COURIER-POST, August 23, 1981
By Robert Baxter
This article was written right after what turned out to be the last live performance of Franco Corelli’s career: 9 July, 1981 Holmdel, New Jersey, Garden State Arts Center
<aside> 🎧 **Listen to the concert here**
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<aside> 🇮🇹 Clicca qui per la traduzione in italiano 🇮🇹
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*Comment on Facebook*Humid, sticky air filled the sweltering interior of the Garden State Arts Center on the hottest night of the year. But that couldn't keep 4,000 opera fans from crowding the Holmdel arts center to cheer tenor Franco Corelli, taking another step on his comeback trail.
The Italian tenor gave up public performances five years ago after an attack of nerves took away his confidence. Ever since, Corelli fans, unable to forget their idol's singing, have been waiting for his comeback.
When Corelli appeared on stage, his fans erupted into an explosion of applause that engulfed the auditorium. Oblivious to their cheers, the tenor looked terrified. As he waited for the applause to stop, Corelli rubbed his hands and touched his face in distraction.
The original illustration to the interview
After the applause died, the tenor rushed through his opening selections. Then in Pennino's "Pecche," his voice opened and rang out with the majestic tone of old...
📷: Kate Kathi Petroczy
CORELLI ELECTRIFIED the audience with his thrilling interpretation of Otello's death scene. After he sang five Italian songs, Corelli's fans surrounded the stage apron, screaming and shouting. They wouldn't leave until Corelli had sung a verse of "Core 'ngrato."
Backstage, Sir Rudolf Bing greeted the tenor. "This is an exciting evening." said the former manager of the Metropolitan Opera after emerging from the tenor's dressing room. "Corelli is a very great tenor."
Stagehands, accustomed to demonstrative rock audiences, said they had never before witnessed such a clamorous ovation. After a shower, Corelli greeted admirers. Asked how he felt, he shrugged and murmured a noncommittal "I don't know."
The tenor's wife was more emphatic. "This was a great evening," she said excitedly, holding in her hand a small framed picture of the madonna and a bottle of holy water. "Did you hear the audience? What an ovation. He won't stop singing now."
CORELLI IS clearly on the comeback trail, bringing back to audiences one of the most glamorous and mysterious figures in operatic history. He has agreed to sing at recital in Pittsburgh in November and has accepted an invitation to appear in a December gala for the Opera Company of Philadelphia. The tenor's manager has a portfolio filled with offers from New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Buenos Aires and European cities.
📷: Kate Kathi Petroczy
A week before his Garden State Arts Center concert Corelli talked about his "vacation" from performing. A dark, almost haunted look comes over his handsome face as he talks about the attack of nerves that forced him to give up performing in public.
"Jumping, jumping." repeats the tenor, his dark eyes flashing with intensity. Corelli then shakes his arm vigorously in the air. "I jump like this terrible when I went to the stage. I tremble. My nervous system," breaks off the tenor as he moves his eyes and pauses briefly.
"It is like you have a wire or a cord," continues Corelli, tugging on the telephone cord that lies at his feet. "If you stretch this cord, you break it. Singing is like that. After that happens, the nerves make you afraid. You must stop.
SO, AFTER SINGING in Italy five years ago, Corelli left the opera stage that, for almost two decades, he had dominated like a king.
"I see all black in front of me. Black. Black. I needed some I vacation. I didn't want to sing. I wanted to be relaxed. I tried make vacation. One month. Another month. A year. Two years. After too long vacation, I try to sing. After I become calm, I say why don't you sing in public again.
"If I come back to opera," he says, "I will sing “Boheme" again. Before that, some concerts. I must calm down and find my confidence."
Even at the height of his career, Corelli had to fight his nerves. Colleagues tell how the tenor's wife would stand by the stage holding aloft a crucifix and sprinkling holy water as her husband approached his high notes. Birgit Nilsson once said, "Every good artist is always nervous. Corelli is very nervous."
Despite his nerves, Corelli ruled the Italian dramatic tenor repertory at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera for 15 years. His voice, big, virile and intense, thrilled audiences. His high notes were legendary. So was Corelli's temperament.
CORELLI had more than a great voice and a towering temperament. He had the handsome face and athletic body that are rarely found in an opera singer. Dubbed "Golden Thighs" for the way he filled tights, Corelli had the look of a matinee idol and moved with the intensity of an athlete.
Corelli, at 53 [60], still projects glamor. His midriff is a little thicker and his hair a little thinner, but the tenor retains his handsome looks.
A jagged scar on his forehead gives Corelli's face character. Sensual lips and sensitive eyes add a touch of poetry to that face. Those dark eyes have a penetrating, intense and sometimes haunting look.