Karen, you mentioned but two contemporary contraltos, Ewa Podles and Nathalie Stutzmann. Has the moniker "Contralto" hurt their careers? Just what was your teacher driving at ... that you should, perhaps, call yourself a contralto? How much did you discuss it with her, and did you present her with the same thoughts as you have the list? Back to the past: who besides Kathleen Ferrier was a true contralto? (I'm sure there were others; I'm just cognitively incoherent right now.) Were they barred from "mezzo" roles? What were their tops like?
Your teacher is right! Marilyn Horne is a contralto. I remember an interview with both her and Henry Lewis many years ago where she said he had thought she was a tenor on hearing her in a rehearsal before he looked up at the stage to see where the lovely tenor sound was coming from.
Doris Long Thurber one of the New Jersey Sopranos
|