I did my dissertation on the songs of Sidney Homer, and necessarily spent a lot of time researching his wife, Louise Homer. NEVER was Louise referred to as a "mezzo-soprano." (Nor was Schumann-Heink, or anyone else as far as that goes.) However, most of the roles she sang, we would consider "mezzo" roles today: Amneris, Azucena, Dalila, etc.
A quick glance at Musical America will show that there are comparitively few "contraltos" out there, and lots of "mezzos". I studied at Indiana with Martha Lipton, who told us that early in her career she billed herself as a "contralto" because, in her words, "I wanted to be something nobody else was." She soon found that all she was getting offered were oratorio solos and "old lady" parts. She started billing herself as a mezzo.
It's really too bad that we have lost this distinction. I find that there is a general confusion about the two voice types. From what I have seen, the mid to late 19th-Century concept of "mezzo-soprano" was more like a "second soprano" than a high contralto.
Adding to this confusion is that many "mezzo" roles are, in fact, soprano roles. Check out the score: Siebel, Cherubino, Dorabella, and many other roles usually sung by mezzos are in fact listed as soprano roles.
|