Filianoti and Nemorino

Last year, when the Lyric Opera announced its upcoming opera season, I found myself stirred by a mix of excitement and apprehension upon reading that the male protagonist of Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore would be interpreted by the Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti. I had heard Filianoti on several occasions a few years before, when I was conquered by the beauty of his vocal colors -the colors of a warm, pure lyric tenor- and by his spontaneous, immediate musicianship: an ideal mix of qualities for one of the most popular roles Donizetti ever conceived for a tenor. Yet, I also couldn’t help noticing that at the time his technique was somehow unaccomplished, especially when he reached the top register: he naturally could sing the highest notes, but he mastered them in a way that sounded problematic to me. In the last couple of years…