The sometimes spectacular Giuseppe Giacomini

On July 28, 2021, the classical music and opera worlds celebrated conductor Riccardo Muti’s 80th birthday. The next day, I found out that one of my opera heroes had died on the same day. Giuseppe Giacomini was one of the most spectacular singers the world has ever heard — though I am told that when he performed the role of Otello with San Diego Opera during the 1985-’86 season, he struggled with the role and was ultimately replaced.

However, every singer in history has had struggles and been replaced. Placido Domingo burst onto the opera scene when he stepped in for a struggling Franco Corelli at The Met. Is there a better singer than Corelli? There is not.

In the pantheon of tenors, I put Giacomini slightly below Corelli and Domingo. I put Giacomini slightly above Pavarotti in more dramatic roles such as Otello, Calaf in Turandot, and Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino. When it comes to the role of Calaf, it could be argued that no one except Corelli sang it better in the stereo era. The issue with Giacomini was consistency, and that he wasn’t truly a high-C tenor. He struggled with high notes above B-flat.

There have been other notable tenors, such as Jon Vickers, who had legendary careers without a high-C, but most of those tenors sang Wagner as well as the dramatic Italian repertoire. Giacomini didn’t stray far from the Italian repertoire. Neither did Pavarotti, but Giacomini’s voice isn’t as immediately lovable as Pavarotti’s, and he lacked the warm charisma of Luciano. Giacomini was an intellectual signer and had a retiring academic personality.

The tenor voice is a love-it or hate-it instrument, and so it went with Giacomini. His career was overshadowed by those of Pavarotti and Domingo, perhaps in part because Giacomini’s voice is heavier than Domingo’s and much heavier than Pavarotti’s.

I admire Giacomini as a singer because of what he was trying to accomplish vocally. As a tenor, he sounded masculine — and even, if this is still an allowed term, virile. On the days he accomplished it, there was no better sound ever heard in an opera house. On the days he didn’t accomplish it, things got dodgy and uncomfortable.

For instance, during a concert in Moscow, he blew the roof off the place with “Nessun Dorma,” to the point that the audience demanded an encore. Giacomini obliged them, but when it came to the final high B-natural, he was noticeably fighting to hold it. Granted, this came at the end of a long evening, filled with a dramatic repertoire that taxed his voice.

When he was in good voice, nobody sounded more exciting than Giacomini, but if he was struggling, the struggle was real. But Despite his struggles with the role in San Diego, I find Giacomini’s performance of the “Si pel ciel” duet from Otello to be one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever heard. It was recorded live at a Metropolitan Opera Gala opposite baritone Sherrill Milnes.