CLASSICAL SINGERS GO POP

Never before have we had so many crossover albums on the market; the record stores are bulging with them. Every singer — particularly the Americans — seems to think it is his right to have a go at Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Harold Arlen. We now have practically as many Arlen collections as Puccini ones. It seems that every major musical has been recorded by operatic forces in the last 10 years; sometimes, as with Carousel, we have two or three choices. These albums sell extraordinarily well, attractive to buyers of many stripes. (The same is true of Christmas albums — another type of crossover recording — which are innumerable and have always been commercially fail-safe.) The King’s Singers can handle a madrigal as well as any group, but they win their largest fame and fortune with the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and Randy Newman’s “Short People.” They deserve every penny, too: The identical skills that make them effective in classical music, they apply to the pop favorites.

The current crossover sensation is a recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein by Bryn Terfel, the Welsh farm boy who, at 31, may be the most acclaimed bass- baritone in the world. He is an exceptionally versatile musician, adept in Mozart operas, German song, and the 20th-century British repertory, of which he is a faithful champion. It was perhaps inevitable that he would venture into crossover territory, and inevitable, too, that he would pick Rodgers — so kind to the voice, so reliably tuneful, adopted by concert musicians as an honorary classical composer. Rarely has Rodgers had it so good.

The songs emerge from Terfel newborn — variegated, burnished, fully exploited. He can do them justice as few pop singers can. Why? Because he is equipped with all the tools, and music, fundamentally, is music. Terfel produces a creamy opulent, flexible sound. He also sings in tune, which is no small benefit. He has a real piano, one that does not go hush. He can effect a diminuendo — an important, difficult trick. He has a seamless legato, necessary to the beauty of any lyrical piece. He has many happy layers of modulation. When he sings, “All the sounds of the earth are like music,” they are. He can sing the low notes without fading out. He can go up high without an increase of volume (often musically inappropriate). He has ample breath control, which enables him to bridge over phrases that ought to remain together. His every asset, he lends to these songs, which profit from them as much as the most complicated aria. If the late Richard Rodgers could have heard the pure, pianissimo E that Terfel floats at the end of “Some Enchanted Evening,” it would have sent shivers down his spine.

Terfel’s account of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” begins with a rollicking recitative, which we are aware of, really, for the first time. We hear notes — right on the mark that have always escaped our attention, because they have been imprecisely sung. The music lives as it is meant to, freed from the limitations of its traditional performers. Songs that can come off silly (“June Is Bustin’ Out All Over”) are instead irresistible. Terfel can generate startling power — with no hint of shout — which makes “What a Lovely Day for a Wedding” a dynamo. “Something Wonderful” (the title song of the album) is too big, too imposing; Terfel misconceives the piece, depriving it of its tenderness. But his “Soliloquy” from Carousel is masterly, reminiscent of the bass-baritone monologues in opera; he sings rather than talks his way through it, showing off the composer’s remarkable intervals. We find ourselves impressed, not merely with Terfel, but, once again, with Rodgers, whom the singer affords a new — and fitting — standard.

Terfel’s chief rivals in the crossover department, male division, are the baritone Thomas Hampson and the bass Samuel Ramey. Hampson is long on looks and personableness — “Thomas Handsome,” they call him — but he is an interesting singer, too, and he takes his pop sideline seriously. His Cole Porter album, Night and Day, is solid and appealing. It is marred, however, by orchestral accompaniments (many of them the originals) that make songs that are not inherently shlocky seem so. The jewel in the collection is “In the Still of the Night,” a gleaming, wondrous composition. Horne uses it too, and it thrives on the classical touch.

Ramey loves to cross over, but he does it less smoothly than some of his peers. His singing is a bit too stentorian, too rigid, for pop music. But his album So In Love is not without riches, among them “The Impossible Dream” — which concludes with a major-league high F — and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Music of the Night.” Ramey treats this latter piece with refreshing straightforwardness and simplicity — no stagy swoons or gulps. He infuses it with a velvet dignity that makes it Puccini-like, as, indeed, Lloyd Webber has borrowed a note or two from that composer (which is perfectly kosher). And it is a privilege to hear “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” actually sung. Even so, we miss Rex Harrison’s patter, and it is odd to hear the words stretched out on the vowels, classical style: “Her charms are second nature to me nahhhhow, [no inhalation] like breathing out and breathing ihhhhn.” There are certain tunes that should perhaps be left on the other side of the line.

Possibly the greatest joy about crossover is its sheer incongruity, the delighted shock at seeing a fish ride a bicycle. There can be no stranger recording — anywhere, of anything — than that of Birgitt Nilsson singing “I Could Have Danced All Night,” accompanied by Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic. The ear can hardly believe it when she begins, “Bed! Bed! I couldn’t get to bed!” The timbre is unmistakable, but it is supposed to be elsewhere. We barely understand a word, of course, because the Swedish Wagnerian was never known for her English. But her sense of the piece is marvelous, as she toys with the notes, reveling in what she is doing. Nilsson is the first — and no doubt the last — Brunnhilde Doolittle. Karajan seems swept up in the act too, as he and the orchestra — mighty vessel of Bruckner and Mahler — dance along with the soprano. On the penultimate note, she goes up to a G, and you’re thinking, “Oh, no, she just can’t,” but, yes, she does: On the final “night!” she nails a glorious, heavens-filling high C, straight out of Bayreuth. It is ever so slightly inapposite, musically, but, you know? If you got it, flaunt it. The moment is electrifying, absurd, unique. It’s like the old joke about the dog: She does it because she can.

That recording can be found on a disc called The Opera Lover’s Broadway, which features several other such guilty pleasures. Cesare Siepi, the refulgent Italian baritone, sings Porter’s “So In Love,” just slinging voice at it. There is, in the end, no substitute for a golden throat. (Verdi is reputed to have said that the first three requirements of singing are, “Voice, voice, and voice.”) Initially, we are astonished to hear the familiar tone of Siepi projecting English words. Then, it dawns on us that he is doing a Broadway number, to boot, with soupy harps all about. Porter — far from being kidnapped — is living in luxury. Siepi also sings “Wunderbar,” which arrives at a sort of ultimate: an Italian baritone performing a Broadway show tune replete with German words. Only in America.

The fabled bass George London sings “Ol’ Man River,” a veritable national anthem for basses, especially English-speaking ones. London gives it an air of holiness, with the same reverent sound that made him unparalleled in Brahms’s German Requiem. Joan Sutherland sings “Make Believe,” and it is much as you would expect: a gossamer bel canto aria. Interestingly enough, singers doing crossover tend to sound just about as we would imagine. Close your eyes, and you can hear anyone doing anything. Try it: Dietrich FischerDieskau singing “Love Me Tender”; Maria Callas singing “Tangerine.” It works. There is a recording of Kathleen Ferrier — the esteemed, solemn British contralto — accompanying herself at the piano during a postconcert party, drunk. She goes through a series of ridiculous ditties like “Will o’ the Wisp” and “The Antelope.” And amazingly, she sounds just like herself, the very same singer from Mahler’s Lied von der Erde.

Not invariably are crossovers successful, as witness a recent disc of Arlen songs from Sylvia McNair, an American soprano, and Andre Previn, who has been making jazz albums with classical singers for 40 years. McNair has taken a regrettable approach: She wants to sing, not as the worthy classical singer she is, but as a pop singer would, or as she supposes a pop singer would. She has altered her technique entirely. All through, she sings in a pathetic, anemic half-voice, as Previn picks at the piano in that annoying cocktail manner he so favors. She leaves everything that is commendable about her — everything that sets her apart from the pop crowd — at home. If she is going to do that, she might as well give over the studio time to Cleo Laine, a more capable jazz artist. When she says, at the beginning of “Paper Moon,” “Uh-one, uh-two, uhyou know what to do,” it is painful. (The song includes the lyric ” as phony as it can be.”) McNair has little feel for this idiom, is an impostor in it. The project is a disaster.

One singer who crossed over all the way — without a backward glance — is Eileen Farrell, now in her 70s. She was a dramatic soprano and oratorio singer of great distinction. In 1960, she caused a stir with an album defiantly titled I Got a Right To Sing the Blues. Gradually, she let her classical technique die out and embraced the methods of the jazz lounge. In her compilation My Very Best, she breathes like a pop singer — which is to say, shallowly and often — and she slides, tastefully, among the notes. There are few remaining traces of her former soprano — Farrell uses the lower register, as sopranos, even in their prime, tend to do when crossing over — but now and then she is recognizable as the old Farrell. She still has her musical sense, of course, and her pitch is proudly accurate. There are certainly worse ways to pass retirement; her “Stormy Weather” is far above average.

But there is something slightly wistful and sad about Farrell’s second career, for some of us. Fewer people now remember what she was — though Sony Classical has just reissued a stellar disc of Verdi arias — and many know her, if they know her at all, only as a corpulent, white-haired old lady with a mike. It may be said of her, though, that she never tried to straddle, that, when she went, she went whole hog. According to Marilyn Horne, who is now in her mid60s, a singer cannot long serve two masters. “I have dabbled in pop music all my life,” she has said, “but you cannot go in and out of these styles. You have to stick to your technique or it will go down the drain. I feel now at my age that I can do it a bit more.”

Occasionally, a pop singer will cross over the other way, and the results are seldom good: Barbra Streisand once made a recording of arias and art songs. Luciano Pavarotti and Michael Bolton recently put in a wretched appearance together on the David Letterman show, bleating “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot in alternating phrases. As a rule, it is unwise to place a classical voice next to a pop voice; the inequality is too jarring.

The classical musician who crosses over is usually a singer, but not always: Vladimir Horowitz loved to imitate Art Tatum improvisations, though, unfortunately, he never shared them with the public. But Jascha Heifetz made some astounding recordings of popular music in the 1940s, now available on MCA Classics. Heifetz is commonly thought of as a stern, unsmiling man, but he enjoyed music from American culture, and he transcribed and performed it with relish. In “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing,” the violinist could hardly be bluesier. And he is particularly affecting in his arrangement of the spiritual “Deep River,” which is full of wailing double-stops and plaintive octaves. The climax is unbelievably arresting, and the entire performance is as convincing as the most inspired sung ones (of which there are many). Heifetz also plays “White Christmas,” and, speaking of Bing Crosby, the two of them do a couple of cuts together, the weirdest of which is an adaptation of the tenor aria from Godard’s opera Jocelyn. Bing is honeyed as always, but musically moronic, so that the effort — though a fine curiosity — is comical. Heifetz is dazzling in “Mackie Messer,” the Weill song that came to be known as “Mack the Knife,” giving it — among other flourishes — a fiendish pizzicato variation.

Of today’s singers, who crosses over most successfully (along with young Terfel)? The Queen of Crossover is undoubtedly Kiri Te Kanawa, who will record anything she can get her hands on, from the usual show tunes to soft- rock numbers. By and large, she adapts well, putting the brakes on the voice, finding the appropriate style, while never forgetting that she is a diva and therefore brings certain cards to the table. Her rendition of the Rodgers & Hart song “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” with Nelson Riddle and his orchestra, represents the best of her crossover art. It is intimate, rhythmically disciplined, infectious — a model of the genre. When she goes up an octave on the word “eyes,” she neither leaps nor lunges, but caresses the note, as the musical line demands. That she can do this thanks to a wellmanipulated hard palate, no listener really cares, but the point remains that technique and musicianship cannot be separated as easily as we might like — the one gives flight to the other. Te Kanawa can do more with a song for the same reason that Wolfgang Puck can do more with a pizza: She has better ingredients and superior training.

The mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, too, is a crossover hound. In fact, she may be preferable there, as certain of her mannerisms that blemish classical music are more welcome in pop. Von Stade tends to fiat, to slide, to get cutesy — none of which is an obstacle in her own Rodgers & Hart collection. And no matter what she performs, she has the habit of singing sexy, which can be bothersome in Schubert but is ingratiating in “My Funny Valentine.”

Lately, she has teamed up with Dave Brubeck’s son Chris to record his father’s songs. Some of the music is too insipid to be redeemed even by yon Stade, but at least she makes tolerable what the classical-oriented listener otherwise could not stomach. The Brubecks are lucky to have her. Again, though, the mixture is untenable when Chris joins her in song, because you can tell that the one is probably looking obligingly at the other, coaxing him along, the way an adult does with a child, or Beverley Sills used to do with Carol Burnett on television. If you like Brubeck, you have no need of von Stade to interpret him; if you are not inclined to Brubeck, von Stade cannot save him for you. Yet classical musicians often can do such saving, one of the strengths of crossover: Many of us are unable to listen to Billy Joel sing his “And So It Goes,” but, done by the King’s Singers (it is one of their signature pieces, a regular encore), it is lovely, endearing.

What, then, are the gifts of classical musicians — singers in particular — to popular music? First, they have their musicianship, a refinement that elevates whatever it joins with. Then, they have voice. They have intonation – – a song, high or low, should be sung in tune. They make it possible for us to hear hackneyed music, music that, in other circumstances, we are weary or unappreciative of. They enable us to discover things in songs that have been allowed to be mossed over. They make for the composers the best cases possible. They breathe better, phrase better, keep time better than pop singers. In short, they have more arrows in their quiver, more tricks in their bag, more colors on their palette. To borrow from Irving Berlin, whatever pop stars can do, classical ones can — not unfailingly, but often, very often — do better.

Jay Nordlinger is associate editor and music critic of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.