Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mario del Monaco, born in Florence in 1915. There were some who thought he was the greatest tenor – maybe even the greatest singer – ever. Others found his voice monochromatic and too consistently “tutta forza.” Some claimed his acting could be histrionic. (Like that’s an exceptional quality in a tenor!) He did have the ability to incite near-hysteria in an audience.
Here he is singing “E lucevan le stelle”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjDb4KtydLM
And in an interview from 1957:
Del Monaco died in 1982. You don’t really seem to hear that much about him anymore.