GMG Classical Music Forum

The Music Room => Opera and Vocal => Topic started by: zamyrabyrd on September 02, 2009, 07:56:11 AM

Title: Eleanor Steber
Post by: zamyrabyrd on September 02, 2009, 07:56:11 AM
Any fans of this wonderful lyric soprano?

Here's a start (since I didn't find anything on GMG while searching up her name)
"Depuis le Jour" from Louise by Charpentier, film made for TV, 1950:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kf-WXoHRd0&feature=related
The orchestra is also wonderful.

A "Villanelle" somewhat too slow for my taste, but succeeding anyway to convey a sense of lightness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3JVLRnimnc&feature=related

ZB
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Franco on September 02, 2009, 08:03:05 AM
I love her singing Mozart (aside from a set of arias I have her in Cosi and it is great!), she also did a fantastic version of Barber's Knoxville.  A really a beautiful voice.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: zamyrabyrd on September 02, 2009, 08:20:14 AM
Here's another gem, Eleanor Steber in Schubert's "Ständchen":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoPZswXiZHE&feature=related

not less difficult to sing than Mozart...

Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Wendell_E on September 02, 2009, 08:47:18 AM
She was a lovely Elsa in the first complete opera recording I ever bought, the 1953 Bayreuth Lohengrin, with Windgassen, Varnay, and Uhde, Keilberth conducting.  She's also wonderful in the RCA "original cast" recording of Barber's Vanessa.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: zamyrabyrd on September 02, 2009, 10:03:33 AM
Quote from: ' on September 02, 2009, 08:29:40 AM
I have always admired her Mozart and her recordings of Barber's "Knoxville, Summer 1915," which she commissioned.

I like the orchestral version better, more colorful than with piano accompaniment, sung by Leontyne Price, also more narrative and less operatic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1I1WMCX0rU&feature=related

ZB
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: zamyrabyrd on September 02, 2009, 11:26:10 AM
Quote from: ' on September 02, 2009, 10:30:55 AM
I prefer the Price too, for the same reasons as you, and I think of how hard it is for an operatic voice, esp of Steber's time, to approach American repertoire like this. (I thought of this phenomenon last weekend standing next no my son singing shape note. Since we did this last a year ago, he took voice lessons, so it took him awhile to shed the vibrato and sing with that open, straight tone that he hit spontaneously last year.)


Well, there is vibrato here and there in the Price recording but that is inevitable. A completely vibrato-less tone is usually a forced one.  In this piece I do believe that word trumps tone.

ZB
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: PerfectWagnerite on September 02, 2009, 12:54:26 PM
I found this clip with Steber and Tucker singing the part I duet from Butterfly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwL1X_XgSAg&fmt=18

Let me just say if you are having a bad day this is for you ;)
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Tsaraslondon on September 02, 2009, 02:39:49 PM
I've always loved Steber's version of Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Ete (conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos). The eminent Berlioz scholar, David Cairns, gives it the highest recommendation in Alan Blyth's Song on Record, and for me it rivals Janet Baker's superb versions with Barbirolli and Giulini, which from me is high praise indeed.

Her recording of Depuis le jour from Louise is almost in the Callas class for nuance and shading (and a good deal more securely sung).  She is also very fine in the complete recording of Barber's Vanessa. Yes, a great and sadly underrated singer.

Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: zamyrabyrd on September 02, 2009, 09:10:52 PM
Quote from: ' on September 02, 2009, 12:29:11 PM
Now, isn't the end of that song something in the context of this discussion of voice and vibrato and habit and vocal identity? It is so much about that general notion of "finding one's voice." There is an exposed painful adolescent earnestness of the last words "...but will not ever tell me who I am," for which at least a passing touch of a senza vibrato child-voice may just be the right thing

Sure, Callas herself used that childlike tone in Butterfly where she is being asked her age. I'd look at the issue, though, a little differently. In this instance, she emphasizes the higher overtones that seem vibrato-less.
I am personally wary of manipulating vibrations in voice. More "narrative" to me, is less legato. Popular music as a rule doesn't need nor ask for the full range of overtones.

ZB
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Guido on September 03, 2009, 03:48:03 AM
Haha - In Steber's recording of Knoxville she rushes the line "people in pairs, not in a hurry" !! My personal favourite recording of this work (Of the 12 versions I've heard) is Karina Gauvin on Naxos. She just judges it perfectly, so intelligently and unnaffectedly sung, and such a beautiful voice.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Drasko on September 03, 2009, 05:45:43 AM
She was excellent Minnie in La fanciulla del West, from Firenze under Mitropoulos.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Franco on September 03, 2009, 05:48:19 AM
QuoteHaha - In Steber's recording of Knoxville she rushes the line "people in pairs, not in a hurry" !!

I guess you assume irony is beyond her ken.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Maciek on September 03, 2009, 06:07:28 AM
Personally, I thought Guido's "Haha" was not derogatory but amused. But let's see what he says.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: Guido on September 03, 2009, 09:14:44 AM
It was in amusement, and I'm sure she intended it, though I don't see why given that the text doesn't seem to be ironic in this section.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: samuel on September 16, 2009, 09:24:44 PM
Quote from: Wendell_E on September 02, 2009, 08:47:18 AM
She was a lovely Elsa in the first complete opera recording I ever bought, the 1953 Bayreuth Lohengrin, with Windgassen, Varnay, and Uhde, Keilberth conducting.  She's also wonderful in the RCA "original cast" recording of Barber's Vanessa.

I find her Elsa unsurpassed, at least in post-war productions.
Title: Re: Eleanor Steber
Post by: king ubu on June 22, 2014, 08:24:42 AM
Bumping this thread, for no good reason other to say how much I love this one:

[asin]B00CTEV72U[/asin]

Arias from "Ernani", "Don Carlo", "La forza del destino" and "La Traviata", as well as nearly half an hour from "Otello" (with Ramón Vinay).