Ferocious!
POSTED at
7:02 PM
28 January 2008
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45 Comments:
I am ashamed to admit that I have had no familiarity with Elinor Ross' singing, but based on this clip it seems to me that there are virtually no sopranos around today (to my knowledge) who can sing the role of Norma as well as she does here.
Josephine, I completely agree. I've heard Ross' name but never the voice, and I cannot believe how much she puts current Normas to shame. Why is she not better known? Or perhaps I'm not as entitled to the opera queen throne as I previously thought?
Does anybody have an idea where is this from and whether there's more?
The only thing I can say is OMG!
I had a live recording on cassette from the Met in the 70's of Ballo with Elinor Ross, Barry Morell and the last met performances of Robert Merrill..wow. Ross was a great soprano and indeed..you all said it first; it puts to shame anyone who is a big star trying Norma these days; it's a different era. I wnat to hear all of this Norma with Ross.
Lindoro: The educated guess is this is La Fenice in 1966. Cossotto was the Adalgisa at this performance. I wonder if more exists?
But then... there was the other Elinor Ross who once performed "Mozart's Alarm Clock." That's worth another hearing, too (and one of my favorite links here on parterre.com). We all have our bad days to balance out the good ones.
WOW!
I was also familiar with the name, but not the voice. First rate Norma then and now.....Great singing and the decibels Ross and Del Monaco let loose. The sheer volume of their voices is mind boggling.
Hello all,
I am coloraturafan. I posted this video. This is from Berlin 1967, it is from a complete video. I have to admit, this is one of the BEST videos of Norma I have ever watched. I was blown away by all of the leads. Of course, this is late in Del Monaco's career, but he warms up very well and even at this late stage still holds on to all the high notes just a little longer than the others ;-)
This is a golden age performance for sure!
Thank you for this fabulous clip, Deviafan, and I hope you can share more of this performance with us!
COLORATURAFAN!!!! Howdy. I've loved all of your contests on Youtube and we've emailed briefly. I'm sschimel, staunch defender of everything Moffo. I'm still treying to find a way to convert vinyl to digital so I can post Moffo Verdi and French arias. I'd be thrilled if La Cieca would let me send the to her first for posting here first. I love the way she accents " giura!". And her voice is so even from bottom to top. Exquisite. I would love to hear her sing anything. Instead, we get Hasmik and Guleghina. Thank you so much for posting this. I hope she turns up in a podcast.
Geez oh man... Like others, I've heard this name, but never the voice, and it was my loss, that's for sure. She puts any contemporary Norma I can think of to SHAME. This voice is DAMN BIG. The top is just amazing, but the bottom is just as good; she even has metal in it there. It gave me goosebumps, and I can't think of the last time a singer I never heard did that. I was prepared for disappointment but this was a great surprise. Merci, deviafan.
La Cieca and Deviafan/Coloraturafan
Thanks for this AMAZING post and for all you do on Youtube and here.
Keep up the good work and Coloraturafan if you have any more leads to K 368 in video other than Desiree Rancatore's youtube I would be eternally grateful. It is my favorite of the Coloratura Concert Arias.
Always a fan.
Best,
Drew
Elinor Ross sang a stupendous Turandot at City Opera in the 70's!
I was amazed to hear how good she sounds here. She was second or third string in her day. I happened to see her Met debut, substituting for Nillson, as Turandot, with Corelli!!! She was very good and enthusiastically received, crying effectively at the standing O. She continued at The Met for another ten years or so, until her singing declined too much. By the time I saw her again, as Turandot, in Philly, her voice was still big, but too coarse and unpleasant to continue a career much longer.
Sad to say I must forfeit my crown as reigning Southern Opera Queen because I too had never head this voice. What a revelation!! I swear to god that has to be Dolora's mother.
Is this the same Elinor Ross who gets slimed by Joanna Feidler in her book on the Met? Makes her sound like the worst thing since EVER, and that's the only place I'd come across the name before this.
Then again, that was hardly a sterling piece of journalism/history/whatever.
Nice to hear the OTHER Miss Ross when she had so much vocally to offer--despite some scary-sounding technical things which presage the decline audible in her late 70s Met performances: the top fell apart, the voice was often riddled with vibrato, and verbal artistry was not exactly her middle name. But she sure had a lot of the goods back in 1966.
MDM never learned physically to portray any character at all besides Otello, it would seem.
Fascinating to see this!
This post has been removed by the author.
I have her in a couple of recordings:
Forza from La Fenice (1966)
Gioconda from Treviso (1967)
Alzira from Carnegie Hall (1968)
Il Trovatore from Buenos Aires (1974)
She is magnificent.
Wow.
Thank you to Cieca for bringing this to our attention. And what can I possibly say to "coloraturafan"? THANK YOU for all your phenomenal Youtube contributions.
Ross is indeed spectacular - like most of you, I had never heard her previously, and most of the scuttlebutt had been negative. Sheesh, she's great! MdM is so incredible in many ways - but goodness would it have hurt him so much to vary the dynamics from time to time? The man sure is loud. But Ross is the star here. Phenomenal.
I'm flabbergasted. I had only heard Ross in a couple of Met tour performances in the mid 70's. By then her voice was shot: Big, blowsy and wobbly.
I posted the act I trio from this performance. As you can see Del Monaco has to hold on to that last note just a little longer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An5Lv2XYGOo
Awesome video...Ross is stupendous at 7:50 in the "all'ira vostra"...many thanks to coloraturafan
Saw Ross once as Lady Macbeth with the Canadian Opera Company back in the 1970s. I remember she was no great shakes as an actress but I recall her voice riding over that Act I finale and a riveting Sleepwaking scene.
Listening to her here its hard to imagine that she was "2nd string" - wouldn't it be great to have 2nd string like that around today?
1967 was VERY late Del Monaco but even at this late stage he defines the often-used term "clarion voice tenor."
Elinor Ross sang several dramatic roles at the Met in the 1970's, e.g., Lady Macbeth, Amelia in Ballo, Gioconda, Tosca... A couple were broadcast, so we may get to hear them on Sirius one of these days. (I remember in particular a Tosca with Bergonzi around 1970. They selected a question of mine for the quiz that Saturday afternoon.) I don't remember her being thought of very highly at the time, though.
Is a cd of this performance available anywhere? Would love to have it.
That Norma finale is to me the perfect example of music trumping everything else in opera. The music, while sublime, is also very dramatic, and draws you into Norma's pain.
It also contains what in my view is one of the most ridiculous lines in opera. Norma, a druid vestal virgin, has managed an affair with Pollione for a few years; had and reared in hiding two children right in the middle of wherever she lives with the other priestesses; and then she says with a straight face that "Norma non mente." Hellooo, Norma doesn't lie? That's all she's been doing for years! But with Bellini's music, we believe her; the other druids believe her; the audience joins her in her suffering; and she comes across as the noblest of women. Ah, the magic of music!!
I am a BIG Ponselle fan; knew a soprano back in the '60's who said Ross's voice sounded much like Ponselle's. Don't hear it here (too uneven and metallic) but I did hear some of her earlier recordings on radio years ago and there was a marked similarity. This same soprano also told me that Callas was going to cancel a performance until she heard Ross was her replacement and decided to go on. Just a tidbit which I cannot verify.
I teared up at "Son io"; when properly sung and performed, it always goes to prove for me at least that Norma is in a class by itself; nothing compares.
tenoredigrazia: I think a better translation would be "Norma is not lying." Properly performed, the line can express the idea "I no longer have to lie; I am free to tell the truth."
Beverly Sills was a very smart lady about 95% of the time, but a couple of her remarks about Norma demonstrate that she could on occasion go begging for a clue.
What were Sills remarks about Norma?
I just posted above and forgot to leave a name. By the way, thank you SO MUCH for posting this video.
Something has been bothering me for a long time and rysanekfreak referred to it also awhile back and noone responded. PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP!!! It involves Norma.
I am counting on all you experts.
Some years back, a wonderful documentary was given on Maria Callas and several opera singers gave testimonials about Callas. The most moving one was Caballe's. She mentioned that when she was starting to prepare Norma she went to Callas and asked her advice as to whether she could sing it. I gathered she was worried about the Casta Diva. She said that Callas replied, "if you can sing .... then you can sing Norma" and Caballe said she was right. I read Caballe's biography purposely to see if she mentions the particular aria and she doesn't. In my opinion, in those days, no one knew Norma better than Callas. I would so like to know which aria Callas considered the makeorbreaker. Josephine might you ask sweet Shirley (love watching her on You Tube) if she knows next time you see her. Please help; I would really like to know what aria Maria was referring to.
i believe it was "in mia man...." and I believe the first act finale trio (though that may have just been where caballe was having trouble)
Ponsellefan: Unfortunately, Caballe does rather leave us hanging in that documentary about the "two tings" Callas deemed the most testing parts of Norma. Like scifi, La Cieca has always thought she must have meant the passage "Oh non tremare, o perfido" from the first finale and the section "I Romani a cento a cento" from the duet with Pollione.
Someone needs to ask Montsi this question one of these days.
Tenoredigrazia, Sills remarked about her one (I think) production of Norma at the old Opera Company of Boston that she just didn't get what was so hard about it. Perfectly true if you approach it as a suitable role for a light lyric coloratura, which she did, rather than considering the weight and color that the role really calls for. FYI I'm a BIG Sills fan but this was surprisingly clueless. She and Sarah Caldwell conceived Norma as an albino (!!!) and therefore considered sacred by the rest of the Druids, who one presumes had healthy glowing tans.
I saw Elinor Ross in Ballo Act III with Luciano Pavarotti in Feb 10, 1973. It was part of a gala performance with the other two acts being the Aida Nile scene with Leontyne Price and the Lucia Mad scene with Joan Sutherland. When some people wrote in earlier posts above that you don't hear singing like this any more... I say right TIMES THREE.
Aida(Act III)
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Aida Leontyne Price
Radames Franco Tagliavini,
Amneris Jean Kraft,
Amonasro Cornell MacNeil
Ramfis James Morris
Lucia di Lammermoor (Act III sc I)Richard Bonynge
Lucia Joan Sutherland
Enrico Matteo Manuguerra
Raimondo John McCurdy
Un Ballo in Maschera(Act III)Peter Adler, Peter
Riccardo Luciano Pavarotti
Amelia Elinor Ross
Renato Matteo Manuguerra
Oscar Gail Robinson
Now that was some night at the opera ! ! !
I didn't care for Ross when I heard her in New York, but evidently we did not get the best of her. (She IS the best Alzira I've ever heard in a live performance ... and I'm sure you can imagine the competition for that honor). But she sang a Donna Anna in Central Park that inspired me to hiss -- the only time I have ever hissed a singer. (I've never booed one.)
But this is terrific stuff. Somehow I doubt the first act approached it in quality. Guleghina could handle the last act decently enough. Even Eaglen was not godawful in it. The trick is to sing the whole role.
Oh, you chose to hiss instead of boo? well, I think that shows tremendous restraint.
Hans Lick
I see what you are saying about "singing the whole role" but you can tell. Elinor Ross sounds technically and dramatically accomplished. I bet the first act was wonderful as well. It is a firm and expressive voice. You get a sense of comfort from it, because you don't feel nervous for her. She knows what she is doing.
I had no idea Robert Wilson had been directing so long.
Are you talking about the clip when you mention Robert Wilson? If so, I don't get Robert Wilson from that clip at all. If you are talking about something else and I misunderstood, then I apologize.
Hans Lick.....check out the post of the Act I trio that ColoraturaFan posted today. Ross is absolutely THRILLING.
I always thought that Caballe must have been talking about "Oh non Tremare". As many times as I've heard Norma from so many different singers, that little snippet seems to give people MAJOR problems. Verrett did it VERY well in the live recording from SF (1978 I think). I never thought Caballe was particularly stellar in that particular part of Norma. Like her Turandot, I thought it was a little beyond the natural limits of her voice; there just wasn't quite enough dramatic thrust under it to make it exciting. Casta Diva would be the LAST thing Caballe had problems with. She had breath control that would make your eyes cross and a great legato line.
In the above mentioned video, Ross just uncorks those C's and they're HUGE. I was THOUROUGHLY impressed, and as jaded as I am about opera (or the lack thereof) these days, that's really saying something.
Dear Beauboi
While I understand your criticism about the lack of dramatic thrust, I wonder if you have similar feelings about Sitherland's Norma?
Look what I found...! I gogled a bit and came up with this sensational documentaion of Ross singing Turandot! Apart from the musically fluffed ending - that SURE was a voice!
http://cdn.libsyn.com/premiereopera/2008-01-29-00-36-59.mp3
Josephine-
I have NEVER had a problem with Sutherland's anything. I think she had ample thrust under her voice; it was a huge instrument. Granted, sometimes she was a little...mushmouthed, and sometimes she seemed a little distant when you compare her acting to someone like Callas or Sills, btu in terms of vocal production, she was and is still the gold standard. There has NEVER been a better Norma than Dame Joan as far as I'm concerned. I love Callas, but her Norma was never my favorite (I know, SACRILEGE). I'd rather hear her as Tosca or Lady M to be honest. Ross is a serious contender for my affection though. I'm really hooked.
It was also said that the video would have Cossotto as Adalgisa,- is it correct?
I was at Ross' Metropolitan debut as Turandot. She was most impressive, particularly in a town where Birgit "owned" the role. Ross' colleagues were the late, lamented Pilar Lorengar and Franco Corelli. The year was 1970. Before the inevitable decline Ross was very good and, let's face it, sopranos who can be very impressive in both Turandot and Norma do not and never did grow on trees. Ross in her prime would blow all today's competition (dramatic sopranos) off the stage. And I don't mean just in vocal/musical abilities --- she had a very large instrument as well.
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