Birgit Nilsson with Verdi & Puccini

[zamyrabyrd]

Ditto.....ZB, your opinion on de los Angeles is just that; not fact. Mind you, we are at one over Sills.

Mike

OK it is my opinion as a woman who happens to have a lyric soprano voice (no matter what I may or may not have done with it), there is virtually no soprano without a top. I just heard her the other day singing An Die Musik and there was strain, or an attempt at coloring that sounded artificial to me. I also worked with a lot of women's voices and they DO fit categories, separating mezzo from soprano by about a major or minor third.

I always found this phenomenon to be admirable, useful  and even exciting. The darker timbre goes with the lower range (like a viola to violin). Mezzos CAN sing soprano, even go up to a high B as in Princess Eboli's aria "O Don Fatale" So I would be interested in hearing Angeles' Wally.

I am open to change my opinion but everytime I hear her seems to reinforce it. I don't know how many times de los Angeles performed soprano roles onstage but in recording most singers can make adjustments to go up or down as Moffo did when she recorded Carmen. I also don't think that Moffo could have sustained doing the role night after night. The same might have been true for Callas as well in Carmen since the change of color is apparent in the middle range although she tried to mask it using more open or closed vowels.

Ponselle had an unmistakeable soprano timbre also in my opinion at least from her recordings of arias from Aida.
ZB

[Tsaraslondon]

Ponselle had an unmistakeable soprano timbre also in my opinion at least from her recordings of arias from Aida.
ZB

She was a remarkable singer. She certainly sounds like a soprano in those Aida selections and in all the other Verdi arias she sang. However if you hear her in Dalila's arias from Samson et Dalila, she sounds like the deepest of contraltos. Callas sang those arias as well, and is wonderfully dangerous and alluring in them, but I doubt she would have been able to sustain the role on stage. Ponselle, on the other hand, sounds as if they would have given her no problem at all.

[wagnernn]

I think Nilsson can sing Brahms 's German Requiem very well because both of Grummer and Varnay made the wonderful records of this work...

[Tsaraslondon]

I think Nilsson can sing Brahms 's German Requiem very well because both of Grummer and Varnay made the wonderful records of this work...

Again, we are talking personal preferences, but I prefer a more lyric soprano in this work. My preference would be for a Schwarzkopf, a Popp or a  Janowitz. Grummer I can also imagine in this work. Varnay I can't.

[wagnernn]

oh Tsaraslondon, just a question about Elektra...
Now, my classmates and I are preparing for a play (may be a tragic one) because of the important festival next week.I want to choose some scenes in Elektra which are as horror as possible (I have a record with Nilsson)

[Lilas Pastia]

The horrific stuff in Elektra all happens off stage !

[Que]

The horrific stuff in Elektra all happens off stage !

And nothing for ten year olds! (our wagnernn)

Q

[wagnernn]

Que!I'm in a serious condition,please help me
(I'm ten years old,what's the matter?)

[Que]

Que!I'm in a serious condition,please help me
(I'm ten years old,what's the matter?)

Wagnernn, I'm definitely not trying to make fun of you!
Seriously, killing scenes do not seem very suited for your class mates...

btw, you must be our youngest member - my compliments for your command of the English language!

Q

[wagnernn]

So,do you think which opera (or vocal work) contains the horror melody as in ghost movie? Salome isn't horror enough ,the Flying Dutchman is too romantic and Erwartung is very hard to listen...and how about War Requiem?

[Lilas Pastia]

Try the last scene of Il Trovatore. The soprano is poisoned, the tenor is beheaded, his mezzo mother exults at the proceedings, and the baritone alone exclaims 'what horror!' (the tenor was his long lost brother).

[wagnernn]

Lilas Pastia, thank you very much.
I've just bought a Record of Oberon with Nilsson,Domingo, Kubelik....This record made me very disappointed despite of the perfect quality of sound and the role of Domingo.Nilsson isn't suited with this piece (and perhaps in all singspiel operas).Oberon ,with the glorious and dreaming music, doesn't need a Wagnerian soprano.I think both of Schwarzkopf and Janowitz would be better in this role. I can't not imagine that Nilsson,my most favorite soprano,had made this record!!!

[Lilas Pastia]

I forgot to mention: the beheading takes place off stage. You know, there were censors in those days...

[knight66]

Lilas Pastia, thank you very much.
I've just bought a Record of Oberon with Nilsson,Domingo, Kubelik....This record made me very disappointed despite of the perfect quality of sound and the role of Domingo.Nilsson isn't suited with this piece (and perhaps in all singspiel operas).Oberon ,with the glorious and dreaming music, doesn't need a Wagnerian soprano.I think both of Schwarzkopf and Janowitz would be better in this role. I can't not imagine that Nilsson,my most favorite soprano,had made this record!!!

It is a strange piece and various methods of trying to get it to 'work' have been tried, including as in this recording when originally issued, a narrator, exceedingly irritating.

The part Nilsson takes has one Wagnarian aria, Ocean Thou Mighty Monster; it dictates that the part has to go to a singer with heft. Janowitz recorded the aria, but it pushes her. I do however agree that Nilsson and Weber are not a great pairing.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

It is a strange piece and various methods of trying to get it to 'work' have been tried, including as in this recording when originally issued, a narrator, exceedingly irritating.

The part Nilsson takes has one Wagnarian aria, Ocean Thou Mighty Monster; it dictates that the part has to go to a singer with heft. Janowitz recorded the aria, but it pushes her. I do however agree that Nilsson and Weber are not a great pairing.

Mike

Rezia is indeed a difficult role to cast. Ocean, thou might monster does indeed need a heroic/dramatic voice, but one with a certain amount of agility. Callas recorded it late in her career, suggesting that it would have suited her perfectly ten years earlier. Alas, by the time she recorded it, she doesn't really have enough voice left. I wonder what a high mezzo, like Ludwig, would have made of it. After all, she is a superb Leonore. Come to think of it, it might have suited Dernesch rather well, back at the time she was recording Leonore and Isolde.

[wagnernn]

I don't have a record of Oberon with Callas, but I find Callas maybe better than Nilsson in this role  because of her idiosyncratic voice usually makes wonderful phenomenon (like in Carmen and Dahlia).
Tsaraslondon,your replies have evoked my old question when i began listening to opera : Birgit Nilsson and Maria Callas,did they "fight" against ? Is there any opera in which both of Nilsson and Callas became the legends? And did Nilsson "fight" agianst with any Wagnerian soprano?

[Tsaraslondon]

I don't have a record of Oberon with Callas, but I find Callas maybe better than Nilsson in this role  because of her idiosyncratic voice usually makes wonderful phenomenon (like in Carmen and Dahlia).
Tsaraslondon,your replies have evoked my old question when i began listening to opera : Birgit Nilsson and Maria Callas,did they "fight" against ? Is there any opera in which both of Nilsson and Callas became the legends? And did Nilsson "fight" agianst with any Wagnerian soprano?

Not sure quite what you mean by "fight" against it, but really the two sopranos are so different, both as to voice and repertoire, that it is difficult to compare them. Their careers ran opposite trajectories. Though Nilsson sang such roles as Agathe and Elettra in Idomeneo early in her career, her major international career dates from 1954-55 when she sang Brunnhilde and Salome in Munich. By this time, Callas was already an internationally acclaimed artist and had given up her Wagnerian and dramatic roles. Nilsson first sang Turandot in 1958. Admittedly Callas had only just recorded the role in 1957, but she had last sung it on stage in 1949. Nilsson's career was extremely long and she continued singing to the 1980s, though by this time she was singing such roles the Dyer's Wife and Elektra, perhaps not quite so taxing as Brunnhilde and Isolde. Callas, on the other hand, and as we all know, had a relatively short career, though it could be argued that, as she was already singing Santuzza at the age of 15, it wasn't that short.

As I think I've mentioned before, Nilsson is not a singer I particularly respond to. I may be moved to admiration, but rarely to love. In every one of the Italian roles Callas and Nilsson shared (Lady Macbeth, Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera, Tosca, Aida, even Turandot, though here my preference would be for Sutherland,) I would prefer Callas. There are no complete recordings of Callas as Brunnhilde and Isolde, and if there were they would be in Italian, so here it is not possible to compare them, though Callas does sing a lovely, warm and feminine performance of the Liebestod.  To be honest, I prefer the Isolde and Brunnhilde of Helga Dernesch on the Karajan recordings, and, yes,  I know my opinion goes against popular opinion. This is just a personal preference, as we all hear voices differently. I have enormous admiration for Nilsson as an artist. Throughout her career, she sang with a clarion security and firmness that would be the envy of many sopranos today. Indeed the name of her successor is not on my lips. Nor, for that matter, is Callas's.

[Lilas Pastia]

This is a very sensitive and perceptive reply. I agree 97%. I think I have a higher degree of affection for Nilsson than you do, esp. in those roles where her voice suited the part to perfection (Isolde and Elektra).

But even as Isolde, Brünnhilde and Elektra, Nilsson could be beaten in the expressivity department (Mödl, Rysanek).

[wagnernn]

I have just seen this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHdaUASO9Pc
IT'S VERY WONDERFUL !!!! In my opinion, Nilsson sang this role better the both of Callas and Verrett.And according to you,who is the best Macbeth Lady?

[Anne]

And according to you,who is the best Macbeth Lady?

Verdi was not the only composer to write about Macbeth.  Shostakovich wrote an opera titled "Lady Macbeth."