Hot Opera Singers

[uwsman2]

The point about Jaroussky is that the voice doesn't sound at all artificial to me. It is a high, clear, beautiful sound, and in a strange way masculine. That is, it sounds to me quite different from a soprano singing in that range. What does it for me is the perfect clarity that Jaroussky produces, especially in long slow melodies.

 

Sexiness is a matter of personal taste. I find his sound very sexy. And the visuals ain't bad, neither....

[pierrot]

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Jonas Kaufmann's singing. I find his voice quite beautiful, with a masculine, rich sound. It is plenty large enough to be heard at the Met, although I agree that it is an essentially lyric voice and he would do well to steer clear of such roles as Parsifal and Florestan in a big house.

In the performances I heard, his top was fine, although that one high C that tenors sometime insert (it is not written) at the end of Alfredo's cabaletta is probably be too much for him. It is too much for pretty much everyone who tries it. His having missed that note should not be taken to mean he has a poor upper register.

In addition he's a good actor and sings with musicality. All in all, a good hope for the future.

I join those who do not particularly relish the basic countertenor sound. David Daniels, Andreas Scholl, and my favorite, Bejun Mehta, however, are all wonderfully musical in their singing and I have enjoyed their performances. None, of course, even remotely matches the richness of a Marilyn Horne, but they do have style, accuracy, and a relatively pleasing timbre.

Mediocre countertenors I find excrutiating though -- the basic sound is so strained that it sounds like a squawking chicken.

[ariadne1880]

I usually sit in the first few rows at the MET and Kaufmann simply couldn't be heard in Traviata. As for the high C, if he doesn't have one, he ain't a tenor. Polenzani recently sang the same role at the MET and sang the high C -- splendidly I might add -- easily. Kaufmann simply doesn't have a ringing top that you need for a tenor.

 

He is scheduled to sing Siegmund there in coming seasons and I simply cannot see it. He needs to stick to smaller houses in Europe.

 

Mark

[luczen]

Yesterday evening I saw Giulio Cesare with René Jacobs as director and the Freiburger Barokorchester with regie by K-E and U Herrmann.

It was absolutely fabulous although there was only one real man's voice in the whole distribution :

Cesare and Sesto were sung by alto's; Tolomeo by a contratenor as a gay king with a gay court; Nireno, the maid by a contratenor and the real man : Achilla sung by Luca Pisaroni who is an Italian bass-bariton with a fantastic physical presance.

It makes everything so unrealistic and sophisticated that only the music , the voices and the visual impact of the regie matters .

But I can perfectly understand , one does not like it and I also think it can not work in a big opera house like the Met

[whipped guy]

RE: As for the high C, if he doesn't have one, he ain't a tenor.

 

It is nice for a tenor to have a high C... I guess in today's opera world I should say a full voiced high C... but in the days of old the high C was sung in a mixed head voice... what might be termed a strong falsetto... and the high note would probably not have been interpolated at the end of the aria... Still those high note endings are exciting if probably unauthentic.

 

In more recent times some wonderful singers have had sucessful careers without the high C. First on my list would be Cesare Valletti... a singer who embodied elegance and style... without a top C... Even compared with today's high note specialists he still sang a superb Elvino in La Sonnambula with Callas at La Scala in 1955... who cares if he avoids a couiple of top notes. He was a wonderful Alfredo as well, not to mention the premire Almaviva of the 1950's. Come to think about it, Valletti's teacher Tito Schipa didn't have a reliable high C either.

 

Moral of story: avoiding the top C might not be a bad thing as long as the singer in question has a firm technique and exhibits taste, style, and refinement.

[+ Italiano]

Anna Netrebko announced she is pregnant from Erwin Schrott.

[+ Gar1eth]

> RE: As for the high C, if he doesn't

>have one, he ain't a tenor.

>

>It is nice for a tenor to have a high C... I guess in today's

>opera world I should say a full voiced high C... but in the

>days of old the high C was sung in a mixed head voice... what

>might be termed a strong falsetto... and the high note would

>probably not have been interpolated at the end of the aria...

>Still those high note endings are exciting if probably

>unauthentic.

>

>In more recent times some wonderful singers have had sucessful

>careers without the high C. First on my list would be Cesare

>Valletti... a singer who embodied elegance and style...

>without a top C... Even compared with today's high note

>specialists he still sang a superb Elvino in La

>Sonnambula with Callas at La Scala in 1955... who cares if

>he avoids a couiple of top notes. He was a wonderful Alfredo

>as well, not to mention the premire Almaviva of the 1950's.

>Come to think about it, Valletti's teacher Tito Schipa didn't

>have a reliable high C either.

>

>Moral of story: avoiding the top C might not be a bad thing as

>long as the singer in question has a firm technique and

>exhibits taste, style, and refinement.

>

 

 

I am impressed by all the knowledgeable opinions on opera. It almost makes me wish that I could get into it.I will admit to having plebeian musical tastes--I mean I like the top 40. I had a music appreciation class in college and we watched Carmen and I enjoyed it. But in general the operatic voice does nothing for me. Don't get me wrong. I am glad other people enjoy it--but most of them seem to me to be too controlled and strained sounding. Another thing is that meaning is very important to me and having the majority in languages I don't understand is a big turn off (yes I know about the translations usually listed on stage.) It's just a part of the gay gene I didn't get. I also can't dance worth a flip and am not compulsively neat.

 

Gman

[Guest alanm]

What you are reading is many different opinions, including mine about

Juan Diego Florez (i.e, great singer, decent actor nothing special).

No one is absolutely right, or absolutely wrong --- no matter how much passion they bring to the discussion. It's all opinion, and reads more dense and elevated that it actually is. Interesting to read, but your reaction probably mirrors many other people's.

 

Hearing an opera live, whether in Ohio or New York City, is a completely different experience from what you might image.

[whipped guy]

RE: I am impressed by all the knowledgeable opinions on opera.

 

Well, I for one am impressed by all the knowledgeable opinions expressed on this site regarding escorts! Accordingly, I usually am able to combine my operatic excursions into NYC with diversions of a different sort!

 

 

RE: It's just a part of the gay gene I didn't get. I also can't dance worth a flip and am not compulsively neat.

 

Well, the opera gene is the only one this has two left feet, not compulsively neat, never cared for Judy (or Liza for that matter) guy ever got!

[pierrot]

Right you are Whipped Guy! Many, if not most, operatic tenors, especially the dramatic and spinto voices, do NOT sing high C. Placido Domingo never had one. Even the most famous tenors often avoided high C by transposing certain arias like "Che gelida manina" from Boheme. If you listen to live performances, as opposed to studio recordings, you'll hear the greatest tenors, like Jussi Bjoerling, Carlo Bergonzi, Franco Corelli, and others transpose arias with high C.

Yes, Ariadne, Matthew Polenzani did sing the C, and rather well. But Polenzani has a very light tenor and Alfredo is about as heavy a role as he will do. Polenzani, Florez, and other lighter voices often have top notes that heavier voices don't. And I repeat, there is no high C in Verdi's score -- it is interpolated by SOME tenors. So not having high C is not a disqualification for this role.

Many top ranked tenors do/did not sing high C. I'm not sure Caruso sang high C, at least not for the major part of his career.

[whipped guy]

RE: Even the most famous tenors often avoided high C by transposing certain arias...

 

I would love to have a penny for every time "Di quella pira" from Verdi's Il Trovatore has been transposed down a half tone and two pennies for every time it has been transposed down a whole tone! Now that is an aria that has no written high C at its conclusion.... but tradition has dictated otherwise... Verdi supposedly did not object... but said that the high C had better be good! Other composers such as Rossini openly hated the full voiced High C and compared its sound to that which a capon makes when being fixed!

 

Several years ago I spoke with the former head conductor at Connecticut Opera which sponsored a Pavarotti recital at one of the local Indian Casinos. It seems that the great one had the music for every aria on the program readily available in several different keys depending upon his mood and vocal condition at the moment... Interesting indeed!

[+ Charlie]

I remember a live performance in which Pavarotti tried the high C in "Di quella pira" and his voice cracked so horribly that the audience gasped. (I saw the same thing happen to James McCracken at the Met.)

[NASAguy]

Check out this site.....Erwin Schrott like you always dreamed he would be

 

http://www.barenakedmen.blogspot.com/

 

 

Ken

[bostonman]

>Other composers such as Rossini openly hated the full voiced High C

>and compared its sound to that which a capon makes when being fixed!

 

Of course, at that time, tenors didn't "belt" their higest notes as we're accumstomed to now - in Rossini's time this was a new thing altogether.

 

In our age, we have tenors who specialize in this bel canto repertoire (Juan Diego Florez, as one outstanding example), but by chesting the top notes, they're actually singing the music in a way that composers like Rossini never quite intended! ;-)

 

And there are still some "impossible" notes to contend with, like a high F near the end of I Puritani - some tenors belt a high Db instead, some take the F in head voice (Pavarotti and the incredible Nicolai Gedda both do this on their recordings of the opera), some even try to belt the F (like the otherwise rather disappointing tenors who sang it last year at the Met, who could tear the paint off the walls with the F, but who hardly brought any musicality to the rest of the role.)

 

And of course, it's not just high C's that warrant transposing arias - the whole final duet from Andrea Chenier is often taken down a half step because of a few exposed high B's. And even basses can get into the act - there are arias from The Barber of Seville and Tales of Hoffmann that still often get transposed down because of their high tessituras.

 

 

>Several years ago I spoke with the former head conductor at

>Connecticut Opera which sponsored a Pavarotti recital at one

>of the local Indian Casinos. It seems that the great one had

>the music for every aria on the program readily available in

>several different keys depending upon his mood and vocal

>condition at the moment... Interesting indeed!

 

People don't tend to think this is "kosher" in classical music, yet it happens more than you think. Meanwhile, with Broadway shows, this is routine - I understand the original orchestra books for A Chorus Line for instance included all sorts of alternate keys for songs, depending on who was on in any given performance. (And, comparing the 2 recordings of a show like Kiss Of The Spider Woman, will find that most of the songs - for all 3 of the leads on each recording - are in different keys.) We generally don't frown on this practice in musicals (especially when even the original keys are most often determined by the original singer's range, NOT the key the composer may have notated the song in), but we do tend to think it's "scandalous" when an opera singer needs a transposition. :-)

[+ Charlie]

It's a fun idea, but the cocks are so obviously photoshopped.

[+ Charlie]

It's a fun idea, but the cocks are so obviously photoshopped.

[ariadne1880]

Sorry to disagree with you but there is no such thing as a tenor who doesn't have and doesn't sing a high C. Domingo has one, it just never comes easy to him. But he certainly has one as done every single other tenor of any note during the last 100 years.

 

I sometimes wonder where people dream this stuff up?

 

Mark

[ariadne1880]

Sorry to disagree with you but there is no such thing as a tenor who doesn't have and doesn't sing a high C. Domingo has one, it just never comes easy to him. But he certainly has one as done every single other tenor of any note during the last 100 years.

 

I sometimes wonder where people dream this stuff up?

 

Mark

[ariadne1880]

No, noting singing an interpolated "high C" in Alfredo's aria in Act 2 doesn't disqualify you for this role ... but consistently attempting it (as Kaufmann often did at the MET) and missing and mangling it does. He simply just shouldn't try it if he doesn't have it. It is, however, a note that many in the audience expect of a tenor and a truly good one sings it and well.

 

As for Polenzani, I don't think we have any idea how the voice will develop. He can certainly sing heavier roles in Europe where the houses are small and I disagree with about Alfredo being the heaviest role he will take on. He's in his mid 30s. And Romeo is a far heavier and longer role than Alfredo and he is, without doubt, the finest Romeo before the public today.

 

Mark

[ariadne1880]

No, noting singing an interpolated "high C" in Alfredo's aria in Act 2 doesn't disqualify you for this role ... but consistently attempting it (as Kaufmann often did at the MET) and missing and mangling it does. He simply just shouldn't try it if he doesn't have it. It is, however, a note that many in the audience expect of a tenor and a truly good one sings it and well.

 

As for Polenzani, I don't think we have any idea how the voice will develop. He can certainly sing heavier roles in Europe where the houses are small and I disagree with about Alfredo being the heaviest role he will take on. He's in his mid 30s. And Romeo is a far heavier and longer role than Alfredo and he is, without doubt, the finest Romeo before the public today.

 

Mark

[whipped guy]

RE: In our age, we have tenors who specialize in this bel canto repertoire (Juan Diego Florez, as one outstanding example), but by chesting the top notes, they're actually singing the music in a way that composers like Rossini never quite intended!

 

Bostonman... I could not agree more with your posting. I really one day would like to actually hear the Bel Canto tenor roles sung in a manner the composers would have recognized… that is in the manner of a Giovanni Davide, Andrea Nozzari, and a Giovanni Rubini.

 

I have always said the Flórez is the perfect compromise for 21st Century ears… He can encompass the notes and does so in a way that does not sound foreign to our sensibilities. However, it would indeed sound foreign to Rossini and probably sound repulsive to him as well. I like to cite the following example from Rossini’s Guillaume Tell… the section of the first act duet at the words, “Ah! Mathilde, idole de mon àme!” , which is supposed to convey a loving emotional response and should be caressed with a soft and supple approach, but is usually belted out in a stentorian and uncouth manner that suggests just the opposite sentiment.

 

And this brings us to the French repertory which I feel would benefit from a different approach as well, not to mention Verdi with his soft ending to “Celeste Aida”… I could go on…

 

Regarding transpositions… as you suggest many many singers in every vocal category have taken advantage of transposition… and often the published scores reflect transpositions as opposed to the keys of the composer’s autograph score… Lucia, di Lammermoor, La Forza del Destino, La Sonnambula,… etc.

[whipped guy]

RE: In our age, we have tenors who specialize in this bel canto repertoire (Juan Diego Florez, as one outstanding example), but by chesting the top notes, they're actually singing the music in a way that composers like Rossini never quite intended!

 

Bostonman... I could not agree more with your posting. I really one day would like to actually hear the Bel Canto tenor roles sung in a manner the composers would have recognized… that is in the manner of a Giovanni Davide, Andrea Nozzari, and a Giovanni Rubini.

 

I have always said the Flórez is the perfect compromise for 21st Century ears… He can encompass the notes and does so in a way that does not sound foreign to our sensibilities. However, it would indeed sound foreign to Rossini and probably sound repulsive to him as well. I like to cite the following example from Rossini’s Guillaume Tell… the section of the first act duet at the words, “Ah! Mathilde, idole de mon àme!” , which is supposed to convey a loving emotional response and should be caressed with a soft and supple approach, but is usually belted out in a stentorian and uncouth manner that suggests just the opposite sentiment.

 

And this brings us to the French repertory which I feel would benefit from a different approach as well, not to mention Verdi with his soft ending to “Celeste Aida”… I could go on…

 

Regarding transpositions… as you suggest many many singers in every vocal category have taken advantage of transposition… and often the published scores reflect transpositions as opposed to the keys of the composer’s autograph score… Lucia, di Lammermoor, La Forza del Destino, La Sonnambula,… etc.

[Guest]

My personal favorite--David Miller:

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/56669423.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1939847EC77F5F8D1CE1E00CA28D1818009A40A659CEC4C8CB6

[Guest]

Another view of David Miller:

http://www.chicagopride.com/shared/events/12940.jpg

[Guest]

This one's from his entry on wikipedia:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Davidjay.JPG