[Woodduck]

Here's a few characteristics of the assoluta/Soprano Sfogato voice:

It possesses a dark timbre with a rich and strong low register, as well as the high notes of a soprano and occasionally a coloratura soprano. Those voices are typically strong, dramatic and agile, supported by an excellent bel canto technique and an ability to sing in the soprano tessitura as well as in the contralto tessitura with great ease.

The common requirements for the roles associated with this voice type are:

widely varied tessitura throughout the role, extended segments lying well into the low mezzo or contralto tessitura and segments lying in high soprano tessitura;

a range extending down to at least low B and at least up to high B with at least one whole tone required at either end;

fioratura (coloratura) singing in the most intricate bel canto style;

florid singing combined with heroic weight;

a heavy or dense sound in the lower range;

vocal power over energetic orchestral accompaniment.

With that being said, the Assoluta voice is more than rare in the Opera world today. We have been forced to accept the notion that only canaries can sing Lucia di Lammermoor, Roberto Deveraux and that only dramatic/spintos can sing Aid, Leonora from Destino and Trovatore, Medea, and Norma. In the days of the Assoluta, you were REQUIRED to sing Norma, Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Medea, Tosca, Kundry, Aida, Norma, Gioconda, Countess, Armida, Amina, Elisabetta, Leonora (Destino and Trovatore), Mimi. We must eliminate that notion once again and bring back the good old singing... where those singers gave it their all and didn't regret it.

By your description, I can't see any reason for withholding the "assoluta" title from Rosa Ponselle. She had the amplitude, the timbral richness, and the flexibility to sing virtually anything. Even Callas called her "the greatest singer of us all."

I would caution against the assumption that nineteenth century singers were normally equally competent in the entire repertoire they sang. Certainly, there were lighter and heavier voices, just as now, and the major difference was that in those pre-Wagner, pre-verismo days, thorough bel canto schooling was expected of all front-rank singers; specialization hadn't yet divided singers into the "fachs" some of us are so fond of distinguishing.

Wagner himself asked that his music be sung "in the Italian style" (when that actually meant something), and personally praised baritone Mattia Battistini for his superb singing. But I have no doubt that he would have been overjoyed to hear his Tristan and Isolde sung by Melchior and Flagstad, who sensibly did not sing Rossini and Bellini (though Flagstad may have in her early years in Norway). Flagstad was offered Norma and studied the part carefully, but knew she didn't have the coloratura flexibility for it. Her Wagnerian predecessors Lilli Lehmann and Frida Leider did sing Norma, the former to considerable acclaim, but her Wagnerian successors Birgit Nilsson and Astrid Varnay couldn't have come within a mile of its demands. The diminishing technical facility of these leading dramatic sopranos tells the story of the gradual decline of the bel canto tradition, and the emergence of the vocal typology we're used to today.

I agree with you about the absence of the "assoluta" soprano at present. Meade doesn't strike me as a candidate; Radvanovsky may be a mite closer. Neither of them is a Lehmann, a Ponselle, or a Callas.

 

[Woodduck]

I don't think we need worry about the occasional critical remark. When assolutas are in view, others must come up short.

About Caballe - she was versatile. She had substantial lyric, spinto and coloratura capabilities. Must we assign her a fach? After all, we're not creating potential cast lists for an opera company. Personally, I find her most agreeable in her earlier (1960s) years, and in the more lyric parts of her repertoire. Dramatic force, though often effective, came at the expense of vocal beauty and function, more so as her career wore on, when she became self-indulgent and abused her pianissimo, glottal attacks and register breaks. Her combination of gifts made her basically well-suited to Norma - more so than Sutherland, who certainly had plenty of voice (except for a few chest tones) but was characteristically marmoreal and mealy-mouthed, and Bartoli, who verges on the grotesque. Bartoli and colleagues turn the opera into a 1960s Italian soap, "Adultery in Druidsville," stripping it of its classical nobility (and, if that cover photo is any hint, of other things as well... All it lacks is Vittorio Grigolo staring down her cleavage.)

 

[Woodduck]

I concur

since we are discussing appropriate choice of repertoire (just as you have done below), yes (at the very least, the concept if going to come up).

some of the really heavy rep was too much for her, but her Verdi and even some of her lighter Wagner are just fine. I don't take issue with her singing some coloratura, provided it was taken slowly (as in her recording of Armida's aria, which is phenomenal), but in other performances, her coloratura was distractedly messy.

I try to be diplomatic. Look where it gets me.

To be direct: your categorical statement, "first off, Caballe IS a spinto, not a lyric" (my emphasis), stated as if it were an objective fact that ought to be obvious to everyone, is not only mere opinion but reifies the notion of "fach," as if "fach" were a natural object and not a creation of the human mind. People who talk about singers need to learn to say, not that singers "are" specimens belonging to this or that category - spinto or lyric - but that we hear them as having more or less of this or that vocal character.

The only context in which the concept of "fach" is useful - in which it is accurate enough to say that someone IS this and not that - is the original context in which the notion of fach originated: in the administration of opera houses, where it's convenient to have a shorthand way of identifying singers who are likely to be suitable for certain roles. Sensible people will recognize that these categories are loose and general, and that the character and capabilities of singers are not limited or bound by them.

It's reasonable to say, "I think Caballe's voice is more spinto than lyric in quality" or "To me she is more effective in spinto than in lyric repertoire." A categorical statement "Caballe is a spinto, not a lyric," is not reasonable. It is false and arrogant, as it claims objective knowledge of something that has no objective reality.

I had hoped that my statement that Caballe was versatile, and that I found her generally more pleasing in the lyric parts of her repertoire but still found her qualified to sing a satisfactory Norma, would have served as an example of how to talk about a singer's qualities without transgressing the proper bounds of what can objectively be said. So long as people insist on assigning singers to clear-cut categories which do not define voices at all, but are mere rough guides to the practical business of casting, those bounds will be transgressed.

 

[Woodduck]

Sutherland's horrible diction, loss of her vocal agility, and her husband all adds to the core of the problem: Sutherland wasn't primed to singing the great Bel canto roles in Opera. She got away with a having a vocally secure Lucia and Armina but when it came down to the "nitty, gritty", she suffered. By 1975, she had lost 65% of her once acclaimed agility, her diction was always horrible and was just mush and her lower register and middle registers developed a nasty mid-career wobble. She had to transpose her pieces up in order to avoid climatic phrases that required her to sing lower notes and thanks to her husband, was forced to sing repertory that showcased her worst spots. Sutherland singing Norma, Elvira, Violetta, Lucrezi and Maria Stuarda were not good. And don't get me started on her ****-poor attempt of singing Versimo with Puccini's Turandot.

And I thought I was tough on singers! :lol:

The faults you point to were real, though isn't 65% a bit excessive and overspecific? Even in late career Sutherland had fine coloratura, even if the voice was no longer the clean, silvery instrument it had been. I don't much like the way her voice and musicianship developed after the early 1960s - the mushy diction and swoony phrasing were just unmusical, and of course the encroaching wobble - but my ears tell me that in early career she was vocally superb in the lighter bel canto roles, and that even in the '70s there was no one with her combination of range, power and agility in that repertoire. For that matter there hasn't been since, as far as I'm aware (Radvanovsky may be the best we have at the moment, and her coloratura is no match even for late Sutherland, though she's a better musician and actress).

 

[Woodduck]

Sutherland's voice was fit to restoring the great Baroque and earlier light-Belcanto (opera Buffo) roles. The heavier the role she picked, the worst it sounded in her voice. There's a reason why her Lakme and Alcina still outsells the rest of her entire discography. The voice was silvery like a bell, had the colorization of a true lyric coloratura and her voice was more energetic than when she got caught up with her husband and his nefarious demands of her singing the harder Belcanto repertorie. I wholeheartedly believe that Early SUtherland 1959-1968 will always be her prime. Not a big fan of her voice but she was good in that period. The "Horne, Pavarotti" era is where the voice was at its lowest and the 70's weren't kind to her either.

I don't know why but I really miss Jennifer Larmore and Carol Vaness. Where are those two lovely ladies?

I don't think Sutherland's voice, as such, was a major problem in bel canto repertoire. Her early Lucias, as well as her Baroque work of that period, are magnificent pieces of singing. She actually enunciated rather well then, and her phrasing was clear and direct. I think that from a purely vocal standpoint she was perfectly well-suited to Donizetti and Bellini, and that her defects were musical and stylistic. The wilted, mooning phrasing compromised the musical line and, together with the incomprehensible diction, also compromised the music's potential for specific expression. If we can blame Bonynge for this, we might say that he tried to turn her into a giant canary. There's plenty of recorded evidence that she was more than that, and had she come under the influence of Callas's mentor Serafin we might have had quite a superior artist. For those who simply glory in her vocal brilliance, this is no doubt unimportant, whereas those of us who demand that opera be as musically and dramatically integral as it is vocally exciting will enjoy Sutherland very selectively.

 

[Woodduck]

There seems to be developing a fashion for saying "whatever."

Whatever can it mean?

 

[Woodduck]

what I mean is, I'm not going to sit here arguing about the validity of voice classification....on a thread about voice classification (and yes, I like do like to put things in more intellectually nuanced categories. it's just how my mind works lol).

How is ramming versatile singers into narrow fachs intellectually nuanced? How is stating categorically that "Caballe is a spinto, not a lyric" intellectually nuanced? I believe that nuance is the one characteristic most conspicuously absent from such statements, and that nuance is the habit of thought I am nigh-unto-desperately pleading for when we talk about voices.

When I was a college student I was justly proud of my ability to make fine discriminations intellectually, and to break down reality into nice clean categories. Then, at a certain point, I realized that those categories I thought reality consisted of were inventions of my own mind, tools I needed to help me find my way, but which became hindrances to further understanding if I held on to them once they'd served their purpose. That realization was liberating. Now, I am far more interested in discovering what realities lie outside conventional categories than in seeing how much of the world I can stuff into them.

There are some singers who fit rather neatly into the conventional "fach" classifications. There is no question that Birgit Nilsson was correctly described as a hochdramatische sopran, simply because she was a great Brunnhilde and Elektra, and because that was virtually the only kind of singing she truly excelled at. Besides, it's a narrow and easily defined category with few inhabitants. Some things are sufficiently lacking in nuance to be talked about so categorically. But in those cases there tends to be little controversy and the discussion is quickly over. Anything more nuanced than that, and we'd best crawl out of our classificatory boxes and learn to qualify our statements. Debates over whether someone is "really" a strong lyric soprano or a lyrico-spinto soprano are only going to make the visitors from other galaxies wonder why they bothered coming all this way to study us.

But - I know - "What-EVVAAH!" :tiphat:

 

[Woodduck]

I'd like to propose some new contestants for the assoluta fach

1) Marisa Galvany

2) Leyla Gencer

3) Alexandrina Pendatchanska(her technique isn't quite to my liking, but in terms of sheer vocal capabilities, I'd say she is a contender)

4) Shirley Verrett

Galvany is a monochromatic singer. She has basically one quality of expression: maniacal. Lucia as Lady Macbeth. Her coloratura is hit or miss, OK when she can ride her powerful vibrato but terrible in the Norma excerpt. She has no trill. Can you imagine that voice as Amina? More like Santuzza, regardless of the role. Far from "assoluta," if the term actually means more than high, low, and loud.

Gencer was a strong artist but not exactly a paragon of musical poise and style. Versatile yes, but that clip's attempt to portray her as all those different types, from lyric coloratura to contralto, is absurd. Still, despite a certain roughness, a better candidate for "assoluta" than Galvany.

There's an unidentified mezzo in the Pendatchanska clip. It's mostly a lot of loud coloratura singing anyway. I think this is more revealing:

Well, it isn't bel canto, is it? Such uneven tonal emission, and a weird, wild, bumpy ride, musically speaking. She does have a trill. I think her Lucia is stylistically saner and technically better, though the approach to high notes is sometimes crude and the phrasing not very imaginative or finely drawn:

She has another one of these voices, so common nowadays, that I couldn't necessarily pick out in a lineup.

Well. Now for the real deal. You only have to listen to Shirley Verrett for a few moments to hear that she completely outclasses the others in every way. I'd also say she's the only true falcon in the group, with a range encompassing securely both soprano and mezzo. She had the voice, technique, musicianship and sense of style to sing virtually anything, beautifully and memorably.

I'd just like to add this, a performance worthy to stand beside assoluta Rosa Ponselle's "O nume tutelar" as an exemplar of the fine art of singing:

My verdict? One out of four: Shirley Verrett, Assoluta.

 

[Woodduck]

I've classified Mrs. Verrett as a Proto-Assoluta, meaning she's got assoluta-like qualities but her coloratura wasn't as stable as say a Callas or Sutherland. I think Soprano Falcon works for her best. While she had great high notes, some of those high notes were quite strident and often weaker when compared to her counterpart, Grace Bumbry (who was often afraid of her own high notes as well and didn't have the stronger coloratura either.)

Well, nobody's perfect - certainly not Callas, after her voice started to go. Verrett did after all begin as a mezzo (I believe) and conquered soprano territory like no other mezzo I can think of, and Callas didn't have the body and solidity down low to do the same in the mezzo repertoire, despite some successful late recordings of mezzo arias. I'd say Callas deserves the "assoluta" title more than any other singer of the postwar period by dint of combining vocal range, flexibility, dramatic power and stylistic versatility, but that Verrett comes closer to her than anyone else, and even surpasses Callas in the consistent beauty of her tone.

I'm not really "classifying" anybody, since we all have our own ideas about what qualities are necessary, and in what proportion, to merit a particular term. Terms are partly subjective, and "assoluta" must certainly be. If we wanted to be really tough, we could nominate just one "assoluta" and find all the rest wanting! I have a hard time withholding the honor from Verrett, one of the most accomplished and versatile singers of her time or, probably, any other time.

 

[Woodduck]

Verrett comes as close as anyone. Her voice was simply one of the most beautiful ever. I always felt cheated when she sang soprano as her lower register was so amazingly beautiful. She was one of the greatest Arsaces ever but was also a killer Norma. I even heard her sing a high D very well in the trio of Act II of Norma. Not denying Callas' fabulousness, but Verrett's voice to my ears was much more beautiful.
I would like to mention another singer who I believe deserves some mention. Dimitrova, who was equally adept as Turandot, Norma, and Amneris. She had an astonishingly huge voice, distinctive in sound, solid from killer high C's to chest voice, and more than adequate at coloratura.She was one of the great Amneris's of her generation. Some don't like her voice, but I find it thrilling.
Eileen Farrell was another singer who came close when she was young, but after a lot of Wagner her high notes failed her later in her career. Her coloratura was of astonishing dexterity, her voice as big as they come, and in Interrupted Melody sang mezzo and soprano roles equally well. in her retirement she recorded many pop songs all in the contralto register.

I agree that Verrett's voice was more beautiful in basic timbre than Callas.' What Callas had, more than any singer I can think of, was the ability to alter her timbre for expressive purposes, to the point of finding different "voices" for different characters. In her Butterfly she carries off the virtuoso feat of transforming her voice completely over the course of the work from that of naive young girl to tragic woman, and the effect is devastatingly powerful. In vocal acting she remains in a class by herself.

I was thinking of Eileen Farrell as a candidate for "assoluta," but as you point out the high notes became difficult, as they did with Ponselle, Flagstad, Traubel, and other sopranos with rich low registers and dramatic power. They all became, essentially, mezzo-sopranos of great beauty, but their soprano years were spectacular.

Callas, by the way, was impressed with Farrell. She once said, "The Met can hardly be considered a serious artistic institution. They don't even have Farrell."

 

[Woodduck]

Might I suggest that the three singers who I would say came closest to the Soprano Assoluta defintion were fleeting phenomena in three great careers. Ponselle in her 20's when she was still secure up top and Horne as she was transitioning into mezzo parts and was engaged to sing Lucretia Borga in Carnegie Hall. Lastly, Farrell in her thirties. All three at that time in their careers HAD IT ALL. Top to bottom with coloratura to boot. Capable of incredible lyrical singing but possessing huge voices. What do you say??? All three had voices that migrated south as they matured.

Ponselle's voice didn't really migrate south. She just lost her high C. She was still singing most of her rep in her mid-thirties, and the rest of her voice didn't change very much. She did say that had she not retired she'd have continued as a mezzo. Here's a great broadcast of "Ritorna vincitor" from 1936, when she was 39 (there's a measure missing toward the end, unfortunately):

Oh those uncanny diminuendos! But now listen to her, accompanying herself at home in "Senza mamma" in 1953. She was 55!

I don't remember Horne as a soprano. Guess I wasn't listening to her then.

 

[Woodduck]

there are recordings where she sounds more like a mezzo, but in other ones (especially earlier), the voice has zero mezzo in it.

I meant that there really is a mezzo in that clip. There are two singers there.

 

[Woodduck]

Woodduck: you can find anything on Youtube! Here is a concert Horne did in '61 as a soprano:

. She actually sounds a lot like Eileen Farrell here. The top was more flexible and solid, but you could tell the bottom was there if she needed it. The top was different than it was in the 67 Immolation Scene.

That is one healthy Mimi! Tuberculosis? Nah.

Horne's voice always had too much steel in it for my taste - I think she was perfect for castrato parts - but as soprano or mezzo she was an extraordinary singer.

 

[Woodduck]

^seconded. I like voices which have more roundness, opulence and some level of spin in the top reaches (not just mezzos or sopranos either. I want this from the basses and baritones I listen to as well).

And softness and vulnerability.

Pollione could have taken her Adalgisa back to Rome and put her in the Coliseum to eat Christians.

 

[Woodduck]

I think she did a phenomenal job. I don't get the higher than thou comments on Youtube and here about her performance as Norma.

I think people are just outraged that a mezzo would dare attempt a role that people have traditionally deemed to be reserved for a Soprano voice. Yet, it wasn't written for one. Frankly, I think it's either jealous, hate, or outright ignorance, or worse, all of these things combined.

Not pointing any finger.​

I'm glad you're leaving it up to each of us to decide whether we are jealous, hateful, ignorant, or all three. Personally, all three might be something of a challenge, but I'll work on it. It might liven up my rhetoric.

 

[Woodduck]

the problem with Bartoli's Norma is not that she is a mezzo (Verrett is among my favorite Normas, and my favorite two are Callas and Marisa Galvany, both of whom have chest voices like mezzos), it's that the voice doesn't have the weight necessary to do the role justice

That whole production lacks weight.

 

[Woodduck]

Says who? You?... Okay, we'll run with it...

Bartoli's Norma is currently being praised. Just reading the reviews from the recent performances at Edinburg, I'd say your comment lacks weight...​

Is that indeed what you would say? It would be better to say why you think the recording featuring Bartoli does the opera justice. Who cares about some reviewer in Edinburgh?

 

[Woodduck]

I like this comment and I wholeheartedly agree with you. Bartoli's version is not as searing as other divas, but I like it for the beauty and intimacy of her rendition. It's dramatic when it needs to be and balanced at other points. I have listened to the entire opera on CD and I think she did a beautiful job. Personally, I think they all have some fault, save Cabelle (I think she has the most astute version). I have not heard Sutherland's take. I have listened to Callas and as much as I respect her, I don't like the tone of her voice in Norma. She sounds like an old woman wailing. But where Callas lacks beauty, in my opinion, she makes up for it in volume and drama.

I have not actually seen any of them live, so this is just based on CD. Anyways, I respect everyone's opinion, and I am here to learn and discuss. Most people here are pleasant, others seem to have a false sense of entitlement. At the end of the day, the objectivity is all mathematical ratios and time splices. Your perception of performer's execution is just that... Yours...​

It's odd that in this post you assure us that you "respect everyone's opinion," when in the previous post you state, without giving any reason (except for citing some unnamed critic in Edinburgh), that my comment on Bartoli's Norma recording "lacks weight." Would it surprise you that I find that somewhat insulting? Perhaps I'm one of those "people here" to whom you attribute a "false sense of entitlement," and you feel that this entitles you to be less than polite to me.

I have been here for over two years and I do not notice any contributors to the opera forum exhibiting a sense of "entitlement." Though we have disagreements I think we are generally quite civil in expressing them. Seeing that you're new here, I wonder why you already feel the need to remind current members that their opinions are theirs alone. In my experience, we rarely need to go on the defensive unless others perceive us going on the offensive first.

Welcome to the forum. Let's look forward to discussions vigorous and fruitful - and respectful.

 

[Woodduck]

Perhaps you can use a the standard writhing from the board, read much easier?

I have to second Pugg's suggestion. Some of us are older and our eyes don't have an easy time staring at tiny print on a screen.

 

[Woodduck]

I must be about the only opera lover who likes Richard Bonynge as a bel canto conductor (I wouldn't want to hear him conduct Puccini); I honestly don't understand all the "hate" for him, and I sometimes feel as though people (not so much DavidA, but others here and elsewhere) speak condescendingly of him just because they feel it's "the thing to do," or something. I feel one could criticize some of Bonynge's tempos for being too fast so that the music lacks "gravity," but other than that I fail to hear why he's not a great conductor of bel canto operas. Or is the idea that one can only be a "great conductor" by venturing outside bel canto opera?

And I think Bonynge did more than turn Sutherland's voice into an incredible instrument (what he did, really, was help her find and strengthen the soprano registers she didn't know she had); he also must have given her a great education in the age of bel canto and its style.

I have no problem with Bonynge. He's made many fine recordings of 19th-century opera and ballet music (Adam, Delibes, Offenbach, etc.). That sort of "light classical" repertoire isn't taken seriously by some. Otherwise, I have the impression he's criticized mainly by people who blame him for what they dislike about Sutherland (the mushy diction and swoony phrasing). How much is deserved, I don't know.