Jessye Norman!!!

 

Sondra Radvanovsky

 

Is this only sopranos?

Obviously Flagstad, Callas in her prime, Varnay

 

Italian bass Andrea Silvestrelli. Biggest voice I've heard live. An avid opera lover told me that Burchuladze has an even more voluminous voice.

 

Robert Merrill’s voice was gigantic. Listen to him almost dwarf Corelli in live Forza performances. And I’m pretty sure Corelli said that Guelfi was the largest voice he ever sang with, who he also was overpowered by — and Corelli sang on par with Nilsson.

 

Yes, Guelfi of course! I once read that Cornell MacNeil had an even bigger voice than Guelfi. The writer had heard them both live.

 

I had heard from other sources that Guelfi's voice was colossal. Adding Elena Nicolai among mezzos. The two sang in Lohengrin as Ortrud and Telramund. Nicolai's voice was big all over, not only in the middle.

 

Traubel, Tebaldi, Cerquetti, Farrell.

 

Flagstad, Ponselle, Traubel, Tebaldi, Anny Konetzni, Milanov, Caniglia, Varnay, Stignani, Nicolai, Del Monaco, Melchior, Merrill, Cornell, Guelfi, Ruffo, Viglione Borghese.

 

About Del Monaco's vocal size: was it really as large as many say? There are not many recordings that reinforce his voice as utterly stentorian, as often stated. Listen to any of his live recordings: Pagliacci with Gabriella Tucci and Gobbi, Otello 1959 with Gobbi again as direct comparison in Otello/Iago duets, Andrea Chenier...and in all of these performances, he doesn't seem to demolish his colleagues. Maybe once case I can recall that he did absolutely overpower a soprano was a live 1948 or 1949 Turandot, where he dwarfed the soprano in Gli enegmi sono tre.

Del Monaco was absolutely not small, but maybe he was not as loud as some claim.

 

These were all the first examples I thought of as well. True Wagnerian soprani tend to have middle voices which evoke the sounds of mighty ocean waves crashing against the shore on a stormy night. Traubel probably comes to mind as the biggest middle voice of any recorded singer.

other examples



Joan Sutherland

Oralia Dominguez

Jerome Hines

Claramae Turner

Mykola Kondratyuk

 

These were all the first examples I thought of as well. True Wagnerian soprani tend to have middle voices which evoke the sounds of mighty ocean waves crashing against the shore on a stormy night. Traubel probably comes to mind as the biggest middle voice of any recorded singer.

other examples



Joan Sutherland

Oralia Dominguez

Jerome Hines

Claramae Turner

Mykola Kondratyuk

Thanks for the Claramae Turner. Didn't know her. Sutherland's middle voice became bigger and rounder after her mid 40's.

 

I dare to offer Tatiana Serjan.

 

Ekaterina Semenchuk

 

To judge from the old Cetra Aida I was just listening to, I would add Caterina Mancini--a bit squally on high, but with a strong and ample mid-register one rarely encounters anymore.

 

Mancini's voice was sizeable all over, but the middle could be immense. By the late 50s she started having serious issues with high notes and at one point in 1962 in Dallas sang the contralto arias in Handel's Messiah.

 

Elena Pankratova

 

And Tatiana Serjan once more.

 

And Tatiana Serjan once more.

her middle doesn’t strike me as immense at all, dark, yes, but artificially so, there aren’t the overtones for the voice to sound as big as most of the others mentioned here. Pankratova seems to be a similar case.

 

They are much better in the theater. In recording the voices are recognizable but they lose something. I heard Pankratova at least three times and go to listen to Serjan regularly. Immense is one of the words coming to mind when I try to describe their voices, if I use it in correct meaning of course.