I was there that night. When I bought the ticket a month prior, I had not heard of Schager's name before. Even though I am quite fanatic in finding and listening to tenors, I haven't really explored works requiring heldentenors. So I looked him up on TH-cam and listened to some videos. I did not find him to my liking. So when the concert day came, I did not have much expectations for the tenor, plus the other soloists were names like Christine Goerke and Latania Moore, and the rising Ying Fang. In the first few minutes he sang, I thought he was using the microphone, his projection was rather 3-dimensional and quite reverberant, but then I realized the other singers did not have the same quality. As the night progressed on, I was in awe of Schager's power and squillo, at the most fortissimo moments in the music, with all the choir and the soloists in full blast, I could hear him soaring above the others and over the orchestra! It's utterly unbelievable... Here we have a superb example of a tenor voice that's not being able to be properly captured by modern microphonics. Whatever videos you listen him in, including this very one, do not in the slightest demonstrate the sheer size, power, and squillo that this tenor has. Moreover, we are talking about the Boston Symphony Hall, which is among the top 3 halls in the world for orchestral music per Dr. Beranek's acoustical measurements and survey, but not really primed for vocals like opera houses. Even some singers I have heard in this hall who were supposed to sound big did not sound as big/penetrating here, with few exceptions. But sitting on the middle of the 27th row (out of 44) on the orchestra level, a couple of my friends later told me that they found him to be so powerful that they thought he was too powerful. I can only imagine how he would sound in a proper opera house.... ma Dio!! The live opera tradition is still irreplaceable for this very reason. In my relatively young years, I had the privilege to listen to these tenors live (in alphabetical order): Brian Jagde, Charles Castronovo, Gregory Kunde, Jonathan Tetelman, Marcelo Alvarez, Marco Berti, Piotr Beczala, Roberto Alagna, Stephen Costello, Vittorio Grigolo, and Yusif Eyvazov Among all of them, perhaps Brian Jagde was the only one that can come close to the power of Schager, but even then my bet is with Schager still. Truly was pleasantly surprised by Schager. Bravooooo!!!
Andreas Schager sounded as amazing back in the 2016 recording in Lucerne for Mahler's 8th Symphony and heard him live at the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC performing in Tannhäuser last November, such a powerful voice he has
I was there that night. When I bought the ticket a month prior, I had not heard of Schager's name before. Even though I am quite fanatic in finding and listening to tenors, I haven't really explored works requiring heldentenors. So I looked him up on TH-cam and listened to some videos. I did not find him to my liking. So when the concert day came, I did not have much expectations for the tenor, plus the other soloists were names like Christine Goerke and Latania Moore, and the rising Ying Fang. In the first few minutes he sang, I thought he was using the microphone, his projection was rather 3-dimensional and quite reverberant, but then I realized the other singers did not have the same quality. As the night progressed on, I was in awe of Schager's power and squillo, at the most fortissimo moments in the music, with all the choir and the soloists in full blast, I could hear him soaring above the others and over the orchestra! It's utterly unbelievable...
Here we have a superb example of a tenor voice that's not being able to be properly captured by modern microphonics. Whatever videos you listen him in, including this very one, do not in the slightest demonstrate the sheer size, power, and squillo that this tenor has. Moreover, we are talking about the Boston Symphony Hall, which is among the top 3 halls in the world for orchestral music per Dr. Beranek's acoustical measurements and survey, but not really primed for vocals like opera houses. Even some singers I have heard in this hall who were supposed to sound big did not sound as big/penetrating here, with few exceptions. But sitting on the middle of the 27th row (out of 44) on the orchestra level, a couple of my friends later told me that they found him to be so powerful that they thought he was too powerful. I can only imagine how he would sound in a proper opera house.... ma Dio!! The live opera tradition is still irreplaceable for this very reason.
In my relatively young years, I had the privilege to listen to these tenors live (in alphabetical order): Brian Jagde, Charles Castronovo, Gregory Kunde, Jonathan Tetelman, Marcelo Alvarez, Marco Berti, Piotr Beczala, Roberto Alagna, Stephen Costello, Vittorio Grigolo, and Yusif Eyvazov Among all of them, perhaps Brian Jagde was the only one that can come close to the power of Schager, but even then my bet is with Schager still. Truly was pleasantly surprised by Schager. Bravooooo!!!
Andreas Schager sounded as amazing back in the 2016 recording in Lucerne for Mahler's 8th Symphony and heard him live at the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC performing in Tannhäuser last November, such a powerful voice he has