Newcomer Award Freddie De Tommaso

Passione

Tenor arias by Buzzi-peccia, Capua, Innocenzi, Puccini, Respighi, Tosti etc Freddie De Tommaso (tenor); London Philharmonic Orchestra/renato Balsadonna Decca 485 1509

‘Part of the idea was to bring a bit of Italian sunshine!’ says Freddie De Tommaso (above). ‘Many of these songs I discovered when I was changing from baritone to tenor, and was listening to tenors from the past – Caruso, then those around the 1970s such as Di Stefano, Corelli and Del Monaco, who all sang those songs. They then fell out of fashion, so I wanted to try to do my bit to bring them back.’

Passione mixes familiar names such as Puccini, Bellini and Respighi with lesser-knowns such as Tosti, Buzzipeccia and Cardillo, and there’s a strong southern Italian accent. ‘My father was from Puglia, so I’m a fairly fluent Italian speaker. However, quite a number of the tracks are in the Neapolitan dialect, so I had some special coaching to get those words exactly right.’

Recorded mid-pandemic in November 2020, Passione needed a venue large enough to hold a socially distanced orchestra – the Watford Colosseum – and for De Tommaso himself, his debut recording was something of a learning curve: ‘It’s so different from doing live performance. You have to learn quite quickly when to really give it the beans, and when to tone it down. But it was so exciting, and I’m happy it’s been so well received.’ Jeremy Pound