> Back to Lloyd's original statement: Castrati had
> rich, ringing voices -- modern-day "baroque"
> practices mutilate the meaning of a rich, ringing
> voice (that horrible Emma Kirkby and others of the
> straight-tone"choral" voice come to mind). Let's
> take these as a given. Or debate as you see fit.
Whoops, I have been misinterpreted!
My own opinion about Kirkby's voice was put in the
parenthesis to separate it from my point -- which was
that modern-day straight-toned singing of baroque
music is incorrect, and contrary to the idea of the
rich, ringing castrato voice for which much of this
music was intended. I believe that today's scholars
have debunked the idea that women singing baroque
music should straighten out their vibrato; they now
agree that the idea of straight-toned "purity" is not,
in fact, authentic to the time -- although those in
academic circles know more about this.
I have also been misinterpreted with the "bigger is
better" post of a few weeks ago -- it was a "bigger is
better?" post, framing both sides of the argument and
asking the list what it thought about the American
push for larger voices. It didn't get much response,
which usually means I didn't phrase the question in a
controversial enough way.
Personally, my favorite recording of "V'adoro,
pupille" is Tebaldi's. I like to hear voices singing
without pulling back or trying to unnaturally
straighten the voice, or slipping into a whispery
"purity" that to me simply sounds breathy and
incorrect. Tebaldi's voice is large, yes, but that's
not the point -- I hate Sylvia McNair's white and
breathy rendition of Cleopatra, but I adore Elizabeth
Futral's full and pointed rendition (and those voices
are of roughly the same size). This has nothing to do
with a taste for the operatic, nor with the size -- I
much prefer Natalie Dessay's production to Kathleen
Battle's, both of whom are operatic voices which are
small.
My original statement was that the practice of singing
baroque music very lightly with a straight tone (which
came into full blossom in the 1980s, I think) is
neither authentic nor correct. My own opinion of
white, pure voices like Kirkby's was inserted in the
middle of that statement, but ought to have been
separated.
Isabelle B.
=====
Isabelle Bracamonte, ibracamonte@y...
San Francisco, CA
moderator of Vocalist: the mailing list for singers
(vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com)
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