Hi, April --
I was mostly thinking of the deep, deep "Russian" bass
voice, which would be very suited for slavic music.
I wonder if there are voice types suited for different
languages. Wagnerian voices, of course, are massively
large, usually honky at the top ("horn-like bite" is
my favorite description of a Wagnerian soprano's top),
capable of cutting over full brass in the lower
register as well as the upper. Also, many of those
voices are extremely dark.
I think of thin, light sopranos when I think of the
French repertoire, but that could be because I've
heard too much of Mesple and other singers of that rep
like Elly Ameling, Mary Garden, etc.
There is a certain type of very creamy, heavy lyric
soprano that cries out for the Puccini repertoire.
Then there is that elusive thing, the Verdi soprano --
followed by the more elusive thing, the Verdi
baritone. When people bemoan the lack of both these
days, it seems like there is a certain "sound" to some
voices that place them into that category.
Aren't Russian tenors white and bright? And Russian
music has lots of heavy lyric and spinto soprano
roles, which combined with the rich, throaty quality
of the language makes me think of larger, darker
voices.
To Kate, who worries about her range at sixteen years
of age -- Nonsense! High notes will come. When I
was 16, I found the F's in "Deh vieni, non tardar"
excrutiatingly difficult, while the B's in "Batti,
batti" flew by with slightly less difficulty, although
I still remember worrying about them. It sounds like
your problem is anticipating the high notes as "I
can't do this" and then seizing up. Deep knee bends
while singing an ascending line, swinging an imaginary
golf club as you practice a line, throwing a baseball,
all can help free up the body, as can telling
yourself, "I am relaxed and free, and these notes will
sound just as they did when I was doing the dishes."
Or perhaps you are rising up with the vocal line,
arching your throat higher -- a visualization of
yourself pulling the high notes down out of the air,
each note a little lower than the one before, might
help. You can practice singing a scale or a vocal
line going up, starting with your hands at forehead
level in front of you, as if you were holding a
balloon (no string, just the top of the balloon part),
and with each note, bring your hands and the imaginary
balloon down until at the end of the line, your hands
and the balloon are at chest level. If any of these
are easier, the problem is not with your technique but
with your anticipating of the "highness" of the line,
and is very normal. The more you sing high notes, and
the more your voice and technique develops, the easier
they will get (give yourself permission to sing
squeaky high notes for a while, and stop if you feel
like you are just tying yourself up in knots during a
practice session, and come back later).
On the technical side: Keep in mind that a soprano
voice singing mezzo literature may be opening the
voice up too much when singing E, F, and G. For most
voices, the passaggio needs to be focused and
narrowed, like the small part of an hourglass, for the
notes above G to be free. Your passaggio may be
anywhere between B (above middle C, or B4) and G, but
I find that the E, F, and G are the ones commonly sung
too big to sustain the notes above that. [Middle C is
C4, the C above that C5, and high C is C6. So the B
right below middle C would be B3, the passaggio would
be anywhere from B4 through G5, and the A5 is the one
you're having trouble with.]
However, this may not be part of your teacher's goals
for you at this point -- that step may come later.
Ask her what the progression of your voice will be,
and get a feel for what her technical process looks
like in the next few years. I think that my own voice
was just getting comfortable singing without tension
at that point -- it does take years, and is sometimes
very frustrating -- and then at about 18 we started
adjusting narrowness in the passaggio while singing
these newly-freed but fuzzy high notes, and at about
20 the high notes came into focus. At this point, I
have a good-looking D above high C (D6), while at 16
my A5's were difficult and strained. You are not
defective; this is normal. Keep in mind that "free"
high notes may not sound the way you picture -- large,
lovely A's, B's, and C's may not come until your
mid-twenties, when the voice matures and the top of
the voice blossoms. The goal for a young voice is
freedom, not lushness.
Keep in mind the quote from the amazing Met mezzo,
Dolora Zajick: "When I first started, I had no high
notes and no low notes. My voice was ugly and loud."
Soubrette is probably the best fach for a young singer
unless that singer is *definitely* a mezzo (which has
less to do with passaggio breaks and more to do with
the darkness of the voice), but that's my own opinion.
Many dramatic sopranos sang the -inas in their teens.
Isabelle B.
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Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
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