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The Soprano Assoluta and its place in the world of Opera today

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#1 · (Edited)
Hello everyone. it's your neighborhood Baritone, BaritoneAssoluto here and I've got a great deal to talk about. Today's topic might be something a few of us may know and a lot of us may not understand just in-depth what truly is the cause of said topic. Today's topic I will be examining will be the Soprano Assoluta voice also known as the Soprano Sfogato and its place in the world of Opera today. I'm going to start this conversation off with a video from a youtuber by the name of Primohomme. He released three videos on the "in-between" Soprano voices: Assoluta, Falcon, and the Dugazon (which is just a Mezzo-Soprano Soubrette). I started the video within 00:22 seconds of the video so we can skip the filler.



Historically, this term was given to the past "divas" of Opera's yesteryear such as Giuditta Pasta, Maria Malibran, Giulia Grisi, Adelina Patti, and Henriette Sontag. More commonly, the term has been used to describe the Greek-American Soprano of the 20th century, Maria Callas. Here's a brief history behind the usage of the name and how it was applied
inoperasofit's day:

"The
assoluta's heyday was the first four of five decades of the nineteenth century, the period which coincides with the flourishing of Romanticism all over Europe, and she represented the artistic emancipation from the neo-Aristotelian proprieties of character: consistency, suitability to station, trueness to type, appropriateness of behavior, and so forth, along with the Romantic interest in human heroism, the defiance of the gods, the extremes of human character, of situtation and behavior, and a total unpredictability." (Source: The Assoluta Voice in opera: 1797-1847, by Geoffrey S. Riggs)

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, Armina, 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.

The Assoluta of today is nowhere to be found (and please don't say
Devia or Gruberova because those two queens are horrible.) Angela Meade is the only one who is close to an actual dramatic coloratura soprano but she doesn't have that extra "it" to be an Assoluta (unless she retrains her entire instrument like they did back in the 19th and 18th centuries.)

Please discuss guys, I'm always ready! Once again this is your neighborhood Baritone, BaritoneAssoluta speaking and saying "Out"!
 
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#5 ·
This always confuses people. Perhaps they get 'assoluta' from the expression 'prima donna assoluta' and forget to change the ending when they want to talk about a soprano rather than a prima donna. (I don't know any Italian, so please don't hesitate to tell me if 'prima donna assoluta' is grammatically incorrect as well! :))
 
#9 ·
No, it does refer to the same type of voice. Capable at the same time of having a very strong low register, and also the higher notes in the soprano repertory, along with coloratura. Of course, there is a price to pay (unless some day we can get an exceptional gift from Nature), as lack of homogeinity in the singing, that going to the extreme it can sounds like two voices, in just one body.

Reading about Pasta, and listening to Callas, we can see that there were a lot of similarities between the two.
 
#10 ·
As the historians have noted, it is a particular fach that is described for a rare type of Soprano. There's only been one pure Assoluta in the 20th century but there's been some others who have "proto-assoluta" like qualities, but they lack some of the mean ideal characteristics that would classifiy them wholly as an Assoluta.
 
#12 · (Edited)
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.
 
#13 · (Edited)
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.
you're probably expecting some major disagreement from me, but you are criticizing technical trends which arouse out of the fach system, not the fach system itself. with that in mind, your criticism is valid. several examples I think of are:
1) failure to teach heavier voices to sing some degree of coloratura. among healthily-produced big voices, everyone from Kirsten Flagstad to Dolora Zajick to Tito Gobbi believes that vocal flexibility is important in keeping the voice fresh.
2) teaching lighter voices that they don't need to support the bottom 2/3 of their range (except for tenors, in which case it's all types of tenors and the bottom 4/5 of the range lmao).
3) (especially in Wagner), the notion that big voices do not need to sing with legato (hell, we basically expect lyric singers to sing legato anymore. after dramatic voices, some of the biggest offenders are those girly lil coloraturas, and it seems like we've given up on the concept of male voices singing legato altogether apart from Hvorostovsky).
 
#14 ·
some counter-examples:
1) Brigitte Fassbaender: a large dramatic mezzo with ample agilty (chest register is a tad bang-y, but a wonderful performance overall)


2) Kirsten Flagstad: a huge Wagnerian voice capable of singing with elegant legato (ia slower, more tragedian legato for sure, but still a solid legato)


3) Elvira de Hidalgo: a lyric coloratura with strong support down through to the chest register
 
#15 ·
I don't know whether this is another thread exulting great singers of the past, but I want to say that I was around 50 or so reading the reviews of some of Callas' Bel Canto recordings in the Gramophone and they were not universally favourable. Perhaps a perceptive comment at the time was made by (I think) Andrew Porter who said something like: "A Callas, a Sutherland, a Caballe comes along, and all we can do is to talk about their failings......" There appears to be this myth about great singers of the past but frankly hearing some of them (albeit in totally inadequate recordings) I do find it difficult to enthuse.
 
#17 ·
So because of a few bad reviews, must one completely ignore all of the positive and mostly pin-point accurate reviews that are not based off on a previous bias? I mean what's the purpose of a musical historian then? And no this will not turn into one of the other threads because I will regularly check that it doesn't. We're not just discussing Madame Callas (despite using as a prime example,) anyone with actual characteristics (not just because of a big or huge voice can be termed an assoluta,) are welcomed in this discussion.
 
#22 ·
Yes to get the facts and not to fill it up with lies based upon their own pre-existing biases. No critic I've known have fit their criteria and that's the main reason why Opera Singers hate critics. They lie and make-up nonsense to sell their stories. It happened in the 30's with Ponselle, 50-60's with Callas, 70's-80's with Sherill Milnes and it has happened now with Hvorostovsky and Netrebko.
 
#29 ·
If you look at past reviews the facts are that singers sometimes got iffy reviews, not as you appear to imply that all critics lied and made up nonsense. That is not history. The fact that some critics (e.g. Claudia Cassidy in Chicago) made up poisonous reviews to sell newspapers does not mean all critics were mean spirited. If we're going to do the history thing let's be impartial ourselves.
 
#27 · (Edited)
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.)
 
#28 ·
I don't think we need worry about the occasional critical remark. When assolutas are in view, others must come up short. :)
I concur

About Caballe - she was versatile. She had substantial lyric, spinto and coloratura capabilities. Must we assign her a fach?
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).

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.)
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.
 
#44 · (Edited)
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.
 
#52 · (Edited)
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.
 
#100 ·
Actually I have a 2-CD set, Gala GL100.568, where she sings soprano quite convincingly, including a 1959 recording of the complete Bach Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, all four movements. She also sings Brünnhilde's Immolation quite well and does not sound at all like a mezzo, although it is undated ... And she sings Marie's monologue from Wozzeck, 1966.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George
 
#62 ·
Maria Callas' Masterclass at Juillard

The complete recordings of all these classes and working sessions; these mp3s have been posted independently of YouTube and you can download them for yourself. It is perfectly legal to download these files.

https://sites.google.com/site/operalala/CallasJuilliard

"Over two, six-week periods in 1971-72, Maria Callas taught a master class "The Lyric Tradition" for young beginning professional singers at the Juilliard School. Included in this course was a series of semiweekly 2-hour public working sessions with the variety of voices and repertoires in the class, intended to pass on her knowledge and experience to the students collectively, as well as to the public at large."

 
#63 ·
Maria Callas' Masterclass at Juillard

The complete recordings of all these classes and working sessions; these mp3s have been posted independently of YouTube and you can download them for yourself. It is perfectly legal to download these files.

https://sites.google.com/site/operalala/CallasJuilliard

"Over two, six-week periods in 1971-72, Maria Callas taught a master class "The Lyric Tradition" for young beginning professional singers at the Juilliard School. Included in this course was a series of semiweekly 2-hour public working sessions with the variety of voices and repertoires in the class, intended to pass on her knowledge and experience to the students collectively, as well as to the public at large."

This site is wonderful! For every piece that was performed/discussed in each class; the site has provided a quick link to the score of the piece!
 
#64 ·
It is my opinion and mine alone and I honestly think you can not be a serious musician if you don't have these recordings, somewhere saved in your laptop/desktop. She does so much by doing so little and every bits and pieces of information she gives out, is spot on and very intelligent. I actually think she could've been a great teacher to lower voiced males (she had an affinity for those Baritones and often complimented them and the basses for their voices and overall characterization but felt they needed more.)

If it's alright with you guys, I'd like to share a few clips of the class myself here:









Enjoy! Hopefully by Sunday, I should have another juicy topic to discuss in this thread but until then, hopefully those videos will satiate your thirst!

 
#65 ·
I think her voice could have easily been cast as a spinto Soprano, instead of the pushed up (or down) Mezzo-Soprano she forced herself into being. Tebaldi never had a true B flat, Ponselle would criticize her own High notes, Callas hated her High A's (and people even said it made them seasick, yikes!) but when I listen to Horne (as a mezzo and in those early '63 excerpts,) the voice sits exactly where it should -- in the very middle-topish of her voice. Or, quite frankly she could've been cast as a Falcon as Verrett and Bumbry are known to be.
 
#75 ·
I think more highly of her now than I did at the time. Particularly when she was younger and before she lost weight, she had a beautiful spinto that was solid from bottom to the top. She sang both verismo and Mozart really well. She did bow out of debuting as Norma here, likely realizing ti was too big a part for her. She may have undertaken it later, though.
 
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