[Seattleoperafan]

Herlea is a new discovery of mine for the contest. I think you will like him. Bonetan wanted both Enkhbat and Merrill

Nicolae Herlea, Romanian baritone sings from Verdi Il trovatore aria "Il balen del suo sorriso"

Amartuvshin Enkhbat: Il balen del suo sorriso (Verdi: Il trovatore)

Il Trovatore (1990 Remastered Version) , ACT 2 Scene 2: Il balen del suo sorriso (Count di Luna) · Robert Merrill · Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera, Roma · Thomas Schippers

 

[Seattleoperafan]

Herlea makes this sound as easy as one might be tempted to imagine that it is. As Ponselle said of Stracciari in an earlier era, "Now that's a baritone!" Herlea does nothing extraordinary interpretively - it's quite straightforward musically - but his vocalism is so fine that I don't care. It's a voice with no artificial darkening, or artificial anything, It rings out freely and splendidly.

This must be a late recording of Merrill. It's more effortful than it would have been years earlier, and he breaks up phrases too much. Enkhbat is more youthful vocally, and puts some feeling into his interpretation. But Herlea's singing is in another class: technically, though not stylistically, he echoes the Golden Age in the postwar era. An easy winner.

I'm so glad you were impressed with Herlea!!!!! I make no pretense at being able to discern interpretation like you and some others are so adept at but this contest finally has gotten me listening to good baritones and I am getting an ear for what sounds right and he sounded absolutely amazing to me. If you are this impressed I am on the right track in my vocal education. Judging by the photo he would have been a pleasure to see onstage I will ad him to some other contests now.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

I'm very curious to see how Enkbhat does. He's so hot right now lol

@Seattleoperafan if you don't get that reference I'm going to be very disappointed!

He is built like a fire hydrant, but that is an optimal build for powerful singers. Mongolian I guess like this other new bartitone.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

Round Three - Il Balen - Herlea - Enkbhat - Merrill


Vocal control - Two-way tie - Herlea and Enkbhat

Good tone - Three-way tie - Herlea - Enkbhat - Merrill

Enunciation - Edge to Enkhbhat

Pronunciation - Edge to Enkhbhat

Musical phrasing - Two-way tie - Herlea and Enkbhat

Voice suitability - Three-way tie - Herlea - Enkbhat - Merrill

Versatility - Two-way tie - Herlea and Enkbhat

Performance that I personally enjoyed the most - Herlea although if given the chance, I would have split my vote between him and Enkbhat


On a side note - I would like to request that no performer whose last name involves the letters - n - k - b - and - h - in that particular order ever be entered in a competition again as it took me nearly 30 minutes to type this review thanks to my continually misspelling "Enkbhat" and thus having to correct it 10 separate times. Note to self - "Hey, genius, try to remember the "copy and paste" method approximately 29 minutes sooner than you did just now..." - Reply from self - "Thanks, I'll try to keep that in mind next time unless I forget to do so much in the way that I did just now - Maybe you should think about writing "use copy and paste" on a post-it note and stick it on your monitor, Einstein..."

It took me 6 contests before I could spell Gheorghiu without contstantly checking.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

Now that plenty have left their opinions on Enkbhat I want to state that I absolutely despise his singing lol. This is the manufactured overly dark sound that has been the death of low voice singing imo. Enkbhat sounds better than his contemporaries while doing so and is enjoying success as a result, but this is not free and easy vocal production and I hope no young baritones are trying to imitate this sound.

I couldn't see you liking him. I thought you were losing it

 

[Seattleoperafan]

Hungarian and Finnish are distantly related, but that's it. Turkish is unrelated to them and to Mongolian, which is also unrelated to them. The Altaic language-family hypothesis would have Mongolic languages related to Turkic ones, but that is not bolstered by good evidence and is not accepted by the linguistic establishment in countries where linguists actually follow the scientific method. Mongolic and Turkic languages (as well as some others, most notably the Tungusic ones) show a great deal of similar features that are thought to be areal features diffused a few thousand years ago (timeline off the top of my head). For example, Tuvan, a Turkic language, shows a great deal of Mongolian influence through borrowing and shared culture over a long period, which has resulted in Tuva and Western Mongolia being the two most active modern centers of Central Asian overtone singing.

In fact, many of these typological features found in Northern Asia are also present in Uralic, but even the Altai hypothesizers don't put Uralic in there. Uralic is the language family that "Finno-Ugric" is in, but we don't really use the latter term anymore because it isn't a primary family and there isn't good evidence that the Ugric and the Finno-Permic have much in common that separates them from the Samoyedic.

So to summarize: Mongolic languages have no proven genetic relationships to any non-Mongolic languages, but they share certain features with languages in a broad belt across Northern and Central Asia that are thought to be the result of areal contact.

One of my important opera mentors who took me to a number of operas including in Santa Fe and who inspired my interest in Wagner was a world expert on Altaic languages and lectured often in Europe, especially Vienna, on the subject. He was lead professor of Asian languages at the UW. He was an authority on the Tibetan language and was used as a coder in WWII using that language. I've always known people who were much smarter than me. My gift was that I was charming having grown up in the South and I am a very gifted conversationalist

 

[Seattleoperafan]

I’m surprised you all hear NO darkening because I do and I think it’s why he has to put so much effort into his highest notes. As I’ve said, darkening, doesn’t bother me that much and I think he really has a beautiful voice.

No, I am sure Bonetan said it was darkened.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

You do realize Mr B, that if you were an officer of the law this would be entrapment 🤔😉😁🤓!!!

I do what I am told to do if people ask nicely