Small range, but totally mastered

[mjwal]

I've never heard range refer to vocal weight as you seem to be suggesting here mjwal. Surely range is intended in terms of the range of notes they could sing.

Well, in this case, both singers had a limited range of notes as well as a limited dynamic range and weight. Patzak said famously that he, unlike some other tenors, had no real high C - but he could sing it (does anyone know Patzak's Gerontius, by the way?).

[Lilas Pastia]

Sayão was a soprano on the order of soubrette. She had an almost cultlike admiration in the days of silver screen stars with honeyed voices like Jeanette McDonald's.  Fads change with time and it is practically unimaginable that she would be as popular today.  It seems that megavoices in the 60's (Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland) followed on the heels of the sweet and saccarine ladies.  As for soubrettes and light voices, I prefer Licia Albanese from that period and later, Rita Streich and Lucia Popp.

ZB

Agreed on the 'practically unimaginable that she would be a popular star today' comment. True, the range was limited. But so was the range of most french and italian soprano roles apart from Verdi and Puccini. Sayaô wisely abstained from heavy roles, although she couldn't resist singing Butterfly. However, she was the kind of singer (like De los Angeles) that cast a spell on operagoers (then) and cd listeners (now) by virtue of her gift for verbal communication. Toscanini went to great lengths to have her sing La Damoiselle élue. It's not a great work, and it will only come to life with a singer who has the ability (like Della Casa, Danco) to illuminate both text and music within a narrow range.

Singers with a wide range and ability to project the tone (Horne, Callas are prime examples) make a carreer out of their amazing vocal versatility. It doesn't hurt that they are charismatic interpreters. 'Big voice' singers with limited extension in the lower range, such as Sutherland usually had to forego the heavier roles - but there are notable exceptions: although Sutherland quickly abandoned Aïda and never sang Santuzza, Forza's Leonora or Turandot on the stage, she triumphed in Norma and Anna Bolena by dint of her willigness to learn new roles she thought were beyond her vocal range (her husband and coach Richard Bonynge knew her better than herself).

Others like Moffo and Scotto, who had great vocal abilities but didn't have a wise vocal coach to steer them intelligently through the immense hurdles of mastering the incredibly wide possibilities of the soprano roles quickly drowned in those treacherous waters. Scotto was for some 15 years an immensely gifted lyric soprano. When she attempted the heavier roles, for which she had the range, but not the vocal heft (two very different things), she quickly lost any sense of direction and her voice started to play nasty tricks. Moffo's is a sad story. A lyric soprano with a lovely timbre, she had limited low extension and a good high range (up to high E-flat). However, voices, like wine and food, have various shelf life. When she started to lose control of her range (and that was rather early in her carreer) she became unpredictable and only too predictable (in a negative way) when she tried uncharted waters like Carmen (a sultry photo doesn't a Carmen make).

Back to the original post: yes, there are.  Singers with a limited range that achieve greatness in opera do so by combining a distinctive timbre (the essence of the singer) with a power to communicate the libretto's or the composer's dramatic intentions. In other words, it's not the extension of the vocal range that makes a great opera singer, but how it's used. As has been mentioned here, a prime example (and the reason for her durable success) would be De los Angeles. And Danco, Della Casa, even Schwarzkopf (her range was limited). Among other vocal types, we could name Peter Pears, Jon Vickers (no lower range to speak of - even though he had you believe - quite convincingly - he had one. Same with Gobbi, the greatest bass-baritone ever in italian opera. No 'juice' in the voice, either at the high or low end of the range, but he covered any tessitura through a mixture of verbal and dramatic abilities.

I recently heard an EMI recital by the soprano Li-Ping Zhang. According to the notes she was a great success in many major opera houses as Liu. Well she should have made a specialty of those lyric roles, working on the upper range to cultivate a lovely tone and purity of projection. But, would you believe it? She decided (or is it EMI ??) to record Elena (Merce diletti), Violetta, Lucia, Norma (!!!), Tosca, Butterfly, Medora and Trovatore's Leonora. Egad... 
A prime example of a limited vocal range pushed wayyyyy  beyond its limits. A very bad disc, with audible screeches on the highest notes and not heft to the low ones - the kind of which an intelligent singer, impresario and record producer would have thought better of.

[knight66]

Andre, Good to see you back and with a three course meal of a post. Thanks.

Mike

[zamyrabyrd]

André, I don't know how you can say that Schwartzkopf had a limited range when she was at home with all kinds of Lieder and the ultra-high tessiture of Strauss' operas (not just a one shot high Eb at the end of a Verdi aria.  Also I fail to see how Moffo and Scotto were badly advised or that Vickers or Gobbi did not have proper lower ranges.

For me, a woman's voice is fairly simple. The limitations don't have to do so much with range but weight. If you can accept an opinion from someone who sings and also works with women's voices, that is, who taught them for over 25 years (until somewhere in the middle my teacher said I could start to work with male voices), there are not as many classiifcations as you seem to be putting forward. The theory of the registers intuited by the original Bel Cantists is not a gross oversimplification and makes life much easier in handling voices, including one's own.

Without going into a full exegesis, the lower limits are fairly set around a D below middle C for both mezzos and sopranos. The passaggi are fairly standard, a bit lower for mezzo than soprano. The QUALITY of the notes above the staff usually reveals if a voice is mezzo or dramatic soprano. Upper ranges are on the whole, determined by development and approach, not by a natural limitation. Properly handled, a good soprano can sing a crowning high Eb or E once or twice in an opera and the colorature can go a bit higher. I don't believe that soprano voices, especially professional ones, would "stop" at a Bb or B. If such a voice is not heavy, it probably belongs in the light mezzo category. Otherwise, one could blame not the vocal coach but the voice teacher for the "limitations".

The problem with lighter voices as with Moffo, Scotto, Freni, et al, is venturing out into more dramatic roles they are not naturally suited for. For me, this is very simple. Shouting out too many high C's was Callas' downfall as well. She wasn't a natural heavyweight like Gencer or Price, but maybe somewhere in between.

ZB

[Lilas Pastia]

Hi Mike, hello Zamira !

ZB, you certainly put it better tan I do and I don't dispute your knowledge of singing, particularly the very interesting aspect of its physiology. When I speak of range, I mean the tessitura a singer is most comfortable in. Some have more top or bottom extension than others. In that sense I don't think Vickers had a wide range. He wasn't comfortable with the high C, and his bottom range was rather short. Maybe it's the timbre that makes me say he had a short bottom. He often resorted to quasi parlando in that area. He certainly didn't lack weight or volume - indeed he had a huge voice. Corelli's bottom notes were big, juicy, with an almost baritonal heft, and his high ones rang thrillingly (he sailed to a high D with no trouble). In that sense he had a wider range (tessitura) than Vickers.

I'm not making any judgment about voice quality or artistry. 100 meter runners or swimmers are more or less equal to the task, but physically they are different. I would assume the same should be true of any set of vocal cords. Actually, I think there are more differences (qualities, characteristics) about vocal cords than in any other parts of the human body.

Here's a small - admittedly meaningless - quiz. What roles did these pairs of singers have in common ?

- Birgit Nilsson and Gundula Janowitz (there's more than one)
- Marilyn Horne and Hilde Gueden
- Margaret Price and Kirsten Flagstad
- Rita Streich and Joan Sutherland

[zamyrabyrd]

Hi Mike, hello Zamira !

I'm not making any judgment about voice quality or artistry. 100 meter runners or swimmers are more or less equal to the task, but physically they are different. I would assume the same should be true of any set of vocal cords. Actually, I think there are more differences (qualities, characteristics) about vocal cords than in any other parts of the human body.

Here's a small - admittedly meaningless - quiz. What roles did these pairs of singers have in common ?

- Birgit Nilsson and Gundula Janowitz (there's more than one)
- Marilyn Horne and Hilde Gueden
- Margaret Price and Kirsten Flagstad
- Rita Streich and Joan Sutherland

Actually, my real name is Janet. Anyway, I think the abundant differences reside in the resonators and outer bodily structures rather than the cords themselves. As inner organs go, like the heart, the vocal cords, larynx, etc.,  are fairly standard and proportional to size and sex.

Offhand, I would say that Nilsson and Janowitz have more in common than Horne and Gueden who may have done one or more of the same Mozart roles.  Maybe you have Wagner in mind for the first two. Could be the same for Price and Flagstad unless the latter also did Aida. Streich and Sutherland both excelled in coloratura. Here's where body size does make a difference. I love both singers but Streich is the more chirpy (I mean it in a good way) of the two.

ZB

[knight66]

-Birgit Nilsson and Gundula Janowitz (there's more than one)....Elizabeth in Tannhauser, Donna Anna, Leonora in Fidelio
- Marilyn Horne and Hilde Gueden....can't think of any possibilities there!
- Margaret Price and Kirsten Flagstad.... Isolde, Aida....though Price never sang Isolde live.
- Rita Streich and Joan Sutherland....Lucia? Merry Widow? Olympia, Forest Bird in Siegfried, Gilda

As you know, Vickers is amongst my favourite singers; but yes, his bottom notes are weak up against what happens higher up. Odd, all the way through this thread I have been reading limited range as referring to notes reached comfortably as against numbers of roles mastered.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

Marilyn Horne and Hilde Gueden - is it Zerlina perhaps?

[Wendell_E]

-Birgit Nilsson and Gundula Janowitz (there's more than one)....Elizabeth in Tannhauser, Donna Anna, Leonora in Fidelio

Sieglinde, Elsa, Agathe.

[Lilas Pastia]

Thanks all. Yes, I think it's been all covered:

Nilsson and Janowitz = Agathe, Fidelio and Sieglinde (  was not aware that Janowitz was a Donna Anna.)

Horne and Gueden: indeed, strange as it may seem both singers were Zerlinas (as were Erna Berger, Cecilia Bartoli, Teresa Berganza and other unlikely proponents).

Flagstad and Price (Margaret, not Leontyne): Isolde. Famous recordings of course. I don't think Margaret Price ever sang Isolde on stage.

Streich and Sutherland: actually they shared a few roles, but on stage I think Olympia was their only common operatic assumption. But unless I'm mistaken, both sang Glière's wonderful coloratura concerto.

Janet, your use of the adjective 'chirpy' for Streich is spot on. What a lovely lady !

Another silly quiz related to the topic (range of the soprano voice): what role did Vishnevskaya, Sutherland, Callas, Leontyne Price, Tebaldi, Caballé, Freni and Nilsson all sang on the opera stage? I can think of only one...

[zamyrabyrd]

It was a wild guess but turned out to be correct. Flagstad did sing Aida in 1929, but seems to have forsworn Verdian roles after that.

Janet

[Wendell_E]

Another silly quiz related to the topic (range of the soprano voice): what role did Vishnevskaya, Sutherland, Callas, Leontyne Price, Tebaldi, Caballé, Freni and Nilsson all sang on the opera stage? I can think of only one...

Aida.  Sills(!) could be added to that list, as well.

[Tsaraslondon]

Another silly quiz related to the topic (range of the soprano voice): what role did Vishnevskaya, Sutherland, Callas, Leontyne Price, Tebaldi, Caballé, Freni and Nilsson all sang on the opera stage? I can think of only one...

As Wendell has already pointed out, Aida is the obvious choice. However there is video footage of Sutherland singing the second act of Tosca (with Gobbi as it  happens). I have no idea if she ever sang the whole role on stage, but all the other ladies did.

[knight66]

Vishnevskaya, Caballé, Barbara Hendricks

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

Vishnevskaya, Caballé, Barbara Hendricks

Mike

Liu

[knight66]

Yep.

Mike

[Lilas Pastia]

Excellent !

Goes to show that vocal range is something artistry (and ambition, and foolhardiness) can tame. Di Stefano displayed all these qualities (?).

Right now listening to various youtube clips of Franco Corelli, a tenor for whom the mere concept of vocal range seemed a big laugh.

All right friends, see you in the Louise thread (coming soon) !

[Harry Powell]

Foolhardiness, di Stefano could spare.

[Guido]

If you think Bartoli being Zerlina is weird, she has also sung Donna Elvira AND Donna Anna on stage.

[Tsaraslondon]

If you think Bartoli being Zerlina is weird, she has also sung Donna Elvira AND Donna Anna on stage.

Of the three, Zerlina seems to me to be the least weird choice.