dear list,
maybe i need to be more specific about what i think about this.
after listening to all kinds of rock music in jr. high school, i returned to listening to classical music (the music i grew up with). i became interested in opera. what bothered me, at the time, was the sound of the voices. what hooked me was fischer-dieskau's dutchman. he didn't have that operatic sound. i know people have problems with him but, their objections amount to being no more than a school of thought within the genre.
i did get more used to the more operatic sounds of men's voices but not to women's. when i was a senior in high school, my favorite opera was 'billy budd' partly due to the absence of women's voices. since then, i have found women's voices that i love- mirella freni, teresa stratas, college friend gui ping deng, my wife kim mccullough and my sister rebecca o'brien (can't say i'm very open minded about the last two but, others like them too).
to illustrate my problem (to the three of you still reading), let me call your attention to the end of roderigo's death in verdi's 'don carlo'. as fischer-dieskau performs it, he literally sounds like someone dying whereas everyone else, singing way too @#$%&*' loud, sounds like they are singing an oddly written passage. fischer-dieskau, in creating this effect sings those notes exactly as verdi wrote them. and, i might add, is exactly what lloyd was talking about as a marriage of text and music.
i don't have an answer to my problems with the way opera is sung these days. i know there are examples of it being better (see following paragraph). i like the idea of michael bolton's opera disc. although the tone is a little rough, he certainly nails the high notes better than any tenor i went to school with. he also sings with passion that doesn't sound goofy. (that reminds me, i still haven't heard pat boone's 'metal' disc.)
i prefer siegfried jerusalem, and sometimes rene kollo, to all other wagner tenors (except alberto remedios). i can't stand ben heppner. i like thierry dran in 'fortunio'. i like marni nixon but, i can't stand dawn upshaw. i think the young dick van dyke would have been the best papageno ever (well i'd be better but, i mean besides me). i'd like to hear julia migenes sing opera with her cross-over voice(s) instead of her opera sound. i'd probably like sarah brightman if she actually were bright...does anybody see a pattern here?
mike
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