This singer has seemingly just signed the most lucrative classical recording contract ever.
I have just heard her voice for the first time. Infirm tone, every other note squeezed like toothpaste, a wobble when pressure is put onto the tone.
The way of the world I guess. No doubt if she was very ordinary looking, no one would give three three minutes studio time.
Mike
Quote from: knight on October 19, 2008, 01:02:04 AM
No doubt if she was very ordinary looking.
Do you not think she is ordinary looking?
Who signed her? Seems very EMI.
I suspect EMI, though the news headline I heard did not specify. As to her looks....she is quite pretty and that is part of the key here. If she was ordinary looking, no one would sign her with that small talent. She is a product, like toilet paper, but obviously, not remotely that useful.
Mike
What I can't understand is how Classic FM Listeners can't actually hear the difference between the various singers they play. Classic FM plays a broad spectrum of singers, not just the Katherine Jenkinses and Russel Watsons of this world. They play singers of the past like Callas, Tebaldi and Pavarotti, singers of the present like Fleming, Gheorghiu, Villazon, Florez and then they play Katherine Jenkins and Russel Watson; sometimes singing the same repertoire. I once heard Jenkins singing a truly awful rendering of Un bel di (in English). Can't listeners hear the difference? Evidently not, and this is what saddens me. Pavarotti was hugely popular and yet most Classic FM listeners can't seem to hear that his Nessun dorma is in a totally different world from Russell Watson's.
I guess this is not just about the music, but the pretty-faces and the interviews, the appearances in various magazines. Gigli is long dead, so no current interest in beating cancer, or having been bin-man to Barbican Beefcake in one year or whatever.
People have to be able to hear the difference in the refulgent, golden sound of Pavarotti and the relatively parched and more effortful Watson. But Watson is here and now and personable looking and has his chirpy son of the sod persona; sod him.
Mike
Quote from: knight on October 19, 2008, 01:02:04 AM
This singer has seemingly just signed the most lucrative classical recording contract ever.
I have just heard her voice for the first time. Infirm tone, every other note squeezed like toothpaste, a wobble when pressure is put onto the tone.
The way of the world I guess. No doubt if she was very ordinary looking, no one would give three three minutes studio time.
Mike
Presumably you saw her on the Andrew Marr show? She followed the 'Prince of Darkness'....! (Mandy)
Agreed about looks, just eye candy, but oh,
what eye candy...
:D
Yes, a morning news BBC prog. But I did not see Andrew M. I now recall I did hear Jenkins once before and was surprised how poorly she sang. I must have blotted it out of my mind....I wonder why.
Mike
The deal is with Warner Music.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on October 19, 2008, 01:56:52 AM
What I can't understand is how Classic FM Listeners can't actually hear the difference between the various singers they play. Classic FM plays a broad spectrum of singers, not just the Katherine Jenkinses and Russel Watsons of this world. They play singers of the past like Callas, Tebaldi and Pavarotti, singers of the present like Fleming, Gheorghiu, Villazon, Florez and then they play Katherine Jenkins and Russel Watson; sometimes singing the same repertoire. I once heard Jenkins singing a truly awful rendering of Un bel di (in English). Can't listeners hear the difference? Evidently not, and this is what saddens me. Pavarotti was hugely popular and yet most Classic FM listeners can't seem to hear that his Nessun dorma is in a totally different world from Russell Watson's.
Perhaps these differences aren't as self-evident as we imagine? I think that, in general, listening needs to be learnt, not so much in a pedagogical sense, but in terms of becoming familiar with the sound world, the repertoire etc - kind of like how tonal differences in a particular language might at first elude speakers of another language. We're posting on a classical music forum so we're all geeks beyond redemption :P, but the Classic FM crowd may well be more desultory listeners, as far as familiarity with the classical field goes, but also referring to the kind of casual background listening the radio sometimes fosters.
Having said that, I've never heard Ms Jenkins sing, so she may well be so unremittingly horrible that I may have to retract all of the above ... ;)
I do, however, remember reading a couple of years ago that she and somebody (maybe Russell Watson?) had a sell out concert at one of the football stadiums up here.
Quote from: Novi on October 20, 2008, 06:41:25 AM
Perhaps these differences aren't as self-evident as we imagine?
I'm not sure that's necessarily true. I remember a non classical music listening friend of mine once telling me she had caught the Lesley Garret TV show one night, on an occasion when Renee Fleming just happened to be the guest. Her words to me? "Well I may not know much about classical music or singing, but even I could hear the difference between a so so voice and a great one." (Fleming's being the great voice in question). Now we on this board may argue about the relative merits of Fleming, compared to, say, Schwarzkopf, Janowitz or Leontyne Price; something which my friend would no doubt have more difficulty with; but anyone with half an ear should really be able to hear the difference between Russell Watson's rendering of
Nessun dorma and that of Pavarotti, just as she could between Garrett and Fleming.
First video I clicked on:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=whyexXZFqh4
Really horrible.
Katherine Jenkins is a market's product, and Renée Fleming is really a great singer. We can't compare them.
And Renée is very pretty too! :D.
Quote from: Ric on October 20, 2008, 12:54:40 PM
Katherine Jenkins is a market's product, and Renée Fleming is really a great singer. We can't compare them.
And Renée is very pretty too! :D.
If you are not being sarcastic, then I would like to append to this, that Renée Fleming
was a great singer. :P
Quote from: Brian on October 20, 2008, 12:57:39 PM
If you are not being sarcastic, then I would like to append to this, that Renée Fleming was a great singer. :P
It's possible that you are right, since the voices of singers lose capacity with the time. The voice of Fleming is not a excepcion. Also it's truth that Fleming has had a career too shallow in the last years.
Nevertheless I think that saying that Fleming only
was a great singer can be unfair.
Wow, I watched two of her YouTube videos. I'm sorry, but there are better singers than that with more air, line, feeling and control at pretty much any decent university music school.
She's cute, but to me fits musically in that realm of the dreamy Irish crooners and Andre Rieus and other stuff that shows on PBS for pledge drives. Please call now!! ;D I'm sure she would certainly elicit large donations...
Quote from: Brian on October 20, 2008, 12:57:39 PM
If you are not being sarcastic, then I would like to append to this, that Renée Fleming was a great singer. :P
Whether one likes her mannerisms or not, Fleming's is still a world class
voice, something that Katherine Jenkins's will never be.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on October 20, 2008, 02:32:10 PM
Whether one likes her mannerisms or not, Fleming's is still a world class voice, something that Katherine Jenkins's will never be.
This might not be the place to ask, but what are Fleming's alleged mannerisms? I have only one recording of hers, but wuld be interested to hear what people criticise her for.
Quote from: Guido on October 20, 2008, 03:31:57 PM
This might not be the place to ask, but what are Fleming's alleged mannerisms? I have only one recording of hers, but wuld be interested to hear what people criticise her for.
Mannerisms are in the way she sings the music...though I personally do not like her for being dull and unmusical. I hear the dullness as well in her early recordings, such as
Rosmonda D'Ighilterra, and do not think she ever was that great. As for me, she was just well managed/produced/advertised and presented as the new American diva, though at that time America had others, much more deserved to be called divas. I do not say she is a bad singer; no, she's well trained, but she is a mediocrity!
Also, she was booed at La Scala in 1998 for complete misunderstanding (particularly for tons of unnecessary high notes) of the
bel canto style - I fully agree here. Let's listen to the dumb
Rosmonda on youtube:
aria (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxoBagZLEFk&feature=related) and
cabaletta (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnAuSNXOc6M&feature=related) and then try to compare to
Sutherland's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Hnv2P2hqU&feature=related) and
Sills's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkVIH4mgPL8&feature=related) renditions there as well!
Fleming, as well as Netrebko, though a hundred times better, is a nice illustration to what a well branded mediocrity with a good PR team is like, as opposed to
June Anderson, a rare singer who, I think, is (was) underestimated in the States for absolutely no reason...maybe she needs a good PR manager. Though it seems that music is more important to her than a glamorous image.
Tried to listen to convince myself I am wrong, but...am convinced in the opposite. What did I hear? The sound is pretty soft, but it is not a pure ringing voice, rather a fading pale tone with substantial vibrato. Each piano, though well done, does not grow and bloom but rather dies away. Pretty well sung, but there is no brilliance, no splendour of the voice...and so unnatural. So...just mediocre. :(
But listen to Sutherland!! Young and beautiful, a unique rendition! The cantilena is impeccable - smooth and tender; crystal and heavenly sound; stylish dynamics, each phrase is literally breathing, growing, sparkling. No screaming on top notes + captivating agile coloraturas in the cabaletta. And the piano! A hundred of exquisite pianos, nuances! Just incomparable. (http://www.forumklassika.ru/images/smilies/appl.gif)
Quote from: Sarastro on December 30, 2008, 05:32:51 AM
Tried to listen to convince myself I am wrong, but...am convinced in the opposite. What did I hear? The sound is pretty soft, but it is not a pure ringing voice, rather a fading pale tone with substantial vibrato. Each piano, though well done, does not grow and bloom but rather dies away. Pretty well sung, but there is no brilliance, no splendour of the voice...and so unnatural. So...just mediocre. :(
I think you are listening to her in the wrong repertoire. I don't particularly like her in
bel canto works either, but in Strauss and Mozart she could be incomparable. I say "could be", because, these days, that tendency to croon (also a fault with Moffo in her later years) is becoming more pronounced. I certainly wouldn't call her a mediocrity. She has a voice of arresting beauty, and is in a totally different world and class from Katherine Jenkins, whose name appears at the top of this thread. I have actually worked with Fleming (I played the speaking role of the Doctor in
A Streetcar Named Desire, when Andre Previn brought the opera to the Barbican), and can vouch for the quality of the voice and the artist. it is actually a much bigger voice than you would expect, and it never loses quality at whatever volume she is singing.
Her most recent recital CD, entitled "Homage" is a mixture of hits and misses and is a good indication of what suits her best. The Strauss and Korngold selections suit her admirably. So too, more unxepectedly perhaps, do the Janacek, Dvorak and Smetana, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. In French opera there is one hit (Massenet's
Herodiade, reminding us of her glorious
Thais, the best on disc) and one miss (the waltz song sung by Goulnod's Mireille, which had me thinking of how well Sutherland might have sung it). The Italian items don't suit her at all.
Poveri fiori from
Adrianna Lecouvreur totally lacks the pathos brought to it by such singers as Callas, Scotto and Olivero, nor does she have the necessary darkness of tone for the Leonora of
Il Trovatore. Tosca's
Vissi d'arte is pretty much a disaster, the climax spun out to interminable lengths. The voice character is all wrong too. She sounds more like a petulant, spoiled child, who's been told she won't be getting any Christmas presents, than the desperate prima donna pleading for the life of the man she loves. However, throughout this mishmash of successes and failures, there is no denying the quality of the instrument itself.
I do wonder though about the tendency of many of today's singers, particularly American ones, not to specialise, or choose a particular
fach. There seems to be a desire to sing it all, and in so doing compromises are made. Sutherland started out singing all sorts - Wagner, Verdi, Poulenc, even Tippett - but as soon she had made her debut as Lucia, she concentrated on the
bel canto repertoire which served her so well and over a very long career. In those days, singers might try different repertoire at an early stage in their career, before settling into the one that suited them best. Schwarzkopf even reduced her repertoire to a very small number of roles (the Marschallin, the Countess in
Capriccio, Donna Elvira, Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva and Alice Ford in Verdi's
Falstaff), which she preformed supremely well. Someone once told me that the highest paid tenor was actually Alfredo Kraus, but that was because he sang a very small number of roles better than anyone else.
Incidentally I wouldn't pay too much attention to the fact that Fleming was booed at La Scala. Many great singers have suffered at the hands of that audience for all sorts of reasons, most of them nothing to do music.
Fleming very much reminds me of Kiri te Kanawa. She is unbeatable with the right conductor in the right pieces. I would echo a lot of what TL says above. I heard her Thais last week in a relay from the Met; her voice and technique are exceptional. But, she can be a dull singer, she often seems disengaged, she is not really a bel canto exponent. But the equipment is superb for the right music.
I am frankly surprised that Sarastro makes frequent reference back to Sutherland, (I think I read another such comparison of him today on another singer.) She was a superb technician and did specialise in bel canto, it was a round voice, warm, generous in tone and indeed in volume. However, it was a rare night when she provided real insights into what she was singing. She frequently crooned, mooned, elided words and sang with indistinct pronunciation. If ever there was a canary fancier's diva; it was she. She could certainly convey joy, but it seemed to me to be a joy at the act of singing itself; as against dealing with the words.
As we have many times opined, there are almost no singers who really use the music intelligently in such a way as to make the notes themselves have a meaning in the way the words do; Callas casts her long shadow here as so often. Her Norma uses the music itself in a dramatic and intelligent way that really no one else seems to have plumbed in recorded history.
So, when we deal with who is around just now, we need to have some patience. There is no point in being so completely dismissive, unless we can point to current singers we ought to listen to instead. I can often go along with you Sarastro to an extent, but your criticism is so militant, so all or nothing.
Mike
I cannot get into Fleming's singing no matter what opera.
The objections some have to Sutherland do not bother me at all. First, when she sings music that includes high notes, I know from the very beginning that she will hit all the notes. With that being a given, I can relax, stop worrying whether the singer can hit the notes, and just enjoy the beauty of the music. For me that is a big plus.
People do not like the fact that Sutherland values vowels over consonants. With good reason she knows that the vowels are more open and help the sound come out better. I cannot even hear the words when people sing or speak English their diction is so poor. However I keep trying and end up frustrated and angry. What a relief it is to have the opera in a language I do not know. First I learn the libretto. Then I lean back, relax, and enjoy the musical experience.
If you have the mostly oop Essential Opera VHS tape that contains Rigoletto the last act where the quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore" (Sutherland, Pavarotti, Isola Jones, Leo Nucci) is sung, you have a chance to hear Sutherland sing those high notes way above everyone else. It is such a thrill to hear it. I could go back and listen to it again and again.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on December 30, 2008, 07:45:52 AM
I think you are listening to her in the wrong repertoire. I don't particularly like her in bel canto works either, but in Strauss and Mozart she could be incomparable. I say "could be", because, these days, that tendency to croon (also a fault with Moffo in her later years) is becoming more pronounced. I certainly wouldn't call her a mediocrity. She has a voice of arresting beauty, and is in a totally different world and class from Katherine Jenkins, whose name appears at the top of this thread. I have actually worked with Fleming (I played the speaking role of the Doctor in A Streetcar Named Desire, when Andre Previn brought the opera to the Barbican), and can vouch for the quality of the voice and the artist. it is actually a much bigger voice than you would expect, and it never loses quality at whatever volume she is singing.
Her most recent recital CD, entitled "Homage" is a mixture of hits and misses and is a good indication of what suits her best. The Strauss and Korngold selections suit her admirably. So too, more unxepectedly perhaps, do the Janacek, Dvorak and Smetana, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. In French opera there is one hit (Massenet's Herodiade, reminding us of her glorious Thais, the best on disc) and one miss (the waltz song sung by Goulnod's Mireille, which had me thinking of how well Sutherland might have sung it). The Italian items don't suit her at all. Poveri fiori from Adrianna Lecouvreur totally lacks the pathos brought to it by such singers as Callas, Scotto and Olivero, nor does she have the necessary darkness of tone for the Leonora of Il Trovatore. Tosca's Vissi d'arte is pretty much a disaster, the climax spun out to interminable lengths. The voice character is all wrong too. She sounds more like a petulant, spoiled child, who's been told she won't be getting any Christmas presents, than the desperate prima donna pleading for the life of the man she loves. However, throughout this mishmash of successes and failures, there is no denying the quality of the instrument itself.
Incidentally I wouldn't pay too much attention to the fact that Fleming was booed at La Scala. Many great singers have suffered at the hands of that audience for all sorts of reasons, most of them nothing to do music.
Great post, thank you. (http://www.forumklassika.ru/images/smilies/appl.gif) It is impossible to disagree with you for the most part, but I will -- for Mozart. One role I heard her in (not live of course!) - Donna Anna - surprised me; I did not quite understand several variations in Mozart, as if it were Donizetti, and the tone was harsh. I haven't heard any Strauss, certainly I should give it a try...if I have time, money, and desire for it.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on December 30, 2008, 07:45:52 AM
I do wonder though about the tendency of many of today's singers, particularly American ones, not to specialise, or choose a particular fach. There seems to be a desire to sing it all, and in so doing compromises are made. Sutherland started out singing all sorts - Wagner, Verdi, Poulenc, even Tippett - but as soon she had made her debut as Lucia, she concentrated on the bel canto repertoire which served her so well and over a very long career. In those days, singers might try different repertoire at an early stage in their career, before settling into the one that suited them best. Schwarzkopf even reduced her repertoire to a very small number of roles (the Marschallin, the Countess in Capriccio, Donna Elvira, Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva and Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff), which she preformed supremely well. Someone once told me that the highest paid tenor was actually Alfredo Kraus, but that was because he sang a very small number of roles better than anyone else.
I understand you very well, but do not wonder. As far as I know, American singers are taught to be versatile - thus they, supposedly, are able to find more job opportunities, be more marketable, and make more money. Such approach makes it clear that nowadays opera world is a conveyor stamping singers as if they were photo cameras...it is profitable business if you know how to manipulate public. I don't say opera never were a form of business, but nowadays it feels especially sharp.
Quote from: knight on December 30, 2008, 08:17:30 AM
She frequently crooned, mooned, elided words and sang with indistinct pronunciation. If ever there was a canary fancier's diva; it was she. She could certainly convey joy, but it seemed to me to be a joy at the act of singing itself; as against dealing with the words.
I assume that having a sinus operation done would affect your diction even in your native language; in her book, Sutherland writes that the doctor admonished her that after this operation there was a chance she would not be able to sing at all, but she had to decide because the polypi had to be removed as soon as possible. I tend to attribute deterioration of her diction to that operation -- in 1959
Don Giovanni it was excellent -- though it may as well be a result of her pursuit for impeccable legato, as
Anne stated.
I wouldn't compare anyone to Callas - let the phenomenon be aside from others - and Sutherland with all her flaws is of course a great diva who could convey despair and tragedy as well, especially in
bel canto roles that use different means of dramatic expressiveness. Lucrezia Borgia finale (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7E445edhyw).(http://www.forumklassika.ru/images/smilies/appl.gif)
I don't make a claim for being right, but in opera I give the first priority to music, since it is musical theatre. And in that light diction becomes less important for me. In fact, it is a very controversial topic. There are many things about Sutherland: the operation, being a native English speaker singing in Italian and French, on the other hand after the criticism for her poor diction she improved for some time... Moreover, right now I can recall two Italian singers with problematic diction: Carlo Bergonzi and Franco Corelli. Whereas Bergonzi had actually a crystal-clear diction, pronouciation sometimes sounds funny. Instead of "mia sposa" he sings "mia
shpo
zha" or "cele
shte Aida." It may be just a problem with articulation or may be his local Parma pronounciation. Corelli was always criticized for his crammed diction and was literally devastated by French critics for his French in
Faust.
Quote from: knight on December 30, 2008, 08:17:30 AM
unless we can point to current singers we ought to listen to instead
Shall I start a new topic? I have quite a few names to throw... :) I solemnly invite you to the new topic (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,10470.0.html).