Aspiration of vowels, whether or not we approve of it, didn't begin with verismo, though I suspect the more vehement style of verismo increased its prevalence. We do in fact hear it in Battistini's singing:
In brief, there are specific things to listen for in evaluating a singer's vocal accomplishment. Whether one can hear those things is another matter. It's useful to have sung oneself, or to have worked with singers. Here are the things I look for:
I don't think it gets us anywhere to throw generalizations about. I haven't talked about "these people." I've talked about a particular singer I think is superb, and I've said why, in some detail now.
I guess the answer is: if you want to perform the operas, somebody has to sing them.
Lisitsian was a superb singer, no question. His singing and style will get no criticism here. I do find Russian a bit hard to swallow in such quintessentially Italian music; he sounds great, while his gulped vowels sound as absurd here as they sound fine in Mussorgsky. Best of the postwar baritones? Maybe so, technically, but not my favorite baritone sound.Thank you, that's a good example of a Battistini record with aspirated vowels, so I stand corrected! I think that, not having listened to that record very attentively before, I'd been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure about aspirates as an affective device: I'm sure singers often did it intentionally where they did it at all, but it smacks of either carelessness or poor taste. Regarding the modern 'Verdi baritone' as a kind of verismo singer with bel canto roots, I prefer those who are more bel canto oriented than verismo oriented. One could put Stracciari in that category, but I don't like his voice much and the aspirates (more blatant than Battistini's) really bother me. Here's a more recent Verdi baritone who sounds to me like a bel canto throwback, in a totally good way: he's Pavel Lisitsian, singing Eri tu, and I prefer his recording to Stracciari's mostly excellent one- largely because his timbre is so much pleasanter to my ear. He certainly 'ruins' most other baritones of the LP era for me!
I still say Peter Dawson's is better!
Reputations get exaggerated. Before the internet, critics wielded a disproportionate amount of power, and their enthusiasms for certain singers of the past and their aversion to others seemed to become received opinion. Lack of reissues on vinyl or even CD made it especially hard to reevaluate the reputations of singers whose recordings were deprecated or overlooked by the mid to late 20th century's arbiters of taste. I have shared Bellinilover's experience of disappointment with Pertile, an excellent example of a singer elevated to near godlike status whose records were in many cases egregiously bad. Yet very frequently, Youtube yields excellent examples of singing from the same era by artists who may well have enjoyed success in their own time but whose names are a great deal less familiar to us than those of singers like Pertile, whose reputation is so towering and whose recordings are often so disappointing.
Sorry, but I do not agree that "our problems are the same."The comparison with Zatopek was, of course, not dealing with a creative artist. Singers are not creative artists. I would certainly not used the comparison in dealing with composers as it does not apply. In any case it is an incomplete analogy not to be pushed to its limit.
It's not that I don't know what you are talking about, as I thought I'd made clear that is not the issue. I've had musical training and I understand (most of) the technical stuff. I also have a wife who has taught singing! But what I am talking about is preferences of the listener. Our problems seem the same, friend. You don't appear to get what I am talking about! Our priorities are different! But let's agree to differ on that!Happy listening!
I'm going to differ with you and say that Dawson was a great singer with something less than a great instrument. I really did enjoy this, but a bit more "opulence" of timbre is important to me. I know it's a subjective preference, but for Iago? Darkness and weight of tone really is needed. I can't believe Dawson is evil; just set him alongside, say, Gobbi. A difference of "Night and Day" (Dawson could sing that quite stylishly, don't you think? With a little Noel Coward attitude?). He has a veddy British sound, to my ears - sort of reedy. No offense, but I can't help visualizing G & S when I hear him.
The above conflict is about someone asking me a question about singing, not really wanting an answer, and showing disrespect for my sincere and detailed efforts to provide an answer.Having read the posts several times, I'm honestly puzzled as to what precisely the above conflict is all about.
Dawson is certainly fun to hear in his native metier. I fear I shall never find his timbre to my taste in Italian opera, or feel much identification with songs like "The Fishermen of Mandalay" (oops!) or "Boots", but I do enjoy the excursion across The Pond and the decades. So, thanks.
Absolutely. Every intelligent performing musician appreciates the extent to which the creation of a musical experience is in the hands of the interpreter of those pages of dots, dashes and squiggles known as "the score." Remarkably little of that experience can be represented in written form in much of the music we listen to, and in vocal music least of all. Creating a performance of an operatic role is a major creative achievement - or, rather, it can be, though it too often is not. Most singers, like most people in most of life's activities, are more or less content to do what they have learned how to do, and even their thrusts at individuality are pretty conventional and unmemorable. We are not even likely to imagine what's possible until a singer/actor with the spark of genius - a Hotter, a Vickers, a Ludwig, a Lehmann, a Schwarzkopf, a Callas, an Olivero - gets hold of a work we thought we knew and reveals dimensions in it we never suspected.
The above post does not contain a single true statement. If I am not allowed to refute it here, it needs to be deleted by the moderators, as subsequent posts already have been.
Knowing what discriminating tastes you have, I look forward to your returning the favor. :tiphat:
I don't find the Callas voice inherently one of the most sensually beautiful, and in certain music don't care for her basic sound at all. Not everyone could have used her instrument as she did. But it was a deeply human voice, multidimensional, bitter and sweet, dark and brilliant, soft and hard, full of odd colors and surprising timbral vibrations which she could alter and employ to express an incredible variety of emotions. This was nature taking with one hand and giving with the other - or, to use another image, you need a lemon to make lemonade. Fortunately she had the genius to play to the hilt the hand, or voice, she was dealt. A true voice - a true artist, honest all the way down, missing nothing, concealing nothing, sparing nothing.
Isn't it a little disparaging to say that vocal imperfection is what makes a singer appealing? Callas's appeal comes from a great many things more significant. Something to do with musicianship, maybe? And do keep in mind that the things - things musical, dramatic, and, yes, technical - she knew how to do with that imperfect voice are still waiting to be equaled in her repertoire. That's the precise source of her "appeal."
You're certainly entitled to find Callas's vocal "imperfections" appealing. But are the things you cited really imperfections, or just peculiarities? "Muddy," "husky," and "almost snarling" concern her timbre(s) and are rather subjective descriptors, aren't they? I'm not just being argumentative. Actual imperfections have to do with faults in the way a voice works. Callas developed real imperfections as her career proceeded, and I rather doubt that you find the strain and wobble of her later years appealing.
