love (a nonsense title as there is nothing forbidden in the love of Chénier, Don Carlos or Otello) and wonders what’s all the fuzz about. Licitra’s voice is not an exceptional one but it has a nice Italian sound and though the sound picture changes slightly as the tenor doesn’t succeed in maintaining the same colour throughout his range, it’s not as if the singer is a mediocre conservatory student. OK; the phrasing is dull and there is always a sense as if the tenor is recording the aria while he looks for the first time at the score but there have been even worse Italian tenors with a major career (Gianni Poggi in his whining days for an example). And then already during the first item on this CD one asks oneself for a few seconds if one heard correctly? Oh yes, one did. The moment he takes the voice into the passagio (and he tackles it rather late in the Di Stefano manner) there comes a grating beefy sound separate from the rest of the voice and he doesn’t get rid of it when lurching at anything that is an A-flat or higher. After a few arias one wonders why a major company allows such a recording to appear ? Did the producer have an acute loss of ear failure? Didn’t the tenor himself realize the disservice he was doing to his reputation by allowing such sounds to be put on CD for eternity? Did the contract between singer and company have to be respected at all costs? Did no one have the courage to pay out orchestra and chorus, send everybody home and write off the losses ? Salvatore Licitra seems to be one of those ‘hit and miss’ singers who simply is unsure of his basic technique and doesn’t know beforehand whether he will score or not. There is indeed in all his recorded work something uncertain but I’ve heard him do live recitals or opera performances without those ungainly sounds. So there are evenings when he more or less dominates his voice. This record ought never to have seen light of day.