parterre box

46 comments

• tinney says:

  Gianni B are you serious? You put Rita Shane and Anna Moffo in the same category as Dawn Upshaw and Kathleen Battle. Are you kidding me? Moffo had a sizeable voice as did Shane but completely different timbre than Netrebko. Perhaps on the bright side but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a biggish voice.

  I don’t even see making the case for Freni as a soubrette HOWEVER Netrebko started off as a very high light lyric coloratura. Mirella, on the other hand, may have sung lighter parts but she also sang them with her voice and it was never “small”. Netrebko started off singing Queen of the night and Amina in Sonnombula which is one of my fave recordings she’s ever done and the voice was VERY different than it is now. I think if her voice is large it’s only b/c she pushed it past its limitations and lost her extension. She should still be able to sing a high d at the very least in tune and with spin. That doesn’t happen too often for her these days if EVER.

  I agree that I think this voice is a soubrette voice with a very dark rich timbre that has been pushed past its limitations. It’s nothing like Freni to me. Early Freni had this beautiful core to the voice that had a nice bright ring on the end of it. Freni also had a fairly large voice. I hear nothing of Netrebko in early Freni.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcv8dqIkMPY

  on September 14, 2009 at 6:21 PM
• kashania says:

  Anyone who can sing Luisa Miller (Moffo) or the Don Carlo Elisabetta (Freni) is no soubrette in my book. Both sung soubrette roles to be sure, but they had full lyric voices.

  on September 14, 2009 at 6:33 PM
• kashania says:

  iltenoredigrazia: I think you wanna switch the words “capital” and “interest” in your last.

  on September 14, 2009 at 6:36 PM
• justanothertenor says:

  I still think Netrebko was best when she did perform the lighter roles. The stage persona was the more honest, she looked more at ease, and the sound was more exciting. Her Zerlina stole the show, her Susanna was resplendent, her Norina was brilliant (especially in the scenes with Kwiecien) and her Musette superb. This liveliness I used to love about her is one I no longer see. I thought her Puritani was dull dull dull. I could hear her calculating (in the same manner that Fleming can sometime calculate a performance) how to negotiate the role, and there was no thrill. I felt the same way about her in Lucia (too soon after the pregnancy?… Rumor has it she tried to cancel and Gelb would not let her), her Giulietta in Paris was not great until Act II, when she finally came to life. The Oh quante volte through the end of the act was dull and off pitch.
  I do love her instrument, but i am starting to think it was been taken too far off course to ever find it’s way back.

  on September 14, 2009 at 6:50 PM
• iltenoredigrazia says:

  Kashania, oooops, yes, you’re right. Time to put to rest that analogy! Thanks for the correction.

  on September 14, 2009 at 7:08 PM
• suzyQ says:

  #15 Gianni B, I agree with your comments on Netrebko & Fleming!

  on September 14, 2009 at 7:17 PM
• Lindoro Almaviva says:

  her Norina was brilliant

  on what planet? I saw at least one of the performances and she was inadequate. She was grossly miscast as Norina and she acknowledged it.

  on September 14, 2009 at 7:58 PM
• justanothertenor says:

  I thought the energy was fantastic. If the runs at the end of “So anch’io la virtu magica” were not as clean as I would have liked them, the “Vado, coro” duet with Kwiecien was wonderful, and the rest got better throughout the evening. I saw the dress rehearsal. Even if it wasn’t the greatest fit vocally (which I admit), she absolutely sparkled on stage and looked like she was having an absolute blast. Which as Norina counts for a lot.

  on September 14, 2009 at 8:07 PM
• Alexythymia says:

  I’m sorry if this was touched in a previous comment, but is it possible that this lazy, darkened, “pretty voice” sound is what the current idle consumer and the recording industry likes?? In which case, who is at fault? :/

  on September 14, 2009 at 8:10 PM
• Clita del Toro says:

  Iltenoredigrazia: Your write that Callas showed significant signs of wear and tear by fifty? OY! I think you are off by more than ten years! The wear and tear was plainly showing when she was thirty-nine, to be kind. She was about forty-two in 1965 when she sang Tosca at the Met for the last time. You don’t know from “wear and tear,” and I’d say that performance was VOCALLY beyond wear and tear--more like shreaded!

  Tebaldi was showing signs of wear and tear in the late fifties, early sixties when she was only forty. There was considerable change in her voice from 1955 to 1962.

  on September 14, 2009 at 9:41 PM