My favorite aria

[Imdanny]

People either love her or hate her. I loved her, and yes, her rendition of Casta Diva is excellent. Or at least the one I have is...(was, I think I've misplaced that CD).

The only thing about Callas is you have to be OK with a wide vibrato, because she is always on the edge of a wobble. But still, gotta love her. Her bio is pretty interesting too....

Bit of family opera trivia: My mother's cousin, Lucille Udovick, was on the short list for a fill in after Callas's famous 1958 Norma walkout in Rome. Another soprano ended up doing it, but Lucille was well-known (in Europe at the time) for her Norma and Turandot, and I have a 1958 Italian television production of her in Turandot with Franco Corelli, as well as family photos of her, my mom and my aunts backstage with Lucille and Richard Tucker after a 1960 Houston Grand Opera production of Turandot.

Love of opera runs deep in my family.

How great is that! I never knew any opera singers but on the Internet (iPhone capitalized that) I've met 3!

My favorite arias are all Mozart. I would have been jewelfreak if Laurie didn't think of it first. I might as well be Mozatfreak. I have a lifelong love affair with his music.

 

[ksinger]

People either love her or hate her. I loved her, and yes, her rendition of Casta Diva is excellent. Or at least the one I have is...(was, I think I've misplaced that CD).

The only thing about Callas is you have to be OK with a wide vibrato, because she is always on the edge of a wobble. But still, gotta love her. Her bio is pretty interesting too....

Bit of family opera trivia: My mother's cousin, Lucille Udovick, was on the short list for a fill in after Callas's famous 1958 Norma walkout in Rome. Another soprano ended up doing it, but Lucille was well-known (in Europe at the time) for her Norma and Turandot, and I have a 1958 Italian television production of her in Turandot with Franco Corelli, as well as family photos of her, my mom and my aunts backstage with Lucille and Richard Tucker after a 1960 Houston Grand Opera production of Turandot.

Love of opera runs deep in my family.

How great is that! I never knew any opera singers but on the Internet (iPhone capitalized that) I've met 3!

My favorite arias are all Mozart. I would have been jewelfreak if Laurie didn't think of it first. I might as well be Mozatfreak. I have a lifelong love affair with his music.

Yeah, Mozart is fun. Nice, light, and won't trash your voice. I like "In Uomini, In Soldati". Fun to sing....

However, what about the boys? Anyone have a favorite male singer/aria? I'm a big fan of Juan Diego Florez....I'd almost kill to see him in person.

 

[kenny]

Let's not forget our beloved Florence Foster Jenkins...

Nobody had the heart to tell the NY rich socialite that the reason her "concerts" sold out is because people enjoyed her as a joke.
She sincerely thought she could really sing.
Her fascinating story would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Foster_Jenkins
SNIP
Florence Foster Jenkins (July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) was an American soprano who became famous for her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.

Her she is butchering Mozart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM6qntPpyZ0

 

[Imdanny]

Only sopranos do it for me. Well, unless it's Jessye Norman. I like divas. Sue me.

 

[Imdanny]

Florence Foster Jenkins (July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) was an American soprano who became famous for her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.

Her she is butchering Mozart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM6qntPpyZ0

Wow.

 

[jstarfireb]

OMG...I couldn't listen after about the first 30 sec. It was painful!

 

[Imdanny]

I was going to ask if anyone else loved, "The Queen of The Night" revenge aria from, "Die Zauberflote" as much as I did and simply post a link to a version (perhaps one by Joan Sutherland) here. However, when I got to YouTube, I found something that entranced me. I am sure I have searched for this aria before, but I don't recall ever stumbling over this clip before. I am posting a link to it below (as well as one to just the aria itself, which is heavenly).

The clip is of ten great sopranos singing the same difficult passage from the center of the aria, one after the other. It is truly amazing to hear them. The only levity provided here was by my Newfoundland, who wasn't in the room with me but who suddenly started to bark while I was listening to the music! The high pitch must have reached him in the living room. Newfies don't bark very often, so his barking was unusual and caused my father to think he must be hungry. As a result he fed the dog!

Anyway, here are the video clips:

The aria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss

The ten sopranos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kyOcGM5nEA



Deb/AGBF

Interesting videos, Deb! Thanks!

I won't lie, I love it. The whole thing kind of reminds me of fractured glass, um, kind of like a diamond.

 

[AGBF]

This thread has caused me to spend a lot of time on YouTube, wandering from one thing to another. kenny's mention of the poor singer who could not sing on key (whose name I now cannot remember) intrigued me, so I read a bit about her, finding out she rented Carnegie Hall to showcase her own singing. One site showed a program for the perfomance she gave there, and among the pieces she performed was, "The Bell Song" from , "Lakmé". I remembered how much I used to love that and decided to listen to it, which led to my listening to many versions of it, which led to my listening to Joan Sutherland's high e flat's in many pieces and an interview in which she described hitting high notes. Then I decided to hear what she had to say about Maria Callas. (If you are still reading this, you get the idea. I was very busy entertaining myself and I didn't need to go tell my mommy I was bored and had nothing to do. In fact, I had lost track of all time and been at the computer for hours!)

To make this long story a little shorter (yes, I seem to tell a lot of long stories), let me cut to the chase: I listened to the interview on Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland commented on Callas' weight loss negatively affecting her voice. I don't, of course, know why it happened. I don't dispute any of the arguments Karen made earlier in this thread to support the idea that weight is not necessary for a good voice. I do believe that in the case of Maria Callas, however, that she appears to have lost some of the quality of her voice when she lost weight. Why that was, I cannot say. I only know that it apparently happened. For all I know, she may have been ill at the same time! Or, as Karen said in a later posting, it may it may have been hormones. But I found it interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llJDRA9Mb4w&feature=related

Deb/AGBF

 

[ksinger]

This thread has caused me to spend a lot of time on YouTube, wandering from one thing to another. kenny's mention of the poor singer who could not sing on key (whose name I now cannot remember) intrigued me, so I read a bit about her, finding out she rented Carnegie Hall to showcase her own singing. One site showed a program for the perfomance she gave there, and among the pieces she performed was, "The Bell Song" from , "Lakmé". I remembered how much I used to love that and decided to listen to it, which led to my listening to many versions of it, which led to my listening to Joan Sutherland's high e flat's in many pieces and an interview in which she described hitting high notes. Then I decided to hear what she had to say about Maria Callas. (If you are still reading this, you get the idea. I was very busy entertaining myself and I didn't need to go tell my mommy I was bored and had nothing to do. In fact, I had lost track of all time and been at the computer for hours!)

To make this long story a little shorter (yes, I seem to tell a lot of long stories), let me cut to the chase: I listened to the interview on Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland commented on Callas' weight loss negatively affecting her voice. I don't, of course, know why it happened. I don't dispute any of the arguments Karen made earlier in this thread to support the idea that weight is not necessary for a good voice. I do believe that in the case of Maria Callas, however, that she appears to have lost some of the quality of her voice when she lost weight. Why that was, I cannot say. I only know that it apparently happened. For all I know, she may have been ill at the same time! Or, as Karen said in a later posting, it may it may have been hormones. But I found it interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llJDRA9Mb4w&feature=related

Deb/AGBF

Listening to her, I still subscribe to the idea that Callas was really a mezzo that was pushed to be a soprano. Singing too far outside your fach (the german word for vocal category - contralto, soprano (coloratura, soubrette, lyric, dramatic, etc)) can be damaging over time because you are compensating for singing something too far out of your natural range. Your vocal range is not just what you CAN sing but what you SHOULD sing. I've heard Bartoli toss off a perfectly marvelous high E-flat, but you will NEVER hear her singing a role that has one. Her true range and timbre (and timbre as equally important in finally determining category) make her a mezzo through and through.

Latest research (just this week) has shown a true biochemical reason (not just lazy lack of willpower) for why 80% of people who lose a lot of weight, gain that weight back. It IS a hormonal thing. Now, if Callas lost weight (with pills perhaps? - as I recall she lost it FAST) and kept it off (with poor diet and more pills perhaps?) then her voice could have absolutely been affected. Any singer will tell you, what you eat and when you eat it will affect your voice, as does your emotional state, hydration level, etc. But the mere fact of no longer having so much bulk on her? No. If you ask me, that's a large singer able to make a case for why they must stay that way. Singers are a notoriously superstitious lot, due in large part to the fact that until very recently, we didn't understand very well at all, what was actually occurring biomechanically with the voice. Researchers have packed sinuses with...stuff, and had people sing, dropped fiber optics down people's thoats and had them sing, etc. It's all about the throat and vocal folds, how your mouthspace is shaped/sized, and how the larynx is placed and/or tilted . All that stuff about "chest voice" is just (infernally confusing) verbiage to describe the sensation in the singer herself, of certain ranges of the voice. Other than the fact that you must have lungs to hold the air, vocal resonance has about zero to do with the chest.

Found this on Wikipedia about belting. Posting it because the last sentence resonated (har!) with me. I took belt, but of all the women in the class I was the most classically trained already, AND I also had the hardest time with it. I could do it, but it was a true 180 from all my years of classical training. I had more to "unlearn" than the others, in order to sing like that....just interesting.

"The term "belt" is sometimes mistakenly described as the use of chest voice in the higher part of the voice. (The chest voice is a very general term for the sound and muscular functions of the speaking voice, singing in the lower range, and the voice used to shout. Still, all those possibilities require help from the muscles in the vocal folds and a thicker closure of the vocal folds. The term "chest voice" is therefore often a misunderstanding, as it describes muscular work in the chest-area of the body, but the "sound" described as "chest voice" is also produced by work of the vocal folds.) However, the proper production of the belt voice according to some vocal methods involves minimizing tension in the throat and change of typical placement of the voice sound in the mouth, bringing it forward into the hard palate.

It is possible to learn classical vocal methods like bel canto and also to be able to belt; in fact, many musical roles now require it. The belt sound is easier for some than others, but the sound is possible for classical singers, too. It requires muscle coordinations not readily used in classically trained singers, which may be why some opera singers find learning to belt challenging. "

See, I'm just as nerdy about stuff like this as any other topic I hold forth on.

And for the truly-beyond-help, here is a scholarly piece that (pedantically) details the aesthetic battle between the classical purists versus the belters (complete with lots of biomechanical "placement" talk). Yes, I encountered this right off the bat - the two camps don't like each other all that much. Each tends to make disparaging comments about the others. There are a few teachers who cross the battle lines, but they all have "leanings" one way or the other.

http://www.utc.edu/Administration/DepartmentalHonors/CraigH.pdf

 

[Madam Bijoux]

Regarding Callas' weight, rumor has it that she swallowed a tapeworm (which is what a lot of people did to lose weight in those days). She supposedly once said "First I lost my weight, then I lost my voice, then I lost Onassis."

 

[ksinger]

Regarding Callas' weight, rumor has it that she swallowed a tapeworm (which is what a lot of people did to lose weight in those days). She supposedly once said "First I lost my weight, then I lost my voice, then I lost Onassis."

Interesting. I hadn't heard that. It likely would have made her unhealthy though, wouldn't it? And an unhealthy singer won't sing as well..

 

[Madam Bijoux]

Hi, Ksinger - the tapeworm rumor was just something unfounded that I read years ago. I think she actually said the quote.

 

[AGBF]

Listening to her, I still subscribe to the idea that Callas was really a mezzo that was pushed to be a soprano.

I had always thought of her as a mezzo. I was somewhat surprised to see the videoclips on YouTube showing some of the roles she sang. I had not realized she had sung the coloratura roles she did. She was most certainly no Joan Sutherland in the uppermost reaches (although who ever was?), but I was surprised she performed the very demanding, very high coloratura roles that she did! This thread has really led me to some great opera clips!

Deb

 

[ksinger]

Hi, Ksinger - the tapeworm rumor was just something unfounded that I read years ago. I think she actually said the quote.

Well, I assumed it was rumor. Whichever way she did it, she did it pretty quickly and kept it off pretty much for the rest of her life, which is very suspicious, if for no other reason than it is so bloody hard to do if you've ever been heavy, especially when young.

In any case, there are too many great singers who have NOT been obese, for obesity to be some sort of magic ingredient necessary for a great voice. For those who defend it, I think it's mainly a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" type of thing. Your are...this (the whole cloth)...pull one thread and who knows what ripple effect it will have on the whole cloth? Better to leave it alone. Which is great of course, until they start hammering you to lose weight so you look better on stage. (Opera singers get that too....a BUNCH. And with some reason - when Isolde (who is supposed to be 15) weighs in at 350lbs, and Tristan at about 50 more, it kinda detracts.....)

As I said, classical singers especially tend to be a superstitious lot...

 

[AGBF]

Listening to her, I still subscribe to the idea that Callas was really a mezzo that was pushed to be a soprano.

I had always thought of her as a mezzo. I was somewhat surprised to see the videoclips on YouTube showing some of the roles she sang. I had not realized she had sung the coloratura roles she did. She was most certainly no Joan Sutherland in the uppermost reaches (although who ever was?), but I was surprised she performed the very demanding, very high coloratura roles that she did! This thread has really led me to some great opera clips!

I mentioned above that I had seen interesting clips of Maria Callas on YouTube. There was more than one of her singing , "The Bell Song". She recorded it, but this is, purportedly, from one of her live performances. It is definitely a coloratura role.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16iCWICro8&feature=related

Deb/AGBF