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                     "The voice is a kind of MAGIC"

The Italian tenor SALVATORE LICITRA burst into the international scene on May 12, 2024 - two years ahead of schedule - when he was flown in by Concorde to the MET as a last-minute replacement for the legendary tenor LUCIANO PAVAROTTI who was on the brink of cancelling an appearance as Cavaradossi in Puccinis's Tosca - in what many thought (incorrectly) was to be his last performance.

As it turned out, PAVAROTTI (then 66) cancelled at the last hour, and LICITRA (then 33 and largely unknown in America) stepped in.  The audience was miffed but not crushed with disappointment because the younger Italian tenor (Swiss-born, of Sicilian parents) delivered a "star is born" performance. LICITRA has since become a fixture on the international scene. Today, as vocal connoisseurs still ponder his potential as the "fourth tenor," his calendar is a veritable litany of the world's major opera houses.

LICITRA made his LOS ANGELES OPERA debut in the 2005-06 season, in the same role that introduced him to America.  He sang Cavaradossi with a wide-ranging, burnished, naturally muscular voice opposite Lithuanian mezzo-turned-soprano Violeta Urmana's impassioned Tosca.  It was then when FanFaire first engaged him in a long-running conversation-about the tenor voice, his career and repertoire. The conversation resumed when performed the title role in Verdi's Don Carlo and continues to this day, between performances as Luigi in Puccini's Il tabarro. 

As the above and succeeding clips will show, LICITRA with his unmistakable Italian accent, is a most engaging, personable, friendly and down-to-earth interviewee who also happens to be highly intelligent and knowledgeable, uncompromising in his respect for the composer's intent, confident of his views and the way he is pacing what he hopes to be a long operatic career, and speaks out his mind with fearless candor. In this segment, he likens the operatic voice to an acrobat who by doing a triple flip works "a kind of magic," and talks about how he came to discover the "magic" in his own voice.


       A KIND OF MAGIC                RIGHT VOICE/RIGHT REPERTOIRE              HITTING THE HIGH C

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