Il Divo, the brainchild of professional sourpuss and resident American Idol judge Simon Cowell, recently rose to the top of the American Billboard Charts with their third album Ancora. The US is this quartet’s latest conquest, after zooming past the crossover charts in Europe. Specializing in a singing style that is a hybrid between pop and classical (hence the term “pop opera”), the group has gained a steady and growing following among the mature set. Sarah Brightman, Charlotte Church and Josh Groban, all cross over artists, paved the way for Il Divo, whose membership appears like a veritable United Nations (David, an American tenor; Uhrs, a Swiss tenor; Carlos, a Spanish baritone; and Sebastien, a French vox populi). But where do you position the group in the N’Sync/Three Tenors spectrum? A look at their first DVD/CD provides the answer.
Neither Puccini nor Donizetti figures in the repertoire. No arias like “Nessun Dorma”. Not even “Una Furtiva Lagrima”. Instead, we get Toni Braxton’s post-break up lament “Unbreak My Heart”, rendered in Spanish (as “Regresa A Mi”), pop classics like “Unchained Melody” in its Italian version (“Senza Catene”) and the national anthem of drunken karaoke/videoke enthusiasts everywhere, Sinatra’s “My Way”, also sung in Spanish as “A Mi Manera”. Ostensibly, the quartet was conceptualized to cater to a growing demand for pop music with a classical twist. Two members, David and Carlos, are professional opera singers prior to Il Divo, Uhrs is also classically trained with professional choral experience, while Sebastien, is the only non-classically trained member. Not surprisingly, the force and vocal power comes from the American and the Spaniard, heavily trained in opera, whilst the other two provide the middle voices.
The vocal arrangements in the selections are pretty straightforward: each member is given a solo part, mostly soft, lyrical introductions, followed by duets in various combinations, and finally a fortissimo section where all voices combine and soar above the orchestra. The baritone upstages everybody else, with his deep, resonant and very powerful vocals. The American tenor negotiates his top notes, sometimes with difficulty, but pulls it off quite admirably. I mistakenly thought the Frenchman a tenor as well, as he definitely has a warm sound to his voice. The weakest of them, I felt, was the Swiss. He has a beautiful tone, but I found his narrow vibrato unsteady and unsuitable to an operatic style. I’m quite sure Simon chose him for his looks over his vocals.
I take issue with some of the song selections. Some numbers are definitely worthwhile, such as "Passera" and even "My Way". But the carrier single, "Unbreak My Heart", I felt was too cheesy, as well as the tribute to mothers all over, “Mama” which I found too “oprahtic”, not operatic. The worst were the "Unchained Melody" and "The Man You Love" which made me want to go to sleep. It doesn’t help that the lyrics to these two songs are partly in English, which I find to be corny.
Which bring us to the choice of language, which appears like the official languages of the European Union. Spanish and Italian dominate the selections and some English, which is fine because listeners will pay more attention to the music and disregard the all-too-saccharine lyrics. What bothers me is that some selections switch from one language to another, such as from Spanish to English. Sometimes, as in the case of "Feelings", the title alone remains the only English word in the entire song. Why? It certainly doesn’t bring tears to my eyes. It does not enhance my comprehension of Italian, which was nada, nil, zilch, zero in the first place. It only makes me want to push my DVD player's fast forward button.
Simon has definitely pulled off a marketing success. Dressed and styled in sleek designer suits, the guys look like they stepped out of a GQ cover. The market is obviously not your average screaming teen-ager (well, they were screaming teen-agers in the 80’s), but the mellowed-down, still-hormonally-charged middle age set with higher disposable incomes. The shrieking audience consists likely of dumped lovers, more-than-once married couples, the recently divorced, and the pining and still-single soul-mate seekers. The music is perfect for soul-searching and relationship-analyzing activities.
Il Divo is certainly a phenomenon, a boy band of sorts, performing pop classics with an operatic twist. How long the quartet will last I do not know. I only hope that the listeners, after all the applause will have died down and realizing that there are no substitutes for singing with really good voices, will graduate to the real thing, that is, to listen to opera.
Neither Puccini nor Donizetti figures in the repertoire. No arias like “Nessun Dorma”. Not even “Una Furtiva Lagrima”. Instead, we get Toni Braxton’s post-break up lament “Unbreak My Heart”, rendered in Spanish (as “Regresa A Mi”), pop classics like “Unchained Melody” in its Italian version (“Senza Catene”) and the national anthem of drunken karaoke/videoke enthusiasts everywhere, Sinatra’s “My Way”, also sung in Spanish as “A Mi Manera”. Ostensibly, the quartet was conceptualized to cater to a growing demand for pop music with a classical twist. Two members, David and Carlos, are professional opera singers prior to Il Divo, Uhrs is also classically trained with professional choral experience, while Sebastien, is the only non-classically trained member. Not surprisingly, the force and vocal power comes from the American and the Spaniard, heavily trained in opera, whilst the other two provide the middle voices.
The vocal arrangements in the selections are pretty straightforward: each member is given a solo part, mostly soft, lyrical introductions, followed by duets in various combinations, and finally a fortissimo section where all voices combine and soar above the orchestra. The baritone upstages everybody else, with his deep, resonant and very powerful vocals. The American tenor negotiates his top notes, sometimes with difficulty, but pulls it off quite admirably. I mistakenly thought the Frenchman a tenor as well, as he definitely has a warm sound to his voice. The weakest of them, I felt, was the Swiss. He has a beautiful tone, but I found his narrow vibrato unsteady and unsuitable to an operatic style. I’m quite sure Simon chose him for his looks over his vocals.
I take issue with some of the song selections. Some numbers are definitely worthwhile, such as "Passera" and even "My Way". But the carrier single, "Unbreak My Heart", I felt was too cheesy, as well as the tribute to mothers all over, “Mama” which I found too “oprahtic”, not operatic. The worst were the "Unchained Melody" and "The Man You Love" which made me want to go to sleep. It doesn’t help that the lyrics to these two songs are partly in English, which I find to be corny.
Which bring us to the choice of language, which appears like the official languages of the European Union. Spanish and Italian dominate the selections and some English, which is fine because listeners will pay more attention to the music and disregard the all-too-saccharine lyrics. What bothers me is that some selections switch from one language to another, such as from Spanish to English. Sometimes, as in the case of "Feelings", the title alone remains the only English word in the entire song. Why? It certainly doesn’t bring tears to my eyes. It does not enhance my comprehension of Italian, which was nada, nil, zilch, zero in the first place. It only makes me want to push my DVD player's fast forward button.
Simon has definitely pulled off a marketing success. Dressed and styled in sleek designer suits, the guys look like they stepped out of a GQ cover. The market is obviously not your average screaming teen-ager (well, they were screaming teen-agers in the 80’s), but the mellowed-down, still-hormonally-charged middle age set with higher disposable incomes. The shrieking audience consists likely of dumped lovers, more-than-once married couples, the recently divorced, and the pining and still-single soul-mate seekers. The music is perfect for soul-searching and relationship-analyzing activities.
Il Divo is certainly a phenomenon, a boy band of sorts, performing pop classics with an operatic twist. How long the quartet will last I do not know. I only hope that the listeners, after all the applause will have died down and realizing that there are no substitutes for singing with really good voices, will graduate to the real thing, that is, to listen to opera.
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