In the opera universe, there’s wacky and weird—and then there’s Stefan Zucker. This living “world’s highest tenor” is so strange as to defy description—the closest I can come is that his speaking voice sounds like a Mike Myers impersonation in an Austin Powers movie, and his attachment to Italian opera divas of the past is almost pornographic. Many New York opera-lovers remember him from his WKCR radio show, which was discontinued in 1994. For the uninitiated, he can be viewed in a YouTube clip.
Zucker’s voice opens Jan Schmidt-Garre’s 1998 film, Opera Fanatic, just released in the U.S. on an Arthaus DVD, with a telephone message: “Oh hi, this is Stefan. I feel like shit with a touch of fever and a sore throat, but I will get on the plane… I have some little pimples on my face, and I would feel much more at my ease, much less self-conscious with makeup.” If this doesn’t give you the heeby-jeebies, I’m either not telling it right, or you’ve never heard Zucker’s voice before. read more
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