Vocalist.org archive


From:  Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...>
Date:  Sat Jan 4, 2003  5:39 am
Subject:  Re: Mezzos and contraltos (was: Re: [vocalist] I Need To Be Enlightened On T...

On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Lloyd W. Hanson wrote:

> It is also true that some of the famous contraltos of that time sang
> roles such as "Norma" and "Lucia" after some retraining for these
> parts. This would not likely happen today.

On the other hand, the following all started their careers as mezzos
before switching to soprano (and not just from dramatic mezzo to dramatic
soprano, which is a more common "crossover")

Joan Sutherland (trained and worked as a mezzo until Bonynge)
Kiri Te Kanawa (trained and worked as a mezzo until Bonynge helped her
discover her true voice, as he had with Mrs. Bonynge)
Carol Vaness (trained as a mezzo)
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (trained as a contralto!)
Amy Johnson (trained as a mezzo; now sings Tosca, Marguerite, and Aida)

The real question is whether those old contraltos who retrained - and
there have been some as recent as the early 20th century, such as Olive
Fremstad and Margarete Matzenauer ever were, truly, contraltos, or whether
they were always sopranos, and simply "covered" a lot - which was an
acceptable technique back then - to darken their sound, thus *appearing*
to be contraltos even though they really were not.

Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
________________________________
One must be something if one
wishes to put on appearances.
- Ludwig von Beethoven




emusic.com