Gino Bechi- Alzati! la tuo figlio...Eri tu

Gino Bechi (1913-1993)

Although Gino Bechi and Tito Gobbi were exact contemporaries, the former seems somehow to belong to a more distant era (at least to me). Perhaps this is because Bechi's career was waning by the mid-1950's, when his voice started to lose some of its color and freshness. He also appeared very few times in the U.S. and, to my knowledge, never at the MET.

If Gobbi was a more persuasive actor, Bechi certainly had the richer, more powerful and secure voice. In his prime, Bechi was often referred to as the "new" Titta Ruffo, both for the similarity in voice (the richly-textured, "snarling" timbre and blazing high notes) and for the repertoire they sang.

Here we have an RAI video of 'Eri tu', from Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera". While it comes from the latter part of Bechi's career, the clip- dubbed to a late 1940's recording- finds him in fine mettle, and his rousing rendition serves as an interesting contrast to the slightly more subdued 1943 version of the aria already posted on Youtube.