Even Philip Langridge, who also died earlier this year, couldn't match him in that, though the two tenors were very different kinds of stage and recital animals - Langridge bursting with nervous tension, Rolfe Johnson (in later years at least) the more beautiful voice of the two. Both were superb exponents of the Britten roles and song-cycles (Rolfe Johnson's Hyperion recording of the Michelangelo Sonnets is the most ravishing ever recorded). And they both surpassed the English cathedral tenor syndrome in a way that recent claimants to the throne have not.
Von Otter and Rolfe Johnson worked together many times, not least on another great recording, Monteverdi's Orfeo, and as Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande. So it was appropriate that Fauré's incidental music to the Maeterlinck play began yesterday evening's concert in Verbier's new Salle des Combins. Its elegiac tone proved just perfect, and Von Otter's contribution even more so, a touching ballad sung in English (since it was for a London theatre that Fauré composed his score).
- Find Anthony Rolfe Johnson's recording of Idomeneo on Amazon
- Read an extended tribute on David Nice's blog
