Interesting as to me she created a very real character in the Violetta. Of course the 'clock' production was not to traditional tastes and certainly not without faults but the character she created moved me more than any other Violetta I've seen. Of course she was vulgar but then she was playing a prostitute, albeit a highclass one.
I must confess I was amazed and dismayed at Anna's decision to go for Turandot and Isolde. Her Lady Macbeth came off on stage due to the stage presence but the Isolde is frankly embarrassing. I dunno what drives singers (Ricciarrelli, Caballi, etc) to attempt these killer roles.
Ricciarelli at least had the good sense not to attempt Turandot on stage. If anything, her repetoire choices were all for more lyrical fare as she got older - Donizetti and Rossini, especially. Caballé did sing Turandot on stage and the San Franciso performance with Pavarotti is actually pretty good. She didn't make a habit of it though.
I mean from a purely vocal persepctive, which of these roles would require the largest voice. Hope this helps!
Roles don't really require voices of specific sizes. You have to be audible, obviously, and you don't want to have to overexert to achieve that, but once that hurdle is cleared other qualities in the voice are more important than sheer volume. Roles are sung effectively by voices of different sizes, and the roles you mention are no exception.
Studer didn't have a really big voice but she effectively sang some roles like Salome, Elsa and the Santo di Patria role effectively by virtue of the fact that her projection was so excellent. One of the great things about Flagstad was she could use full vocal dynamics over a full orchestra instead of always singing in 5th gear because her projection of her sound was almost supernatural. it wasn't size that gave the effect described whereby when she sang it sounded like she was standing right in front of you.
Saw Scotto many times at the Met, IMO, she had a full lyric voice that was easily heard throughout the House. However, she took on too many roles for which her voice was not suited which shortened her operatic career. In the sixties she had a nice, if not beautiful sound, She was never one of my favorite sopranos. She was a committed performer though, who gave her all for a complete performance, vocally and dramatically.
Sills was very audible throughout the House. She was a great Lucia, Maria Stuarda and Manon at the NYC opera. She was just past her prime when she finally came to the Met, but still very good for a few years. I have been listening to many Netrebko performances since she came back from her firing by the Met, and IMO, sounds better than ever getting rave reviews and enthusiastic responses from European audiences and critics.
Scotto was born in 1934 and made her operatic debut at the age of eighteen. Her final operatic performances were in the mezzo role of Klytemnestra in 2002. That's a 50 year career, which seems pretty long to me.
Scotto's Norma at the Met was a famous disaster. It must have been an awful experience for her based on what I've read. I'v never had an issue hearing Cerquetti. What little there is of her suggests (to me) a magnificent singer.
Cerquetti for some reason only had a very short career. I like her a lot.
Can you say Jussi?
I have her Gioconda and like her there.
Cerquetti was a very good soprano with a beautiful voice. Her career was short but I don't think it was anything to do with any vocal problems; she was asked to return to the stage many times. She didn't like to use chest voice, thinking it vulgar, but she did on occasion and even when she didn't had a well produced lower register that didn't sound at all mushy or forced. I don't like her Gioconda as much as some other things, I prefer Milanov and Callas in that role, but her Elisabeth from Don Carlo is excellent, as is her Elvira from Ernani.
"Miss Cerquetti, who was just 26, had already impressed opera lovers in the United States, making her debut with the Chicago Opera in 1955, singing the role of Amelia in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.” But while replacing Callas thrust her to a new level, it also took a toll.
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Makes a lot of sense. A career onstage singing demanding opera is not for sissies. It is very demanding work. I do not handle stress well myself and had I had the voice and training my sister had I would not be able to handle an operatic career the way she did. Little Toastmaster speeches to no more than 50 is about my speed. I wonder if she was able to teach. She did not reveal any thing about that. I am frankly surprised we don't have more nervous breakdowns in singers. Maybe we do and don't hear about them. Even the great Callas supposedly had lots of problems with nerves later in her career."Miss Cerquetti, who was just 26, had already impressed opera lovers in the United States, making her debut with the Chicago Opera in 1955, singing the role of Amelia in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.” But while replacing Callas thrust her to a new level, it also took a toll.
For a time, Miss Cerquetti pulled off an unlikely twin billing — alternating standing in for Callas in Rome and performing the role in Naples, more than 100 miles away. In mid-January, suffering from what a psychiatrist called “nervous exhaustion,” she backed out of Bellini’s “The Pirate,” at the Palermo Opera. A psychiatrist, citing her heavy workload, prescribed sedatives and 20 days of rest.
She went on to noted performances at La Scala in Milan and elsewhere, and on Italian radio broadcasts, but just three years after those tumultuous days at Teatro dell’Opera, she abruptly retired and all but disappeared.
This time, it was Miss Cerquetti who faced questions. Had her voice failed? Did she have neurological issues? Heart problems? She blamed fatigue.
“I was very tired because I couldn’t sleep at night and during the day I sang,” Miss Cerquetti said in a 1996 interview with Stefan Zucker, president of the Bel Canto Society, an organization devoted to the history of opera singing. “It got to the point where I had absolute need of physical rest. Above all, I needed to sleep. This was from stress. But, thank God, my vocal cords remained intact and have remained so until today. This is the truth.”
She added: “So many things were said, understandably, because I had left my career at its most beautiful moment. It’s only natural that people asked why. And since everyone needed a reason, each one invented his own.”
Critics praised her natural talent but saw room for refinement, pointing out what at times was noticeably heavy breathing.
“Miss Cerquetti’s recorded performance of arias by Verdi, Bellini, Spontini and Puccini leaves no doubt that her voice is a remarkable instrument,” John Briggs wrote in The New York Times in 1957 in a review of “Operatic Recital by Anita Cerquetti,” one of a small number of commercial recordings she made. “Whether it is being used with skill is another question.”
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"But in 1961, after a so-so performance of Verdi’s Nabucco, she dropped out of sight and was never seen or heard on an operatic stage thereafter. For decades, the rumors spread that she had lost her voice due to inadequate training and over-exposure, singing roles too heavy for her too soon and too often. Cerquetti herself stayed silent most of the time, but occasionally issued public statements that this wasn’t altogether true, that she was under heavy emotional stress at the time because her father was dying (which was true) and that she chose not to return to the stage because she didn’t like many of the newer “conceptual” productions which she found distasteful. But of course, this didn’t satisfy the legions of Cerquetti fans who just wanted her to sing again, period, regardless of the cost to her.
Eventually, decades later, she revealed the whole story. Around the time her father died, she had married and had a daughter. By the time her daughter was four years old, her voice had returned to its former glory. But because she had been so young and perhaps because so much was expected of her due of the extraordinary quality of her voice, she was very self-critical. “After a performance,” she said, “I would go back to my hotel room and relive the whole day over again. Did I warm up properly, or enough? What did I do right in the performance? What did I do wrong, and why did it go wrong? How could I prevent that from going wrong in the next performance? It was all very stressful. After 1965, I was offered many chances to return. A few times, I almost gave in. But then I thought to myself, To return under the gun? Enough! (Basta!)”
Anita Cerquetti: The Legend Continues
Italy in the 1950s and very early 1960s was a testing-ground for the kind of operatic programming that neither they nor any other country has done before or since, a mixture of standard repertoire …
