Frank Sinatra sings ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’

Written by Tobias Greenhalgh

Baritone

In category: Song of the Day

Published April 30, 2018

I’d like to start off my “Song of the Day” week with an artist everyone can agree on – the man, the myth, ol’ blue eyes himself – Frank Sinatra.  I’ve had a recurring fascination with Frank since I was a kid.  The older I get, the more my appreciation and respect for him grows. There were lots of recordings lying around the house where I grew up, but I gravitated towards Sinatra and Elvis, doing my best to imitate them in my pubertic teenage voice. In a way, I think Frank’s recordings primed my ears to appreciate operatic voices later on. Indulging in recordings of Thomas Allen and Bryn Terfel at the tender age of 15 might not have thrilled me as much had I not spent so much time listening to Sinatra’s already, admiring his iconic, recognizable sound. Not to mention, a performance by Frank is a certified lesson in charisma, confidence, and style. He just has “it.” Whatever “it” is, Sinatra is the definition.

Aaron Copland once said, “You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down… some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.” Frank might not be Copland’s composer in this instance, but his recordings make it pretty clear how it was to be Frank during those days. This video of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” ranks up there in my book as one of the very best recordings of Sinatra performing live. See what you think of it.

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Tobias Greenhalgh is a versatile baritone on the rise, with leading role debuts at Glyndebourne (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and the Aix-en-Provence Festival (Dido and Aeneas) during the 2017/2018 season. After graduating from Juilliard, Tobias moved to Vienna to join the ensemble at the Theater an der Wien, where he made his European debut singing the title role in ‘Eugene Onegin’. He most recently sang the roles of Cecil (Maria Stuarda) and Demetrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at the Theater an der Wien, and Maximilian (Candide) with Palm Beach Opera. He will be making his Carnegie Hall debut on May 12 in Ethyl Smyth’s ‘The Prison’ with the Cecilia Chorus of New York, and celebrating the release of a ‘Three Baritones’ album with a joint recital at Weill Hall on May 22nd.

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