On Sun, 1 Apr 2001, Jeffrey Snider wrote:
> A suggestion for basses and mezzos who are unhappy with
> their "excerptable" choices-LEARN RUSSIAN!
>
> There are great Russian aria for ALL voices, but basses and mezzos
> expecially benefit from adding Russian to their repertoire.
Excellent advice - and advice I've followed myself. One of my best arias
is Liubava's aria from SADKO.
But a word of warning: Russian arias are often too long for auditions, and
are often unfamiliar to auditors. The result can be what happened to me at
an audition last week: the auditor asked how long the Sadko aria was that
I had listed on my audition sheet. I did some quick mental calculating,
and realised that with the recit, it averages about 5 minutes - with the
aria itself being about 4 minutes long. SO I told him it would be four
minutes, and he sighed and asked for my Italian aria instead...a
disappointment to us both, I suspect, espcially as one of the operas on
the roster for next season is PIQUE DAME (I'm hoping I got brownie points
for even offering a Russian aria). My other Russian arias
- Marina's aria from BORIS GODUNOV and Joan of Arc's aria from MAID OF
ORLEANS - are both even longer. I've just started work on Olga's aria
from EUGENE ONEGIN which *is* short and sweet, but shows off little
vocally or interpretatively. Even Shepherd Lehl's aria, one of the
shortest in Russian mezzo rep, clocks in at about 4 minutes (from
SNEGOUROTCHKA). Also, it's a pants role and not an ideal aria for me -
though it would be a good choice for a Cherubino/Nicklausse type mezzo.
So yes, Russian literature is RICH for mezzos, and I definitely advise
that any mezzo get her Russian diction act together and start exploring
this wonderful treasure trove (plus, Russian is probably the second most
singable language after Italian, being very vowel-oriented and vocally
legato, with consonants sung lightly and placed very forward): but don't
necessarily expect to find your ideal audition aria in the Russian
repertoire.
KM
=====
My NEIL SHICOFF Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Website:
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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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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