{"id":6771,"date":"2015-07-13T13:14:35","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T20:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=6771"},"modified":"2015-07-13T23:14:04","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T06:14:04","slug":"other-matters-the-universality-of-jon-vickers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2015\/07\/other-matters-the-universality-of-jon-vickers\/","title":{"rendered":"Other Matters: The Universality Of Jon Vickers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;5CmKLz89MiZp0hOSmYugrCc4XZEMEGkG&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Jon-Vickers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Jon-Vickers.jpg\" alt=\"Jon Vickers\" width=\"210\" height=\"220\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6772\" \/><\/a>In art, there is a bright line of quality above which categories do not matter.  The best works of Mozart, Picasso, Charlie Parker and Laurence Olivier&#151;to pick four names out of the stratosphere&#151;are at a level of expressiveness, humanity and emotion to which anyone with open mind, ears and heart can respond. With the death of Jon Vickers on July 10, we lost a tenor whose presence, magnetism and sheer vocal ability had the power to reach listeners who thought opera pointless, pretentious or silly. His roles in <em>Pagliaci<\/em>, <em>Rigoletto<\/em>, <em>Carmen<\/em>, <em>Tristan and Isolde<\/em> and&#151;perhaps most powerfully&#151;<em>Peter Grimes<\/em>, made him one of the most compelling performers of the twentieth century, in any art form. Here he is in Verdi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Otello<\/em> at the Metropolitan Opera in 1978, with Cornell MacNeil as Iago.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_iTsN7hB--M?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>For a lengthy appreciation of Jon Vickers see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gramophone.co.uk\/feature\/reputations-jon-vickers?pmtx=recommended&#038;utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.2&#038;utm_content=Read%20%27Reputations%20-%20Jon%20Vickers%27%20by%20Richard%20Osborne&#038;utm_campaign=Gramophone%20Newsletter_13_07_2015%20-%20JH%20V2&#038;utm_source=Gramophone&#038;utm_medium=adestra_email&#038;utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gramophone.co.uk%2Ffeature%2Freputations-jon-vickers\"target=\"_blank\">this article<\/a> by Richard Osborne in <em>Gramophone<\/em> magazine. Osborne illustrates it with three videos of Vickers in full cry. They include a crucial scene from Benjamin Britten\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Peter Grimes<\/em>, a performance that brought Vickers huge acclaim.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;5CmKLz89MiZp0hOSmYugrCc4XZEMEGkG&#8221;] In art, there is a bright line of quality above which categories do not matter. The best works of Mozart, Picasso, Charlie Parker and Laurence Olivier&#151;to pick four names out of the stratosphere&#151;are at a level of expressiveness, humanity and emotion to which anyone with open mind, ears and heart can respond. With [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}