I just don't see many tenors who would draw me (Villazon and Kaufmann would and perhaps Florez), but there are many sopranos that would draw me (though I even more like altos).

 

Sopranos maybe, although for me the deciding factor when buying tickets are the baritones. Then again, I tend to go for Verdi.

 

Tenors yo. There's no Three Sopranos :lol:

 

Tenors yo. There's no Three Sopranos :lol:

That's because none of them can get along together long enough to produce a recording.

 

I think the 3 tenors was a marketing stroke of genius. I don't consider them traditional opera as all were amplified. Sutherland I remember reading somewhere had an estate worth hundreds of millions. Memory fades. For many of the gays, like me, it is all about the women. Of course the new gays are different from my generation more frequently than the baby boomer crowd.

 

A good tenor is a sack of gold for an opera house. I think it was Corelli (maybe) who had a row with a baritone and demanded he be dismissed from the production. The opera house had no alternative but to decide on the tenor's side, no matter what the rights or wrongs. Baritones are two a penny. Tenors a very rare bird.

 

Exactly! A good tenor is just more rare, so it would make sense for them to be more of a draw. Good sopranos are everywhere, especially lyrics.

 

My guess is tenors. ( I know they're MY favorite!)

 

Gee I don't know--are there any examples of extremely fanatic followers of specific sopranos or tenors online?

 

I don't know about this particular group, but I've certainly experienced quite a few over the years. They've tended to be older opera obsessives - fans of Milanov, Tebaldi, Tucker, etc. There was one guy on a forum who literally followed Hildegard Behrens around the world and saw virtually every performance that she gave.

 

I prefer sopranos and tenor is my least favourite voice type.

However, the question is which make more money?

I think that may depend at different times, but at the moment the big stars seem to mostly be tenors (Kaufmann being the prime example, but you have Florez, Calleja and Beczala too). Netrebko and Gheorghiu (who doesn't sing much anymore) are the only soprano superstars I can think of at the moment.

N.

P.S. And this isn't about which are the greatest artists of today. I'm thinking solely in terms of who is likely to be the bigger box office draw.

 

If I could redo my thread I might skew it more in this direction. When it comes to casting, who can command bigger salaries due to scarcity. I wonder if Corelli made the same as Nilsson for Turandot?????????

 

What about countertenors?

And what about Bartoli?

 

What about countertenors?

I try my best to pretend they don't exist :lol:

 

I think it depends on the singer, and their popularity. There is no denying that Caruso was once the most famous singer in the world and could command fees higher than any other. Indeed, at his peak, his performance fees exceeded $500,000 annually, which was worth a lot more back then.

Callas was as famous as a film star by the late 1950s, which no doubt made her more popular than any other singer. You only have to see the footage of the queues outside the Met, when she returned to the house in 1965. She may have been past her best, but it didn't stop people wanting to see her. Incidentally the Met had a top fee, which would be granted to all their star singers. Callas apparenty wanted to be the highest paid singer in the world and would pester Bing to pay her just one cent more than everyone else. Of course he refused, saying it would be the most expensive cent he had ever paid.

I doubt any soprano was as popular as the three tenors, when they were at their peak, particularly Pavarotti and Domingo.

Nowadays I'm not sure any singer commands the same sort of loyalty or popularity.

 

What about Fleming and Netrebko?

 

It is the sopranos that won me over... a song like Ruhe Sanft from Zaide is such ear candy that can convert many to opera. Tenor voices are more of an acquired taste IMO .... However....

After immersing myself in Wagner’s music I have come to the conclusion that many Mozartian/ Italianate type singers are really shrill- too shrill. I feel that can be a turn off for some folks new to the genre. I’ll take Flagstad any day over Callas... not to mention the myriad of mediocre sopranos in the Baroque and Classical genres nowadays.

As far as tenors go, the only one that really floored me was Melchior. That guy is in a league of his own. Of course his repertoire is not for everyone.