Recently, that highly regarded journal of classical music, the Parade section of my Sunday paper, a reader asked about the best sopranos of the last 50 years. The answer was: Sutherland, Bartoli, Renee Fleming, Callas, and Astrid Varnay.
I'm not trying to start a brand war, but I'm curious about others' opinions. Esp re Varnay, with whom I'm relatively unfamiliar.
I've heard the first four, and they are all certainly to be reckoned with.
Comments, anyone?
Quote from: tomseeley on August 31, 2007, 09:32:44 AM
Recently, that highly regarded journal of classical music, the Parade section of my Sunday paper, a reader asked about the best sopranos of the last 50 years. The answer was: Sutherland, Bartoli, Renee Fleming, Callas, and Astrid Varnay.
I'm not trying to start a brand war, but I'm curious about others' opinions. Esp re Varnay, with whom I'm relatively unfamiliar.
I've heard the first four, and they are all certainly to be reckoned with.
Comments, anyone?
Well Bartoli is a mezzo, or at least she was, so that rules her out (though these days she seems to sing anything).
I'm curious. Was the list just restricted to 5? If so, I would have included Callas and Sutherland, but can think of dozens of others to take up the other three places. Off the top of my head, I have already come up with the names of Tebaldi, Caballe, Nilsson, Leontyne Price (and maybe Margaret as well), De Los Angeles, Schwarzkopf, Scotto, Freni, and Crespin. I could add loads more (and if we were talking about a top 50, probably would).
Varnay's work I don't know that well, but do know that she is extremely highly regarded by Wagner lovers, some ranking her higher than Nilsson. Her contribution to the recently issued Keilberth
Ring on Testament has been highly and widely praised.
As so often Translondon has just about said it for me, though I am allergic to Crespin and would substituts almost any singer able to open her mouth. Janowitz had a special sound and certainly provided me with enormous pleasure. But if it was just five who were to be allowed, then Leontine Price would have to be there. From my own listening habits and as we would need a good Bach/Handel/Mozart singer, then Arleen Auger would have to appear also. Bye Bye Renee and Bartoli.
Mike
Of those not yet mentioned Sena Jurinac, whose art was sadly too little recorded, and Irmgard Seefried come to mind.
Q
I look at who the great conductors use as singers on a regular basis and go by that. The likes of Seefried, Flagstad, Schwarzkopf come instantly to mind. My favourite soprano doesn't make the list but I'm sure she would make many others and that is Leontyne Price.
I could not really get into a top five discussion as there were so many excellent singers and different people connect with specific voices.
I am not a fan, but surely Sutherland would need to be near the top, te Kanawa on a good day, Freni, Tebaldi...and on and on.
Mike
Quote from: Holden on August 31, 2007, 11:53:14 PM
I look at who the great conductors use as singers on a regular basis and go by that. The likes of Seefried, Flagstad, Schwarzkopf come instantly to mind. My favourite soprano doesn't make the list but I'm sure she would make many others and that is Leontyne Price.
It may be nitpicking a bit, but Flagstad really belongs to a previous generation, so should not be included in a list of sopranos of the past 50 years. Leontyne Price was mentioned both by myself and Mike.
Also, if we are to take the word of great conductors, then Callas still ranks very highly. She was admired by conductors as diverse as Karajan, Serafin, Giulini, Vittorio Gui, Erich Kleiber and Victor De Sabata. Indeed De Sabata once said to Votto, that if the public could understand, as they did, how deeply musical she was, then it would be amazed.
In Wagner, Flagstad, Varnay, Mödl, Rysaneck, and Birgit Nilsson.
In Mozart and Richard Strauss, Schwarzkopf, della Casa, Janowitz.
In the italian repertory, Milanov, Callas, Tebaldi, Caniglia, Sutherland, Leontyn Price.
Best french soprano: Regine Crespin.
How the hell has Flagstad not made all your and the original lists?
Had no idea Leontyne Price (check your spelling Mike!) was considered as good as you lot are suggesting; I thought her beautifully deep velvet voice was a personal fetish and a result of my dislike for shrill voices.
Quote from: Michel on September 03, 2007, 01:35:08 PM
How the hell has Flagstad not made all your and the original lists?
Because we are discussing sopranos of the last 50 years. Flagstad died in 1962 and made her last public performance in 1954. That counts her out.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on September 04, 2007, 01:35:58 AM
Because we are discussing sopranos of the last 50 years. Flagstad died in 1962 and made her last public performance in 1954. That counts her out.
Yet many are happy to include Callas; whose voice was shot to pieces by 1957.
Go figah!!
Quote from: bricon on September 04, 2007, 05:22:33 AM
Yet many are happy to include Callas; whose voice was shot to pieces by 1957.
Go figah!!
No you go
figah! Do some listening and get your facts right before coming out with such fatuous comments.
Actually her voice wasn't shot to pieces by 1957. If you want confirmation of that fact just listen to the live recordings of
Anna Bolena and
La Sonnambula made that year and both available from EMI. In the
Sonnambula she is even able to hit a rock solid Eb
in alt fortissimo and effect a diminuendo on this stratospheric note before cascading down an absolutely perfect chromatic scale, I can't think of many of today's sopranos who could manage such a thing without the help of a bit of knob twiddling in the studio! Admittedly after 1959, she began to reduce the amount of stage performances she gave, and her voice did start to fail her, but her stage career continued til 1965, and included performances of
Tosca at Covent Garden in 1964, that have entered the realms of operatic history. So, although she died 30 years ago this month, that firmly places her amongst the great sopranos of the last 50 years.
On the other hand, as I pointed out, Flagstad's last public performance was in 1954. I have no doubt her name would be near the top of the list, if we were discussing the top 5 sopranos of the first half of the 20th century.
Having done a little listening to Beverly Sills over the summer, how about her? Most of her repertoire (e.g., Donizetti) isn't really my cup of tea, but I was mightily impressed with her Giulio Cesare, among other things.
--Bruce
Get her DVD of Roberto Devereux (Donizetti)(Sills, John Alexander, Susanne Marsee, Richard Fredricks) and let us know what you think of her acting skills. She is phenomenal! Even when DVD's were almost all out of print, that one was always available.
In CD's she is known for singing The Three Queens: Anna Bolena (Sills, Shirley Verrett, Stuart Burrows, Paul Plishka), Maria Stuarda (Sills, Eileen Farrell, Stuart Burrows, Louis Quilico), and Roberto Devereux (Sills, Robert Ilosfalvy, Peter Glossop, Beverly Wolff). The 3 can be purchased as a set or maybe individually.
Note that the singers are not the same for the DVD as for the CD.
Quote from: tomseeley on August 31, 2007, 09:32:44 AM
Recently, that highly regarded journal of classical music, the Parade section of my Sunday paper, a reader asked about the best sopranos of the last 50 years. The answer was: Sutherland, Bartoli, Renee Fleming, Callas, and Astrid Varnay.
Comments, anyone?
I'm hardly qualified to determine the "best," but I know my favorites and Callas is the only one of those mentioned who qualifies. Any "best" list that leaves off Janowitz & Schwarzkopf was clearly compiled by an ignorant nincompoop (the inclusion of Fleming confirms it).
Mattila, Fleming, Norman, Upshaw (how is she doing by the way?)
Quote from: suomesta on October 18, 2007, 02:03:18 AM
Mattila, Fleming, Norman, Upshaw (how is she doing by the way?)
Of the last 10 years perhaps...
Callas, Sutherland, Fleming, Sills, te Kanawa
Those are my top 5 of the last 50 years.
The BEST?
Callas, Sutherland, Sills, Price, Nilsson/Tebaldi (either or)
Just my opinion
Anna Moffo
What's everyone's opinion of Caballe's singing?
Quote from: Anne on October 19, 2007, 06:07:23 PM
What's everyone's opinion of Caballe's singing?
A beautiful voice certainly, probably one of the most sheerly beautiful of the last 50 years. She had a superb technique and fantastic breath control, with the most fabulous
pianissimi ever, which she loved to show off (sometimes at the expense of what was actually written in the score). She was probably at her very best in the 70s, when she was very much at the forefront of the
bel canto revival, spearheaded by Callas, a singer she loved and revered more than any. Her greatest studio records are probably the early recitals of
bel canto and Verdi, that she did for RCA, the Giulini
Don Carlo, the Muti
Aida, the Mehta
Turandot (as Liu) and the Muti
I Puritani, though she doesn't attempt the stratospheric top notes, sung by Sutherland and Callas. She made some notable contributions to the Philips early Verdi project conducted by Lamerto Gardelli and also recorded a fine
Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilerra by Rossini. The role of Turandot herself is best experienced in a live account from San Francisco with Pavarotti. and Leona Mitchell as Liu. Though she did record some of her
bel canto roles, the studio recordings are nowhere near as satisfactory as many of the off the air recordings now doing the rounds, particularly a DVD of
Norma from Orange (with Vickers as Pollione), sound only recordings of
Maria Stuarda, (especially the one from La Scala with Verrett as Elizabeth I),
Lucrezia Borgia (I have the one with the superb Alain Vanzo as Gennaro), and
Caterina Cornaro. There is also a DVD somewhere of a very fine
Adrianna Lecouvreur with a young, and equally fine Carreras. She was a rather large lady, and her acting could best be described as satuesque.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on October 20, 2007, 02:47:30 AM
A beautiful voice certainly, probably one of the most sheerly beautiful of the last 50 years. She had a superb technique and fantastic breath control, with the most fabulous pianissimi ever, which she loved to show off (sometimes at the expense of what was actually written in the score). She was probably at her very best in the 70s, when she was very much at the forefront of the bel canto revival, spearheaded by Callas, a singer she loved and revered more than any. Her greatest studio records are probably the early recitals of bel canto and Verdi, that she did for RCA, the Giulini Don Carlo, the Muti Aida, the Mehta Turandot (as Liu) and the Muti I Puritani, though she doesn't attempt the stratospheric top notes, sung by Sutherland and Callas. She made some notable contributions to the Philips early Verdi project conducted by Lamerto Gardelli and also recorded a fine Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilerra by Rossini. The role of Turandot herself is best experienced in a live account from San Francisco with Pavarotti. and Leona Mitchell as Liu. Though she did record some of her bel canto roles, the studio recordings are nowhere near as satisfactory as many of the off the air recordings now doing the rounds, particularly a DVD of Norma from Orange (with Vickers as Pollione), sound only recordings of Maria Stuarda, (especially the one from La Scala with Verrett as Elizabeth I), Lucrezia Borgia (I have the one with the superb Alain Vanzo as Gennaro), and Caterina Cornaro. There is also a DVD somewhere of a very fine Adrianna Lecouvreur with a young, and equally fine Carreras. She was a rather large lady, and her acting could best be described as satuesque.
Thanks, Ts. What a beautiful complete answer! I couldn't have received a better reply.
The ones I'm most inclined to listen to on recording:
Gundula Janowitz -- fabulous creamy voice and knows how to turn a phrase.
If mezzos count then certainly Janet Baker.
I love the light, clear voice and the wit of Barbara Bonney. Dawn Upshaw, of course, and Barbara Hendricks, and Natalie Dessay. Leontyne Price for Verdi. Schwarzkopf, de los Angeles, Tebaldi.
And in the opera house lately I've especially loved Joyce DiDonato (mezzo) and Claudia Mahnke.
Several names came to my mind:
Elly Ameling (esp. for
Lieder).
Maria Callas.
Birgit Nilsson (esp. for Wagner).
Nancy Argenta (esp. for 'Old Music').
Joan Sutherland.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
Renata Tebaldi.
My own favourite: Lucia Popp (and also a weak spot for Arleen Augér).
But I'm not a real opera animal, so what's my opinion worth?
But I would never mention Bartoli, she's a mezzo, and, when mezzo's are regarded, I prefer other voices of the last decades, like Frederica von Stade, Anne Sofie von Otter, Bernarda Fink and Sara Mingardo. Not to mention Teresa Berganza and Christa Ludwig! Well, anyway .... this is NOT a mezzo thread.
About Renée Fleming: indeed a wonderful voice, but sometimes too much 'plastic' (I have the same problem with Thomas Hampson). That's why I definitely do not think that she can 'beat' Lucia Popp. Listen f.i. to Dvorak's 'Song to the Moon'. Renée Fleming drew worldwide attention with it, but the way Popp's silvery voice is yearning .... :'( :-*
Quote from: suomesta on October 18, 2007, 02:03:18 AM
[....] Upshaw (how is she doing by the way?)
Dawn Upshaw is recovering from breast cancer. Wish her well, she's a nice lady with a beautiful voice. She's scheduled to perform again next year:
http://dukeperformances.duke.edu/programs/essential/premier/upshaw.php
Quote from: longears on October 20, 2007, 10:22:42 AM
The ones I'm most inclined to listen to on recording:
Gundula Janowitz -- fabulous creamy voice and knows how to turn a phrase.
If mezzos count then certainly Janet Baker.
I love the light, clear voice and the wit of Barbara Bonney. Dawn Upshaw, of course, and Barbara Hendricks, and Natalie Dessay. Leontyne Price for Verdi. Schwarzkopf, de los Angeles, Tebaldi.
And in the opera house lately I've especially loved Joyce DiDonato (mezzo) and Claudia Mahnke.
We must be listening to a lot of the same recordings as we seem to have similar taste in singers.
Mike
Hi,
Have you tried listening to: Ann Murray, Kiri Te Kanawa, Edita Gruberova, Barbara Bonney, Yvonne Kenny, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Frederica von Stade, Lucia Popp & Ileana Cotrubas? Thank you so much.
Yours sincerely,
Joseph
My favourite - Leontyne Price.
Others include Anna Moffo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Renata Tebaldi, Kathleen Battle, Joan Sutherland, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
My least favourite - Callas. She may have been a fine actress etc etc but I simply cannot take that level of vibrato. It's my equivalent of listening to someone scrape their fingernails on a blackboard.