Mario Lanza

Mark Vincent, Mario Lanza – A Tribute to Mario Lanza (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 22, 2023 · Comments off

Eight years after he won Australia’s heart and went on to record seven chart-topping albums with worldwide sales exceeding half a million units, Mark Vincent is about to set a new benchmark: a ‘virtual duet’ with one of the giants of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Mario Lanza. In his forthcoming album, ‘A Tribute To Mario Lanza,’ Mark sings alongside Mario in ‘Because You’re Mine,’ one of the legendary movie star’s biggest hits. Re-mastered and re-edited, the song, taken from the MGM musical of the same name, is given a fresh and brilliant new dynamic with the addition of Mark’s rich tenor tones. Like Mark, Mario Lanza was a handsome tenor frequently compared to Enrico Caruso, who inspired him and whom he portrayed in The Great Caruso, the top grossing movie of 1951. Lanza died in 1958, just 10 years after he made his Hollywood debut. By then he was the most famous tenor in the world, adored by millions around the world. “It’s an amazing thrill to be singing with the greatest tenor of his time,” Mark says, “I feel, in a humble way, I am simpatico with him. We were both brought up in Italian families – he was raised in Philadelphia – where there was a lot of love, but also a lot of hard times. That seems to go with the territory. As a kid, Caruso performed in cafes, singing Neapolitan favourites. I sang for customers at my grandfather Bruno’s pizza shop from the age of five. For tenors, apparently, it’s never too soon to start!” Ellisa Lanza Bregman, Mario Lanza’s daughter, has given her imprimatur to Mark and the album, “As the trustee of my father’s legacy, his reputation, and his memory, I’m pleased to allow his recorded voice to be joined on this historic recording by the exciting young Australian tenor, Mark Vincent. Like all artists, tenors are competitive, but they share a special bond: a heritage that goes back to Caruso and a mutual acknowledgement of the artistic links that influenced their careers. Mario Lanza, my father, also grew up listening to Caruso’s recordings. Eventually he came to be compared to him. In turn, Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras and many other artists – Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley among them – told of their love of Mario Lanza and how he had inspired them. Mark Vincent, I wish you every success and I know that this unique recording will be sought after and cherished by music lovers everywhere.” Mark Vincent stole headlines in 2009 when he won Australia’s Got Talent. Since then he has accrued seven back-to-back #1 albums on the ARIA Classical chart and sold out national headline tours. Now, in addition to the release of ‘A Tribute To Mario Lanza,’ Vincent stars in the Julie Andrews’ stage production of My Fair Lady, touring Australia nationally this year.

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Mario Lanza – Mario Lanza At His Best (1959) [Reissue 2006] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

SACD / DSD By admin · June 13, 2023 · Comments off

This is not exactly the Mario Lanza “best-of” album its title might imply; it consists of recordings made during the last 18 months of the great crossover tenor’s life, when he was beginning to suffer serious effects from the health problems that killed him in the fall of 1959. Still, it’s hard to hear much of an effect from those problems — a diminution of sheer vocal power in the selections from Rudolf Friml’s musical The Vagabond King that make up the second half of the disc, perhaps, but no loss of the singer’s broad, generous lyric impulse. Lanza was an operatic star who never quite got the chance to be an opera star. He took the lead role in the biopic The Great Caruso and sang Italian songs like those heard on the first half of the disc, but substance abuse brought him down just as he was preparing a sustained effort to reach the operatic stage. It’s hard to imagine a career like his flourishing in the present day: there’s plenty of crossover music, certainly, but no place in the pop world for a singer with a big Italian voice. After you hear this album, you’ll feel that’s a shame. The Neapolitan songs that open the disc are period pieces; a few of them have cheesy wordless backing choruses and odd arrangements with extended harmonies, drawn from the language of musical comedy, that don’t quite fit. Still, they’re nothing less than irresistible. On the Vagabond King selections, a few unreleased tracks from soprano Judith Raskin are added to make a rough outline of the whole show. The opening “Drinking Song” may cause one to wish that Lanza hadn’t been so quick to affirm that “a flagon of wine will do.” But sample the “Nocturne” and see if you don’t agree that it’s one of the great love serenades on records. RCA’s Living Stereo sound was a major engineering accomplishment in the beginning, and the SACD remastering here is stupendous — as good as it gets. Every bit of orchestral detail is there in total clarity. Check this album out and learn why an operatic singer was once at the top of the pop charts.

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