Lookism? Again?
Yet another rehash of the great voice vs. waistline debate, this time in the Chicago Daily Herald. Nicole Cabell laments the scarcity of European gyms, while "hunken-tenor" Joseph Kaiser plants his feet firmly on both sides of the fence by declaring, "Essentially if you can be healthy about being healthy, that's the balance to find because there's a lot of unhealthy ways to be 'healthy.'"
Usual suspects Deborah Voigt and Nathan Gunn offer no comment, but "bari-hunk" Mariusz Kwiecien is willing go on the record that he is "not an extremely good looking guy." (Obviously he didn't take a good look at this photo accompanying the article!)
Is anyone surprised to hear that the most sensible one of the bunch is the mezzo? "There is no denying the influence of the mass media culture of today on opera, but I think it's naïve to think that the idea of 'glamour' is nothing new to opera," says Joyce DiDonato. "Look at all the old diva photos from the 1920s and '30s and you see many svelte, sexy ladies at the height of their powers."
La Cieca herself couldn't say it more eloquently, so she'll turn the program over to radiant Rosa Ponselle. The diva is 39 here, just a year before her retirement from the Met:
Usual suspects Deborah Voigt and Nathan Gunn offer no comment, but "bari-hunk" Mariusz Kwiecien is willing go on the record that he is "not an extremely good looking guy." (Obviously he didn't take a good look at this photo accompanying the article!)
Is anyone surprised to hear that the most sensible one of the bunch is the mezzo? "There is no denying the influence of the mass media culture of today on opera, but I think it's naïve to think that the idea of 'glamour' is nothing new to opera," says Joyce DiDonato. "Look at all the old diva photos from the 1920s and '30s and you see many svelte, sexy ladies at the height of their powers."
La Cieca herself couldn't say it more eloquently, so she'll turn the program over to radiant Rosa Ponselle. The diva is 39 here, just a year before her retirement from the Met:
Labels: barihunk, chicago, hunkentenor, youtube
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12:36 AM
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FOX NEWS ALERT!!! Joseph Kaiser: the Hillary Clinton of opera.
"but I think it's naïve to think that the idea of 'glamour' is nothing new to opera," says Joyce DiDonato.
Got a feeling that's a misquote. Surely (I know don't call you Shirley) what she said or meant to say was "it's naive to think that the idea of 'glamour' is new to opera."
Great singers like Melba and Tetrazzini may not have been svelte but they were fashionable and glamourous as those words applied to their era.
What a great performance from Ponselle, much better than most Carmens of today. I wonder if the sopranos out there who are thinking of attempting it themselves have ever seen this video.....
I'm with DiDonato, this argument has been rehashed for at least a century. Anybody remember the "Elephant that swallowed the nightingale", or the fact that Callas was ridiculed for her appearance at the start of her career?
For every Tetrazzini, Milanov, and Hunter there's a Farrar, Kirsten and TeKanawa in the annals of operatic superstars. And very few of the proverbial fat ladies past were nowhere near the size of some of the "big" singers of recent years, some of them so huge they can barely walk on stage. There's a big difference between matronly or plump and morbidly obese.
And a small body and acting chops do not preclude a major voice. I stood next to Leonie Rysanek at a reception for Pique Dame back in the 90's. She was not a big woman in stature or weight - I remember being struck by how tiny she was, but that voice could pin you to the back of your seat in its prime.
And bari-hunks baring their torsos on stage also is not a new phenomenon. Anybody remember the Sills/Milnes Thais? Milnes was a cock sock away from a full frontal, and I think Met attendees back in the 30's got more than a glimpse of Tibbet's pecs.
I know many have slammed Gelb for paring the "fat" from the roster, but he's also given some pretty, skinny girls the cold shoulder (Hong, to name one), and the roster is still full of singers that aren't exactly petite in prominent roles.
I don't believe that lookism is at the root of the dearth of major dramatic voices today, rather it's that the conservatory to young artists program path that has arisen in the last 30 years favors lighter, more lyric voices that reach their prime years at a relatively young age. The system has no clue how to deal with heavier voices (especially female ones)that take longer to develop. They get weeded out early on because they can't use them NOW. A young lyric soprano is of great use to a company right away as Barbarina and the Dew Fairy etc. What do they do with a potential Brunhilde or Turandot so they can earn their keep while the voice matures? Smaller roles needing bigger voices tend to be mothers and older women (Look what budding dramatic sopranos like Claudia Waite and Jennifer Check end up doing - the occasional Aida priestess and Berta in Barber, how is that really furthering their careers?). I think a lot of potential dramatic singers just give up for lack of opportunities, and if they do stick with it and eventually get a break they tend to be relatively unseasoned and pass through the annals rather quickly (think Sunnegardh).
Willym: You're right. Surely (my name is Grace!) what DiDonato meant was "I think it's naïve to think that the idea of 'glamour' is something new to opera."
Don't forget that the standards for "slim" and "svelte" are quite different now than they were a few decades ago.
Also, audiences up to the 1950's or so were not used to electrically amplified music. Many voices that may be considered small nowadays probably were quite adequate earlier in the XX Century. And I suspect that some of the earlier Wagnerian singers had much more lyrical voices than we would consider appropriate now. Some could even sing coloratura !!
The volume that we expect nowadays from singers may be a significant reason for the vocal troubles that some of you mention as well as the very short careers, early wobbles, etc.
I've often wondered what Mozart or Handel or Rossini.. would think were they to attend a modern performance of one of their works. I bet the first thing that would hit them is how loud they are.
steveac10: any photos in existence of Milnes "a cock-sock away from full-frontal" ??? Not that I'd be interested or anything...
"steveac10: any photos in existence of Milnes "a cock-sock away from full-frontal" ??? Not that I'd be interested or anything..."
Unfortunately, only in my mind. I saw it in Minneapolis when the Met toured it back in the late seventies. I do remember his near nudity caused quite a stir in the press and Milnes answered more than a few questions in interviews about it.
steveac10: I agree with most of your comments on dramatic voices. I would like to add a few thoughts though, if I may.
While small bodies do not always mean small voices - for instance Devia - small tube waists generally do. The fact is what passes for 'fit' today would have been downright scrawny before 1955-1960. Consider Monroe. Or even look at Brook Shields. She was a size 8. Now they are supposed to be a size 2! It is unrealistic to think this does not have an impact on what sort of body .
I doubt Lilly POns, at 4'11" and 104 lbs or Rita Streich even qualified for a size 2, though I bet they were nice size 4's.( How dare Pons be so heavy! She is supposed to weigh 95lbs at the most!) They also were not 'dramatic' voices by any stretch, though you could hear them in the back of the house clearly because of their focus and technique.
Interestingly, I doubt these would have careers today because their voices would be punished as being too 'strident'- or having a strong core - that is what make it possible for them to be heard in the back of the house. This is entirely different than what Schwarzkopf complained about as being 'strident' in her master classes, when you watch them. You are all too aware of her own clear focus when you hear her singing Donna Elvira. Too many schools today confuse that natural 'focus' with being 'strident.'
Having mentioned Schwarzkopf, I shall turn to TeKanawa, whom you have brought up. I don;t think TeKanawa could ever have been accused of having a large voice, and using the term 'superstar' as a synonym with 'great singer' is a bit dangerous. She had an absolutely exquisite voice, and I always thought her being so modeled after Schwarzkopf was a disservice to her. However, though I admire much in her, nor do I think she had a voice of the over all power of a Tetrazzini, just as she does not have a voice the size of Devia, or Callas at one point did.
Della Casa, Schwarzkopf, Ponsell, Farrar, and Kirsten were all considered lovely ladies of their time, but they were none of them 'trim' or 'svelte' by todays standards. I can think of one or two that were, but that is about it. Watch Erne Berger in Don Giovanni, pretty solid little lady too. Not fat, but fat by today;s standards. Birgette Nilsson wasn't fat, she was built like a foot ball player.
Frankly, I think bigger voices in all the fach's suffer from the same sort of derisions and misunderstanding today.
"Surely (my name is Grace!) "
now that's funny.
i'm sorry, Mme La Cieca, but i don't see what you see in Kwiecien. he hardly qualifies as hunky in my book. but i guess, chacun a son gout.
Um, that's whack, devia. This was burried in a thread somewhere and I will quote it with the picture 'cause it made sense
Sorry: here's the quote:
" We are in the middle of a market correction. Never in the history of opera were as many star singers as big as some of them were during the eighties and nineties.
This used to be considered on the bigger side:
http://tinyurl.com/2k974v
There is nothing unhealthy or unreasonable about the expectations that have been RE-entering the business during the last ten years."
And I would add that the supposed drought of big voices is not due to some sizeism on the business's part, but because that rep has to be incredibly well planned out in a way that the industry's economics no longer supports even in the context of a Young Artist Program. You need someone with experience to help you strategize over days and weeks. This is how it used to work and the only way to sing this rep. Ask the working Wagnerians. There are tricks to these roles. Resnik did Lady MacBeth on a day's notice but Fritz Busch had TAUGHT it to her over several months. Margaret Price said in that recent interview that you used to get hours and days with a conductor on a role during which they would work with you, make suggestions, develop a plan, treat you as an equal. You'd never get that now since it's no longer part of the conductor job description to help the singer in an intensive way. With respect for all the wonderful informed opinions here, I'm often frustrated when y'all look at "Big voice" "small voice" in such a deterministic way. Someone please show me I'm wrong.
Humbly,
PUFTT
Garden and Fremstad, from their photos I have seen, were not "fat" and Patti appeared to be a dainty little doll. Maybe it was cuz they were corsetted. There is a drawing I saw once of Marietta Alboni(the "elephant"), and she was grotesquely fat. But a great singer according to wikipedia. And Destinn looked like a Bears fullback.
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Lovely Rosa
Ah!, to be so care free so as to not let either written notes or meter spoil your fun.
I am naughty of course; she remains glorious.
A good example for this question was on view in the streaming video yesterday from the ENO of CARMEN (archived for 7 days and well worth seeing and hearing).
Alice Coote is no slender reed -- not current model material, for sure --, but she isn't fat either. By dint of her acting and her carriage she was sexy as can be, in an extremely good-looking cast, at that.
(Though the prettiest of all was the conductor, Edward Gardner. Zowie. The video is enthralling if only for him.)
PUFFT:
There is nothing humble about someone starting their statement as saying " You are wacked." It only serves to make you look pretty silly.
You are also going to have to do better than poorly copy an un_cited quote from 'somewhere' on this site if you expect to achieve any sort of intellectual credence to calling me 'wacked.'
The picture you took looks like it comes from the 20s, the first time the 'waif' look struck popular culture, so trying to use that one select period in time to defend the current trend towards the 'starveling' look is not really doing very well. Even so a BMI of 20 was considered quite luscious then, whereas today its 15.
I can scan a LOT of pictures of singers from the early 20th and 19th centuries to counter your one foto, but I really don't have the time.
The changes on what passes for 'beauty' in the female figure, and the damage it does in the quest to achieve what is not found in nature is well documented.
From corsets that crunched, to the modern degree of flat starvation that finally has some models being banned from contests for looking like famine victims, its not a mystery. Even people magazine has picked up on the hideousness that has no relation to even a 'fit' look.
To pretend that this does not have an impact on the opera world is to live in never never land with Peter Pan. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Lisa Della Casa most definitely did NOT look like Kate Moss.( They do look more like a Sofia Loren however in over all proportions.) They also had BMIs above 15, that I can promise you.
I am not talking about pretending that Marc, Pavarotti and Voigt and Hunter didn't/don't have serious weight conditions beyond what we saw in opera in the past. I am talking about not pretending that looking like Kate Moss in any way represents the athletic development required for great/big singing.
As far as the lack of time devoted to singers learning roles within the company, I have bemoaned this in the past. All that burden is now being placed upon the singer alone, and it has 'economic' consequences.
However, why on earth you think this is a problem reserved for only voices in the dramatic voice fach I simply cannot understand. Do you really think Walter Legge spent any less time preparing Schwarzkopf for her recordings of Donna Elvira than he did with Callas in Turandot?
Do you really think Donna Elvira is 'easy'? You know, Verdi and Wagner counted on those very Bel Canto voices who were skilled enough to sing Mozart to realize their own music. Simply because Mozart is more 'musical' than Wagner, doesn't mean he is any easier to sing or require any less preparation to sing correctly.
Truthfully I am sick of hearing Mozart butchered by YAPS and Apprentice programms. And I rarely attend performances of The Magic Flute for fear of hearing one more 'talented' Queen of the Night crash and burn because she hasn't been taught the fundamentals of breath control and only gets the F's pretty much based on youth and luck. Heck I don't care if they miss the occasional F. Its a high note, but I cannot forgive the lack of legato in addition.(Damarau is the exception in my fuss, and she has pretty much abandoned the role from what I understand. No I didn't really like Devia in the role either, though she still sang it better than most can today.)
For me, in the best of all possible worlds, we would have Elviras and Annas and Violettas between 5 and 5'3 who sounded no older than 25, but had all the skill of a 36 year old Della Casa (which is oretty close to what she did). Giovannis super suave and buff. Brunhildas that were 5'7, had the body of a black belt, and could sing in armor like from Lord of the Rings. But thats a pretty tall order when you consider how long it takes to build any voice, and we have to take it in the package it comes. There are also a lot more fitness trainers out there than there are really good voice teachers.
However much we want to debate all this, the house was always full when Sutherland sang, and it sure wasn't because she was a 'beauty.'
I am always baffled by talk of the appearance of opera singers. At the opera where reality only gets an occasional nod, it has been my experience that the variety of physiques on display is the one moment which mirrors reality. Amongst my friends I note a few who come near top model status, but I also number fat girls and boys with thin partners amongst my closest friends. These couples are affectionate, and describe their partners in the most glowing of operatic terms. Surely opera is at its most realistic when imperfect bodies fall head over heals in love.
Brava SM.
Here in the heartland there are many fat, even obese people who fall in and out of love just like anyone else. The last time I was actually at the Met I sat next to a woman, and during intermission, we were discussing the performance, which had been vocally glorious (no, not this season's horrendous Aida). All she had to say on the subject was, "I just wish they would all lose some weight". What can you say to someone with such a poor imagination?
From what I have read of Rosa P., her Carmen was controversial at the Met for her strange interpretation. Someone fill me in on the story. And Fremstad's Carmen was a rage in Europe, but Americans did not react warmly to it. And doing it in Frisco with Caruso the night before Frisco crashed and burned did not help things.
Whack not whacked as in "That's whack" is slang for "I think you're wrong on a point there." Sorry. No operachic-worthy lingo over here. Duly noted. Different strokes.
Your indignation over the level of Mozart performance, the Queen, legato, etc is totally on point but I'm not here to cry over that bad singing.
Whatever one can say about the quality of Mozart singing or any number of lighter orchestrated composers, the fact remains that a young singer of reasonable intelligence can GET THROUGH many of these roles with little or no help. They can sing them from end to end for the two or three performances they're given. In this lighter rep, the cream will rise to the top because more people can get through it with less help and you just choose the best of these.
The bigger rep is a completely different story and a matter of survival for even a "real" big instrument. The industry can bemoan the lack of these instruments all it wants, and talk about "late bloomers" but until they recognize that the rep requires a fundamentally different method of preparing the singer from a young age (which, as you say used to be applied to all music) they will continue to pull up a "great hope" every few years only to tear them down several years later and go back to their bemoaning.
There is not an opera star today in danger of looking like Kate Moss. I did some digging and the cited photo is Lillian Nordica who was dead by 1914, so the photo must have been circa 1895.
Some thoughts; I watched this clip of Rosa's screen test, and I thought I was looking at Crawford. Rosa looked like her and was acting like her. There is a utube video of Zinka's recording of the Rosy aria with some photos of her thru her career: at some time in the 20s or 30s(?) she was actually slim. When did the NFL Zinka begin to surface?
Clarifying "Crawford;" I meant Joan, not the metroplex in Texas. Wait a minute; Ms. LeSeur was from Texas.
Is Beyonce's last name "Ponselle"?
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