Recording of the Week, Freddie De Tommaso - Il Tenore

Shortly before Christmas, 28-year-old British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso made headlines when he stepped in mid-show at Covent Garden to replace an ailing Bryan Hymel as Cavaradossi in Tosca and acquitted himself with flying colours, becoming the youngest artist to sing the role in the house’s history. I was fortunate enough to be in the stalls a few days later for his first complete performance, and from the moment he ascended the painter’s ladder to compare the beauty of his muse and his real-life lover it was clear that this was going to be one of those debuts that would linger in the memory for years (if not decades) to come.

An extended scene from Act One opens his first operatic recording for Decca (released today), and I’m pleased to report that De Tommaso’s full-throated ardour packs just as much of a punch on disc: this is a singer who really lives and breathes each phrase rather than micro-managing things for the mics, and there’s a wonderfully natural, slightly old-school quality to his singing that’s more than a little reminiscent of his idols Corelli and Caruso. The voice itself has a molten bronze colour (as opposed to the bright gold of the young Pavarotti, with whom he was breathlessly compared in the mainstream media after that last-minute jump-in): De Tommaso initially trained as a baritone, but the upper register already seems fully integrated and the ringing top B flat which crowns the aria betrays no hint that he only transitioned into tenor repertoire a few years ago.

The diva who interrupts the painter at his work here is none other than Lise Davidsen, and the easy chemistry between the two made me long to hear them in a full studio recording. The powerhouse Norwegian soprano’s perhaps a surprising choice for Tosca, given her association with Germanic repertoire and her wholesome, unhistrionic dramatic temperament – but even on the brief evidence here she looks set to redefine the role should she so choose.

Rather than an imperious grande dame demanding unqualified adoration, Davidsen gives us a vulnerable, insecure young woman ill at ease with the pressures of stardom, evidently on edge about her upcoming performance that evening and anxious for reassurance that she can look forward to some quiet time with her lover away from the spotlight afterwards. De Tommaso responds in kind with a stolid, affable patience that’s enormously touching, and her closing ‘Ma falle gli occhi neri!’ (a line which often provokes laughter in the opera-house) is a heartfelt plea rather than a narcissistic edict.

The two arias from Turandot which follow (including a barnstorming ‘Nessun dorma’) suggest that De Tommaso’s already fighting-fit for the heavyweight role of the Unknown Prince, although in an interview in this month’s Gramophone he was clear that he’ll be biding his time in more lyrical territory before taking up that particular gauntlet. Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw then joins him for the love-duet from Madama Butterfly, where her fragility contrasts tellingly with his rather bullish fervour.

De Tommaso’s singing the role of Pinkerton at Covent Garden tonight, in a production which seeks to highlight the problematic aspects of the plot rather than gloss over them, and here too he makes us keenly aware that the callous naval officer is no knight in shining armour – those repeated ‘Vieni, vieni’’s speak of blunt, priapic impatience, and in the Act Three farewell he sounds more like a man who’s angrily resentful at being unable to have his cake and eat it rather than one beset by remorse.

The album closes with the great final confrontation from Bizet’s Carmen, with Russian mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina making a terrific recording-debut in the title-role: still in her mid-twenties, the voice is as yet a fundamentally lyric one, but with a steely core that works beautifully in service of the drama here and is never overwhelmed by De Tommaso’s full-throttle desperation as José spirals from forlorn hope to homicidal mania.

Given the high-octane programme and the sheer firepower of De Tommaso’s delivery, I’d planned to enjoy this one in instalments rather than devouring it in one sitting – but few lovers of great singing will be able to resist gulping it down whole.