One of the greatest operatic tenors of his generation whose technique and imaginative vocal colouring helped him transcend the merely melodramatic
Jon Vickers, who has died aged 88, was a singer whose muscular musicality and sense of drama made him one of the outstanding operatic tenors of his generation. When he threw off his disguise in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, revealed himself as Aeneas and sang Reine! Je Suis Enée, the effect on audiences was shattering. With simple gestures, words and notes, a heroic character was made manifest. No experience in the opera house of the time was more overwhelming than the violence with which he could lay bare the anguish of Otello or, in Pagliacci, the tragic clown Canio – characters tormented beyond human endurance to a wholly animal fury.
His refusal to sing in Tannhäuser because it offended his Christian convictions was just one indication that Vickers, who was nicknamed “God’s tenor”, was a performer apart from most of his operatic colleagues. Another was his insistence that art must appeal to the intellect and not merely to the senses. For Vickers, artistry went far beyond singing.
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