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The best trill ever?

10K views 67 replies 19 participants last post by  ewilkros 
#1 ·
I'm sure many here are familiar with this singer, but I've never heard of her before (being such a baby :p )
I found this in a facebook group. This singer has the best trill ever, or at least the best I've heard so far. Obviously her prowess isn't limited to trills.. Magnificent!



 
#7 · (Edited)
It is one thing to trill with a small, lyric sized voice. Sutherland, Horne, Callas, and Ponselle all had gigantic voices but possessed perfect trills. I was not as fond of Sill's trill as I was of Sutherland's. I'd put Sutherland and Horne at the top of the list. Sutherland could trill on half notes, full notes and notes of a wider spread in one spectacular instance that comes to mind.
 
#23 ·
<3 That was the first trill I've ever heard, ie the first trill I heard after learning what trill is. Callas did amazing feats on trills: trills in crescendi, diminuendi, messe di voce (pace Pavarotti, messa di voce IS a thing), accurate trillo mordente (quando rapito in e~~~~~~~estasi), mezzo trillo (di tale amor che di-i-i-~~~~~~rsi), trillo cresciuto (Anna Bolena), trills in pianissimo in the stratosphere (Lucia's cadenza), trill on the semi-tone trills that float forever (Caro nome)...
 
#33 ·
I'm pretty sure the best trillers are like you, those to whom it just comes naturally. Other singers like moi, who have to work on it, well ... it just doesn't work. And you can always work on your voice, but ... you can't work on your trill (much).

:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George
 
#32 ·
First, let me say that being musically illiterate, I may not know what I am talking about (i.e., not know a trill from something else), but if this is trilling (and if not trilling, certainly thrilling) then i would say it may not be the best trill ever but it certainly is a unique and very special trill:
 
#36 · (Edited)
Horne's experience may support Callas's conviction, no doubt acquired from her training with the superb coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, that all (or most) singers can and should be thoroughly schooled in bel canto technique. The style of vocal music composed during the Baroque era, requiring more or less equal flexibility from singers in all voice ranges, and in choral as well as solo writing, also argues for this.

It's been asserted that higher voices tend to be more flexible and capable of rapid execution of trills and scales, and this may be true in general. But it seems merely negligent, and certainly does the art of singing no favors, for singers to settle for less than complete technical training, regardless of their voice type or repertoire in which they end up specializing. Indeed, singers in earlier times didn't specialize as much as they began to do once operatic music itself became more diverse and varied in its demands. Yet even Wagner's Brunnhilde is asked to trill in both Die Walkure and Siegfried, and the dramatic sopranos of the time could no doubt comply, as could Frida Leider as heard on recordings of the 1930s. Callas herself, who sang practically every sort of music written for the soprano voice, liked to say that "a soprano is a soprano"; Lilli Lehmann and Johanna Gadski would no doubt have agreed. And Enrico Caruso, whose powerful instrument was capable of singing roles ranging from Nemorino to Otello (the "vengeance duet" on a fantastic recording with Tita Ruffo) and had superb coloratura ability including a fine trill, might have echoed that with "a tenor is a tenor."
 
#45 · (Edited)
Well, regardless of what Woodduck says, I don't think there are too many people sitting around thinking, "Hmmm, I wish George had a better trill." But then again, this is why I quit trying to pursue opera as a profession in my mid-30s. It's hard, I'm too lazy and undisciplined, and it had ceased to be fun. Now it's fun again (although there's some truth in what Woodduck says ... and the bass/baritone part in the Verdi Requiem, off the top of my head, does call for a trill in the "Hostias" section of the Offertorio).

So now, as a lyric-Verdi baritone at (nearly) age 68, let's cue up the chorus of "The Trill Is Gone."



:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George
 
#48 ·
Wonderful stuff, silentio. These women had technique to burn! A pity recordings of the time couldn't capture the size, body and brilliance of their voices, and often forced them to rush through arias while doing virtual acrobatics in front of a horn. It's no wonder some singers refused to make recordings, or hated the recordings they did make.

Fabulous trills from all of them. That Hungarian thing by Nordica is an absolute hoot - such coloratura from a Wagnerian! - and Solomiya Kruschelnytska manages to be powerfully moving in the Mefistofele aria despite the technology.
 
#49 · (Edited)
I remembered Steane mentioning that Kruschelnytska, Muzio, and Callas were the three most imaginative sopranos on record. Kruschelnytska's recordings (all of which are available on YouTube nowadays) justify his assessment: she does sound ways ahead of her time, with the kind of deep characterization, darkening the voice and putting the "drama" before the purity of tone. In addition, she was a singer of historical importance. From Wikipedia:

"In the history of music, Krushelnytska is known as an active promoter of the works of her contemporaries, and of Richard Wagner. In 1902 she starred in a successful production of Lohengrin in Paris. In 1906 she appeared to acclaim at Milan's La Scala in Richard Strauss's Salome, conducted by Arturo Toscanini...

In 1904, she famously became a savior of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The opera had been booed by the audience at its premiere in Milan's La Scala, but three months later in Brescia, a revised version of the work, with Krushelnytska singing the leading role, was a major success."


(What a freak this soprano is!)

Sometimes I wonder if the like of Lehmann, Kruschelnytska, Fremstad, Leider etc, e.g. hardcore Wagnerian soprano who could effortlessly execute any kind of coloratura from Mozart to Verdi, was the norm of the past, or they were extreme outliers!
 
#51 · (Edited)
They may have been among the best, but I don't think they were outliers. These singers were trained in old traditions of vocal pedagogy still maintained in the 19th century, before singing was compartmentalized into "fachs" and when there was no such thing as a "Wagnerian soprano" or a "Verdi soprano." Yeah, there were lighter and heavier voices, but basically you sang anything you had the power and endurance for, and you were expected to have the technique to do it. Even Nellie Melba seems to have thought that if Lehmann could sing the Queen of the Night, Melba could sing Brunnhilde (or maybe she just thought that Melba could do anything). Of course she quickly discovered that she was wrong, but the idea that she had a "fach" obviously never occurred to her. It wasn't only the sopranos, either. Contralto extraordinaire Ernestine Schumann-Heink, who was the first Klytemnestra in Strauss's Elektra and sang everything from Donizetti to Wagner, had coloratura technique to burn, and so did Caruso, though his repertoire rarely called for it; his cadenza at the end of "La donna e mobile" is unsurpassed, and he shows us a perfect trill in "Ombra mai fu," recorded when his voice had darkened into that of a dramatic tenor who would have taken on Otello and even Wagner.

I'm still discovering singers from the early days of recording whose vocal prowess amazes me. It seems to me that World War II was a cataclysm that amounted to a great dividing line in the history of mankind, and that the history of musical performance practice, including singing, also divides into pre- and post-war. Maybe it's just a personal perspective, or a function of my age (early baby boomer, who grew up with 78rpm records of Galli-Curci and other "golden age" singers). All I'm certain of is that when I want to hear Verdi or Wagner sung as well as it can be sung - from the standpoint of technique and, usually, style as well - it's to singers active before WW II that I must usually turn.
 
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