[Bonetan]

Over the years I've become a part of the 'there's no such thing as a bass baritone' camp. I think there are lower lying baritones and higher lying basses and that the rep they sing generally tells you who is who, but that the bb category is unnecessary.

 

[ScottK]

He isn't an opera singer, so it's probably not the best comparison, but even....just listen to those low notes.

Not only does he not lose any of his power, he slows down and crescendos to the bottom. Terfel looses his color and resonance on anything below low C. Meanwhile, the low in that clip is only a low A, but Bing has several pieces with over a dozen low Gs, and plenty where he sings well below that (his lowest resonant note is probably E2, but he's got halfway decent low Ebs and low Ds).


This is a perfect example of why opera is dying as an arform. "He's a bass-baritone, he just doesn't have good low notes"....what? Imagine what would happen if we cast women for soprano parts who had not good notes above A5? Basses and bass-baritones are supposed to be big, dark, cavernous, menacing. We hear none of that from Bryn.

Since Bing isn't an opera singer, perhaps another comparison would better illustrate my point. Listen to Bryn Terfel...and then listen to this. Night and day. Not even remotely similar.

OK, Problem here is, to my ear, the clearest sense of enhanced resonance through the recording process. We know it is done and this feels to me like a textbook case. The guy’s sound has definitely the kind of Core that I know you love down in the central part of these voices. But it’s not an important sound unless it’s quite resonant and we can’t tell that from this recording because his sound definitely sounds juiced up!

 

[BalalaikaBoy]

Over the years I've become a part of the 'there's no such thing as a bass baritone' camp. I think there are lower lying baritones and higher lying basses and that the rep they sing generally tells you who is who, but that the bb category is unnecessary.

I can get behind that, but if you're going that route....what low baritone/high bass would Bryn Terfel sound good in?

 

[Becca]

Over the years I've become a part of the 'there's no such thing as a bass baritone' camp. I think there are lower lying baritones and higher lying basses and that the rep they sing generally tells you who is who, but that the bb category is unnecessary.

A bass-baritone is no different conceptually from the female Falcon type (somewhere betwixt mezzo and soprano.)

 

[Bonetan]

I can get behind that, but if you're going that route....what low baritone/high bass would Bryn Terfel sound good in?

He should have stuck to Mozart.

 

[ewilkros]

A bass-baritone is no different conceptually from the female Falcon type (somewhere betwixt mezzo and soprano.)

... except one notch down. An exact female equivalent to bass-baritone would be a mezzo-contralto or something. There is an exact French male equivalent of "falcon"--"martin", or "baryton-martin", like sometimes Pelléas.

 

[Becca]

... except one notch down. An exact female equivalent to bass-baritone would be a mezzo-contralto or something. There is an exact French male equivalent of "falcon"--"martin", or "baryton-martin", like sometimes Pelléas.

Yes, I had figured that out, I did say 'conceptually'.

 

[The Conte]

A bass-baritone is no different conceptually from the female Falcon type (somewhere betwixt mezzo and soprano.)

I don't believe in the 'Falcon' either!

What's that you say?

"Oh! For fach's sake, Conte!"

N.

 

[ScottK]

I can get behind that, but if you're going that route....what low baritone/high bass would Bryn Terfel sound good in?

His early Mozart always sounded good to me. I don’t know if he still sings it but Figaro, Leporello, the Don, Don Alfonso all sound like things he’d be good in. I’ve heard Falstaff once, a long time ago, and don’t really know it but wouldn’t he be right for it? And I’ve mentioned that I think he’d be right for Boccanegra which is not difficult vocally and he’s got the right gravitas for it dramatically.

 

[Op.123]

His early Mozart always sounded good to me. I don’t know if he still sings it but Figaro, Leporello, the Don, Don Alfonso all sound like things he’d be good in. I’ve heard Falstaff once, a long time ago, and don’t really know it but wouldn’t he be right for it? And I’ve mentioned that I think he’d be right for Boccanegra which is not difficult vocally and he’s got the right gravitas for it dramatically.

Verdi's music requires big voices and Falstaff and Boccanegra are no exceptions regardless of the difficulty of getting the notes out.

 

[ScottK]

Verdi's music requires big voices and Falstaff and Boccanegra are no exceptions regardless of the difficulty of getting the notes out.

I agree. I’ve come so close to hearing him live a number of times when he didn’t show up and Wotan in the last row of the house sounds like a tough way to judge him. The voice may not sound huge but it doesn’t sound small to me either. After writing that last bit I wondered if Walter Berry might not be a template for Terfel.....Mozart, Strauss’ less dramatic roles, Barak, Ochs - Berry got away with the low notes but they weren’t much. Still not certain he’d come up short in those two Verdi roles. In both of them, his dramatic chops would count heavily.

 

[Op.123]

I agree. I’ve come so close to hearing him live a number of times when he didn’t show up and Wotan in the last row of the house sounds like a tough way to judge him. The voice may not sound huge but it doesn’t sound small to me either. After writing that last bit I wondered if Walter Berry might not be a template for Terfel.....Mozart, Strauss’ less dramatic roles, Barak, Ochs - Berry got away with the low notes but they weren’t much. Still not certain he’d come up short in those two Verdi roles. In both of them, his dramatic chops would count heavily.

So many voices today are so small that I think when people hear anyone with even a little bit of resonance they go "oooh dark powerful voice perfect for Verdi or Wagner" etc. without any idea how large the human voice can be. I went to a local concert and there was a countertenor singing in some choral piece. The voice was pinched and tiny with next to no resonance and the lady next to me was saying to us "it's amazing how he can project his voice over the entire choir"... I thought I must have been listening to an entirely different concert. At that same concert we had a tenor who looked like he was trying to push something out the other end whenever he went above the stave, and probably creating less resonance than if he was, as well as a baritone who exhibited a phenomenon I can only describe as anti-resonance. A voice so devoid of resonance that it seemed as if he was trying to swallow the sound before it left his body. I felt like I could put an ear to his mouth and still feel like I was five rows back. Worst of all is nobody seemed to think anything of it, they applauded and left clearly thinking that that was what classically trained voice are supposed to sound like. This was in a fairly small town, albeit one with a well-renowned concert hall, but I can't imagine even small town concerts having vocalists even a tenth as poor as those 60 years ago. I feel like if they were presented with a Flagstad, Callas, Tebaldi or Del Monaco they'd probably assume witchcraft or have a minor heartattack. That's if they didn't walk out due to a certain lack of 'subtle elegance'...

 

[Op.123]

I also think it's instructive when thinking about projection and volume to think about the sounds you hear in the natural world. How far the sounds of birds can carry, how loud your little dog can yap at the postman. The size of a lion's roar. Sperm whales can be as loud as an atomic bomb, something like 210db, enough to vibrate you to death if you're in the water with them or something ridiculous. Just because you haven't got an amp doesn't mean you can't create volume, most mammals have built in noise-making organs.

 

[ScottK]

So many voices today are so small that I think when people hear anyone with even a little bit of resonance they go "oooh dark powerful voice perfect for Verdi or Wagner" etc. without any idea how large the human voice can be. I went to a local concert and there was a countertenor singing in some choral piece. The voice was pinched and tiny with next to no resonance and the lady next to me was saying to us "it's amazing how he can project his voice over the entire choir"... I thought I must have been listening to an entirely different concert. At that same concert we had a tenor who looked like he was trying to push something out the other end whenever he went above the stave, and probably creating less resonance than if he was, as well as a baritone who exhibited a phenomenon I can only describe as anti-resonance. A voice so devoid of resonance that it seemed as if he was trying to swallow the sound before it left his body. I felt like I could put an ear to his mouth and still feel like I was five rows back. Worst of all is nobody seemed to think anything of it, they applauded and left clearly thinking that that was what classically trained voice are supposed to sound like. This was in a fairly small town, albeit one with a well-renowned concert hall, but I can't imagine even small town concerts having vocalists even a tenth as poor as those 60 years ago. I feel like if they were presented with a Flagstad, Callas, Tebaldi or Del Monaco they'd probably assume witchcraft or have a minor heartattack. That's if they didn't walk out due to a certain lack of 'subtle elegance'...

Without doing any sort of patting ourselves on the back, you do have to acknowledge that you listening to those voices and “some lady” listening is not the same thing! Forever, the muggles have amazed me with the ease with which they can be impressed by a voice simply because it makes a legit sound, good, bad or indifferent! Similarly, but on a higher plane, I saw Robert Merrill on an interview saying that it has happened to him a number of times that someone tells him of a promising Young dramatic tenor and when Merrill hears the singer, it’s a healthy lyric tenor! He said people have no idea of how much sound a lyric tenor makes up close. But those things don’t have to affect our reckoning of a singer like Terfel. Like him or not, he’s established a major career on international stages. A person may think his acclaim is out of proportion to his talent - Personally, I may have some doubts about him but I’m not in that group- and that he represents the decline in singing. I don’t really compare eras the way some of you guys do because my ear just doesn’t hear it. I think in the right music he has a star lower baritone voice with charisma and acting ability.

 

[nina foresti]

Does a normal audience include more opera experts (or those who believe they are opera experts), or is it just more often made up of the "average joe" who is enthusiastically applauding all the things the "experts" believe is trash?
And who is having the more fun? One buddy of mine answered, "why the opera expert of course, who doesn't enjoy most of anyone's voices today and delights much more on elitist criticism."
Say now, there's some food for thought!

 

[Op.123]

Does a normal audience include more opera experts (or those who believe they are opera experts), or is it just more often made up of the "average joe" who is enthusiastically applauding all the things the "experts" believe is trash?
And who is having the more fun? One buddy of mine answered, "why the opera expert of course, who doesn't enjoy most of anyone's voices today and delights much more on elitist criticism."
Say now, there's some food for thought!

I think the elitist posturing of, 'these don't sound like voices that sing pop music so they must be good' is more problematic than enjoying the artform with a good grasp of how voices should sound. I'm honestly not at all concerned with the current audiences in opera houses and heavily relate to the majority of the population who now see operatic singing as forced warbling. I love the music but the whole spectacle now just seems pompous and silly. How many people would have thought operatic voices sounded horrible 100 years ago? It was the most popular artform at the turn of the twentieth century. Being critical doesn't mean being elitist. Catering to the select few and an ideology of superiority does.

 

[Becca]

The reaction to a singer in the opera house can be very different from hearing them on recordings, even for the afficionados, i.e. it's similar to a typical reaction to a recording of 'I would have been happy to hear it in the concert hall but not as something to keep.'

 

[ScottK]

One thing I don’t hear very often on this forum is the “sheer relish in the putdown” that we all are familiar with. That’s not unimportant in a discussion in which groups disagree as much as we can. So I do agree that being critical is not the same thing as Being elitist.

 

[Op.123]

The reaction to a singer in the opera house can be very different from hearing them on recordings, even for the afficionados, i.e. it's similar to a typical reaction to a recording of 'I would have been happy to hear it in the concert hall but not as something to keep.'

This is true to an extent but you can usually tell how a voice is going to sound. Many voices sound different to how they do on record but none have surprised me yet.

 

[ScottK]

This is true to an extent but you can usually tell how a voice is going to sound. Many voices sound different to how they do on record but none have surprised me yet.

They can surprise me with impact. Such major names as Kollo, Leontyne Price and Aragall wowed me live. The voices sounded similar on records but without anything approaching the wow!