A friend recently described what she considered an odd but common experience at work. She found that her bosses and peers resented her for being productive and increasing the firm’s revenue. Then we got into the discussion of another individual being damned, for his ability. The winner of a nationally televised talent contest in Britain by an Opera Singer named Paul Potts’s, with the same kind of resentment by critics raising its ugly head.
In an article published by Daniel J. Watkin titled “The People’s Tenor Pits the Sniffles Against the Sniffs:” He references several comments on Paul’s performance by less than elated Opera critics’, and this just a sample from many of them:

“Mr. Potts is the sort of bog-standard tenor to be found in any amateur opera company in any corner of the country,” wrote Philip Hensher in The Independent of London. “His tuning was all over the place; his voice sounded strained and uncontrolled; his phrasing was stubby and lumpy; he made a constipated approximation only of the fluid sound of the Italianate tenor.”

I’m not an Opera critic, nor am I well versed on Opera singers in general, but I know what I like when it comes to singing, as I was a ballad singer in some less than savory places in my younger days. The question then with Paul Potts’s, is why millions loved what he accomplished, and heaped loving praise, on this cellphone salesman, who won with his rendition of “Nessun dorma?” Then why is Paul Potts being damned by the elite Opera critics, the answer is below.

It is called the hatred of the good for being good. Ayn Rand described it as follows:

Today, we live in the Age of Envy.

Envy is not the emotion I have in mind, but it is the clearest manifestation of an emotion that had remained nameless; it is the only element of a complete emotional sum that men have permitted themselves to identify.
Envy is regarded by most people as a petty, superficial emotion and, therefore, it serves as a semi human cover for so inhuman an emotion that those who feel it seldom dare admit it even to themselves. Mankind has lived with it, has observed its manifestations and, to various extents, has been ravaged by it for countless centuries, yet has failed to grasp its meaning and to rebel against its exponents.
Today, that emotion is the leitmotif, the sense of life of our culture. It is all around us, we are drowning in it, it is almost explicitly confessed by its more brazen exponents–yet men continue to evade its existence and are peculiarly afraid to name it, as primitive people were once afraid to pronounce the name of the devil.

That emotion is: hatred of the good for being the good.

This hatred is not resentment against some prescribed view of the good with which one does not agree. For instance, if a child resents some conventional type of obedient boy who is constantly held up to him as an ideal to emulate, this is not hatred of the good: the child does not regard that boy as good, and his resentment is the product of a clash between his values and those of his elders (though he is too young to grasp the issue in such terms). Similarly, if an adult does not regard altruism as good and resents the adulation bestowed upon some humanitarian, this is clash between his values and those of others, not hatred of the good.

Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by ones own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable.

If a child wants to get good grades in school, but is unable or unwilling to achieve them and begins to hate the children who do, that is hatred of the good. If a man regards intelligence as a value, but is troubled by self-doubt and begins to hate the men he judges to be intelligent, that is hatred of the good. (A. Rand, The Age of Envy, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, p. 152-3).

In contrast to the hatred of the good, in his book _Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators_, Edwin Locke makes the case that virtue is the key to success. Further, the Prime Movers he examines are lovers of ability in others.
In the close of her essay, Rand provides guidance on the appropriate response to those that hate the good for being good:

What is the weapon one needs to fight such an enemy? For once, it is I who will say that love is the answer–love in the actual meaning of the word, which is the opposite of the meaning they give it–love as a response to value, love of the good for being the good. If you hold on to the vision of any value you love–your mind, your work, your wife or husband, or your child–and remember that that is what the enemy is after, your shudder of rebellion will give you the moral fire, the courage and the intransigence needed in this battle. What fuel can support ones fire? Love for man at his highest potential. (Ibid., p 186)

Paul Potts' reached that level, and I’ll offer you a version of (Por Ti Sere) in Spanish, also called “You raise me up” from his first CD called “One Chance” that is now the number one top selling Album in the UK, and you be the judge, as you listen to the voice, in another language you may not know.



Update: For those that hate and refuse to install Quicktime, I've added a flash MP3 player.

I just recently discovered a very shy, insecure Welsh tenor who appeared out of nowhere and has set the opera world, and perhaps the pop music world on fire. He lives in Port Talbot in South Wales. His name is Paul Potts, and even if you don’t care for Opera, or understand it, his is a name with a voice that is going to set your mind to love, your heart to sing, and your eyes to tears.

Paul's opera singing style - bel canto - is definitely my favorite style that...quite simply...unabashedly moves me to tears.

"Nessun dorma" is an aria from the final act of Puccini’s opera Turandot. The aria, whose title translates from Italian as "Let no one sleep", follows the proclamation by the Princess Turandot that no one shall sleep: they shall all spend the night attempting to find out the name of the unknown prince, Calaf, who has set the challenge. Calaf sings, indicating his certainty that their effort will be in vain

The aria achieved pop status after it was adopted as the official theme song of the 1990 Football World Cup. Prior to the World Cup it was the signature song of the famous Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotte, and has been associated with him ever since. Now that Pavarotte is seriously ill, the song Paul performed for the first time on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent is even more poignant, and his final winning song of the competition was Con Ti Partiro or Time to Say Goodbye.

Time to Say Goodbye


The libretto of Turandot doesn't translate easily because it's so heavily poetic. Not just the lyrics, but the entire plot, and doesn't make much sense if taken too literally. Forgive me if I recap most of the plot, but the poetry of the aria is too tied up in the story not to discuss it....

As you probably know, Turandot is the beautiful cold-hearted femme fatale princess who lures love-struck princes to their death. Anyone who wants to marry her is asked three riddles: If he answers them right he gets to marry her, but if he doesn't he is beheaded. This is stated at the very beginning of the opera as "the law" ("La legge è questa:"). It is not so much a government decree as a mythopoetic law, almost like a magic spell, which no one in the kingdom — not the emperor, not Turandot, not the ministers — can go against.

In the first act Calaf, the "Unknown Prince", rings the gong, signifying his declaration as a suitor to Turandot. In the second act he correctly answers the three riddles. According to the law, Turandot now has to marry him, even though she doesn't want to. But instead of claiming his prize, Calaf now poses a riddle of his own, saying to her: Tell me my name before morning, and at dawn I shall die

Take this literally and it's a bad move on his part — he's already won, why should he give her another chance to get away? — of course nothing in this opera makes sense if taken literally. Naturally, the Prince's statement is poetic. Furthermore he WANTS to "lose" the game; he wants her to tell him his name and he wants to "die." Besides being another instance of the Lohengrin/Rumpelstiltskin guess-my-name game the Prince is telling Turandot of his true goal. (Notice that he does not say "IF you guess my name....")

He doesn't want her to marry him reluctantly; he wants to defeat her cold-hearted defensiveness and have her fall in love with him. This is, in fact, exactly what happens at the end of the opera, and the metaphors are quite explicit. The veil which Turandot wears (and which Calaf rips) is described as "cold" ("fredda"), for instance.

So when the Prince poses the riddle, the name he refers to is not "Calaf", but rather the name she will ultimately give him: "Amor" ("Love"). That is, he wants her to love him. of course he does know; but poetically, Liù's statement is correct, because she's the only one who is in love with the Prince.

Where the Prince says "then I shall die", he really means "die" in the sense of lose himself completely to true love. Yes, I know, death-equals-love sounds like a pretty perverse metaphor, but it's a persistent one (and more common in Romance languages than it is in English). For an example in English (albeit written by an Italian), when Laetitia in The Old Maid and the Thief sings, "O sweet thief, I pray, make me die," she isn't hoping that he'll murder her.

The aria "Nessun dorma" is near the beginning of Act 3. At the end of Act 2 Turandot hasn't yet figured out all this love poetry business, and still thinks that she just has to get someone to reveal the Prince's name and then she can chop off his head. So she puts out a decree that no one in Peking is allowed to sleep until the name is revealed.

Act 3 opens in gloomy night with lugubrious chords in the orchestra (technically, minor chords with augmented 7ths and 11ths). Some heralds are announcing Turandot's decree, "Tonight no one in Peking sleeps, and the chorus gloomily repeats the words "no one sleeps. In the first words of his aria, the Prince is repeating the words of the chorus. The G major chord that opens the aria is the first optimistic-sounding chord we've heard since intermission and it breaks through the gloom like the light of dawn.

Hopefully now you have some idea, of the Opera’s story, the song, and the rendition given by Paul Potts, and did I mention that Paul’s winning prize, is to perform for the Queen herself. Get a hanky dear lady, you will need it.

For a Music Critics perspectives go to:

BC

I’ve also included the full “Nessun dorma" from three other tenors, as Paul only performed a small section (the end of the aria) for comparison. While you may find, more power and technique with the professionals, I believe you will find what I did in Paul Potts performance…. more heart and soul.
As J.S. Reidhead, said in his blog, “Oh, the voice? Move over Andrea Bocelli with Paul Potts in town, no one is going to remember your name. Potts has the potential to be one of the great tenors.”

Now watch the judges, from the beginning, as there ho-hum expresions turn to wonder!



I've decided to include the links only, and if you want to compare, as I did click on them, and come back one last time to Paul, and if he doesn't blow you away, get rid of your MP3's.


Pavarotti-Nessun Dorma
Well done by Pavarotti, but not the heart I looked for.


Andrea Bocelli Live
Bocelli is of course more a pop singer, as he is blind, and stage work in Opera, would be out of the general question, however there is more heart than Pavarotti.


Now badly done by Mark Janicello
I can't say enough about how poorly this was done, especially the last note, and no heart, just bad!

Mario Del Monaco
This version, was always my favorite, and done by an old school Opera Master, however Paul Potts, is going to be eventually counted among the greats.

Paul Potts very first Album, including Nessun Dorma, can be found at Amazon, the link provided above. He is so good, they sent him to a recording studio, right after his ITV win, and the purchase is worth the price.

As a final note, Paul sang for LUCIANO PAVAROTTE, as you will find in Reidhead's Blog, and one day may replace him, as one of the greatest tenors in our time. Paul was going to give up if he could not at least get in the finals, of course he did, and his struggle reminds me of this poem.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe, were life.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world,
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars.
And tho' we are not now the strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.