I think there are two types of "big" voices -- big fat
voices, and big cutting voices.
Some voices are like huge walls of sound; they are
usually dark, rich, unwieldy at first, with a large
vibrato and the ability to be heard right through a
full blare of brass. This is sometimes called the
"true" dramatic voice -- like Flagstad, or I would say
Eaglen. It's a huge voice in terms of loudness,
overpowering rather than slicing through an orchestra.
Some voices have highly, highly developed singers'
formants, that allow their voices to cut and pierce
through an orchestra -- so the voice may not be as
"big" (i.e. heavy or dark, large in heft) but it will
also be heard just as well in dramatic music. It is
usually a bright, bright, narrow voice. Hildegard
Behrens or Birgit Nilsson had this type of voice (as
long as we're discussing Brunnhildes). Although I
think Nilsson's voice was also a fat wall of sound, so
maybe that's not such a good example. Ljuba Welitsch,
or Anja Silja. Definitely a different type of "big"
than the heavy dramatic voices.
This is not to say that the huge voice doesn't have
squillo, or that the spinto voice isn't a sizeable
instrument... it's just a different type of "big,"
inherently.
Isabelle B.
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Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
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