I'm glad that neither of us is offended. I'm really not one of those classically trained or overly critical technically obsessed types who burn up you tube in Callas type wars and get threads closed to comments. These songs were my lullabies; I was apparently a very fractious infant, and my father sang virtually the entire canon of Italian opera to me when I was a child, as well as folk songs and the popular Italian music of his and my grandparents' day.
Opera is meant to be sung and enjoyed on all sorts of levels. I just have a problem with children singing it in this way, and if people aren't that familiar with opera, they should start with the "greats" so they know how it is supposed to sound.
If you liked Mario Lanza you had great taste in my opinion. He had a wonderful voice, good technique, and absolutely fabulous diction, which not even all the greats have, again, in my opinion. And if you give him a try on youtube in other arias, don't pay attention to all the blather about how he wasted his gift singing mostly in movies; the man was paralyzed by stage fright.
I think a lot of the anti-Boccelli stuff is very snobbish too; I think he has a very clear and attractive tenor voice, and sings with great feeling, although I do agree that he has problems with the higher register, and so makes me very nervous when I hear him sing some of these arias live. He absolutely embarrassed himself at the Pavarotti memorial, for example.
I don't know if you have this CD, but if you don't, and you like Puccini arias, this is a good one. You can even listen to samples to help you decide if you want to own it. Be advised that as one of the posters comments, this isn't high studio quality. Of course, if you just like certain arias and performers you can find a lot of it on youtube. For me, I listen to opera in the car, as I'm working, everywhere really, so I need the downloads.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Puccini-Collection-G/dp/B000007OU1
Just generally, in terms of operatic tenors, "my" ranking (not that anyone but me really cares
) is Caruso, of course, first, and then below him, Pavarotti and Jussi Bjorling, and then Placido Domingo.
Here is Jussi Bjorling singing Nessun Dorma. I like it very much, although obviously some people didn't, as they had to close the thread to comments!