Garry Wills, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian and public intellectual, is a lifelong opera fan. I spoke to him recently about his most recent book, Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theatre (Viking, 2011). It's a close reading of the three operas – Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff – that Verdi and his librettists based on Shakespeare plays.
According to Wikipedia, an unimpeachable source, Wills met his wife while taking his first-ever flight; she was the stewardess. (Presumably, she made his tabletop assume the upright position.) They've been married for more than 50 years. Opera, Wills said, was pivotal to their courtship.
So, the eventual Mrs. Wills favored Giuseppe Di Stefano, who then would have been at the apogee of his career. Garry preferred Beniamino Gigli, who would only recently have died (1957).
Apart from the generational divide between the tenors, Gigli and Di Stefano were not dissimilar. Both were the sons of shoemakers. Both cut a romantic swath. Both had the goods required to catapult a Verdi aria to the back of the hall. Both had much to recommend them.
Nonetheless, sides must be taken and ballots must be cast, which here you have a chance to do. Listen to Di Stefano and Gigli perform Di quella pira, the powerhouse aria from Verdi's Il Trovatore: Manrico rallies the troops to save his mother from being burned at the stake.
The playing field here is not, it must be said, utterly even. The Gigli example is innocent of image, and try not to be influenced by the way he transposes the aria down a notch or two. It was perhaps a day or two past his sell-by date when this recording was made, so cut the guy some slack already.
Beniamino Gigli
Giuseppe Di Stefano
Let's not let the sun set one day longer on this old lover's quarrel. Di Stefano or Gigli – who's it gonna be?