Music: Singing, with Love & Garlic

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Bloodshot Eyes. Not surprisingly, the sexual practices of singers are as odd as their gastronomic habits. Musicologist Henry Pleasants, whose new book The Great Singers, will be published this month, reports that Tenor Jean de Reszke (1850-1925) favored continence for male singers for two or three days before a performance. Should women indulge? a pupil asked. "Not," replied De Reszke, "while onstage."

Most singers seem to agree that men, especially tenors, ought to eschew sex before performing, but that it does a world of good for the girls' voices. One Metropolitan Opera tenor is said to abstain for ten days prior to and ten days after each performance; his distraught wife says he sings every ten days. Ezio Pinza, on the other hand, held the belief that "the night before, it's terrible, but just before going onstage, it's wonderful." Others, like Tenor Giuseppe di Stefano, follow no regimen. Says he: "If I don't make love regularly, I get bad-tempered, my voice gets heavy and my eyes bloodshot. If I do overdo it, however, my high C sharps run the risk of finishing up as C naturals." Tenor Ramon Vinay claims that during one long period of deprivation in South America, his high tenor turned into a deep baritone.

For Art's Sake. Opera lore is rife with stories about sopranos whose contracts provide for dressing-room lovers —a stagehand, perhaps, or a house fireman who donates his services for art's sake. Soprano Gemma Bellincioni made no secret of the fact that she made love in her dressing room right before a performance. If she ran overtime—and she often did—her understanding Italian audiences waited patiently. One shapely U.S. lyric soprano was notorious in the 1940s for sabotaging her leading man by seducing him shortly before going onstage; audiences loved her, hated him.

To all this, La Scala's Dr. de Marco replies that the singers could get the same effect with a tranquilizer.