Marcelo Alvarez and Salvatore Licitra "Duetto".(Sound Recording Review)

* Romantic ballads in duet by Sartori, Shearman, Wood, Saggese, Marrale; arrangements of Bach, Gounod, Bizet et al. The City of Prague Philharmonic, The Kuhn's Choir, May. Texts and translations. Sony Classical SK87957

Duetto, a showcase for the contrasting gifts of Sony contract tenors Marcelo Alvarez and Salvatore Licitra, was launched with an outdoor free concert in Rome last June, followed by a PBS special and a North American concert tour. Watching the Rome concert, which was heavy with pop-flavored songs and arrangements, one felt there was not a lot for the tenors to do; the material doesn't offer much in the way of spontaneity, and after a while, it all begins to blend together. Despite the pretensions of operatic grandeur that some of these songs and arrangements have, the compositions lack the daredevil excitement and interpretive opportunities offered by opera literature--or even celebrated Neapolitan canzone. While the voices of Licitra and Alvarez do not possess the unique color and appeal of Andrea Bocelli in this type of easy-listening material--just as Bocelli's voice doesn't deliver opera arias with the vocal aptness of Licitra and Alvarez--fans of Bocelli's recordings will probably find much to enjoy here.

Neither tenor attempts a pop vocal production; both favor alternating a microphone-friendly mezza voce with full operatic tilt. Licitra's grittier voice can be dark and baritonal or bright and ringing, the latter particularly on top. His phrasing is occasionally blunt, but he is capable of dynamic control at key moments that call for it. Alvarez is essentially more of a lyric tenor, with some added thrust, his often-imaginative phrasing aided by the flexibility of his voice. The disc is reminiscent of Sometimes I Dream, a collection of similar material, put together by the same team (composer/arranger Steve Wood and conductor Daniel May) for another Sony tenor, Mario Frangoulis.

The ...