On Sat, 24 Mar 2001, mariella wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> <Greypins@a...> writes:
> <Greypins@a...> writes:
>
>
> > 'dramatic contralto' is a fach, 'limited coloratura' is a lack of a
> > skill not a fach.
>
> There are two different things here - a coloratura voice and a coloratura
> style. In most cases what Mozart requires is a coloratura/lyric singer, what
> Verdi requires is a heavy, dramatic voice singing the coloratura style. As
> for the coloratura - the musical style, I agree that regardless of fach one
> should have technique to sing it.
>
> There is a huge difference between Mozart's coloratura style and Verdi's
> coloratura style. Usually, the Mozart singers have way too slender voices
> for Verdi, and vice versa, the Verdi singers are not able to slim down their
> voices to suit the Mozart's music without loosing the support, sacrificing
> the beauty of the tone or drowning everybody around them. Very few singers,
> now or in the past, are (were) equally great in Mozart and Verdi. There is a
> very good reason that the singers like Callas or Tebaldi never sung Mozart.
>
Thank you for writing this. Frankly, I was getting too pissed off by the
lack of understanding of vocal physiology - and specifically the
differences in physiology between a dramatic voice and a lyric voice - and
the judgemental tone - in "greypins'" messages to write as eloquently what
you were able to.
It is indeed true that different composers (and eras) had different ways
of handling coloratura writing. Baroque coloratura writing, for example,
is different from Bel Canto coloratura writing - and these differ again
from the coloratura writing, as you've suggested, of Verdi...or de
Falla...or Tippett. ALL coloratura requires vocal agility, but there is a
definite difference between the fioratura demands of, say, "Iris, hence
away" from SEMELE,"Parto, parto" from LA CLEMENZA DI TITO, "Una voce poco
fa" from IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, The
Song of the Veil from DON CARLO, and Helen of Troy's aria from KING PRIAM
- not to mention the overall demands of the respective operas/roles _in
toto_. I would be concerned if a dramatic mezzo couldn't
"navigate" the coloratura of The Song of the Veil, but I would hardly
blame her for completely ignoring "Una voce poco fa" because it's not an
aria she will EVER be expected to sing - because the very qualities that
make hers a DRAMATIC voice - size, power of chest register, etc. - are
very unlikely to be qualities that I want to hear in a Rosina. By the same
token, the qualities that are going to make a wonderful Sesto in CLEMENZA
are going to disqualify that voice from singing an even remotely
creditable Eboli.
KM
=====
My NEIL SHICOFF Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
-----
We're sitting in the opera house;
We're waiting for the curtain to arise
With wonders for our eyes,
A feeling of expectancy,
A certain kind of ecstasy,
Expectancy and ecstasy....Sh's's's.
- Charles Ives
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