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I’m also tempted to imagine how harrowing a Kundry Stemme could be later in her career, when the bloom isn’t nearly as fresh but the soprano as dramatic artist has matured into understanding Wagner’s incredibly metaphysical texts.
I wouldn’t equate her with Behrens though. As striking a figure Behrens could be onstage, her voice at times left something to be desired, especially once she had passed her very brief prime. Stemme, on the other hand, has a voice that I find very beautiful, with its metal, its ravishing palette of colors, and all. I’m glad that she has been wise about feeding her career on Verdi, Janacek, Mozart and a number of other light roles. These dividends have and will no doubt keep her on the stage as an important artist for a very long time.
I didn’t hear the Stemme Isolde at Bayreuth but those who did told me is was spec-fucking-tacular. Squirrel is churning his nuts to butter over her upcoming Ariadne!
Definitely agree that Nilsson was unique. Anyone who calls her “cold” is just looking for trouble. She is the great, late Brunnhilde, and while Varnay was great too, it pales in comparison IMHO
Tristram Minstrel – It’s actually a bit odd that Stemme isn’t singing Kundry right now. It would seem like a great fit. And by the way, I think she’s dreadful in the Italian repertoire. She’s just to real and gritty for parts that call for glossy vocalism.
Squirrel – I think Varnay totally blew Nilsson out of the water in her very brief prime, say 1949-1955. After that, Nilsson’s sound technique and reliability put her ahead. There’s a reason why she was singing Elektra a good ten years after Varnay had switched to Klytemnestra.
FINALLY an excuse to post one of the most exciting things i have seen on the youtubes:
and also especially:
i really think she’s one of the most exciting singers around, in any fach. also eager for her ariadne but man, if only we could have her instead of debbie this spring..
Oh, I LOVE Stemme as Senta…so exciting.
Squirrel #39:I caught her recital in Atlanta last Saturday (the 10th). Dont know if her Carnegie Hall recital was the same,but here she sang ‘Divinite du Styx’,Wesendonk Lieder,Strauss songs, spirituals, etc.
I dont feel qualified to write a true ‘review’ as some of the other talented posters can, but I will say she was amazing! Had seen her at Lyric Opera of Chicago, but hearing her sing from eight feet away in a 400 seat hall was thrilling(and ear shattering!) The voice is so beautiful. I know some reviewers claimed she was slightly shrill as Alceste this summer, but I didn’t hear it, nor did her top sound slightly pinched the way it did in Chicago. She seemed to just punch the air (best way I can describe it) in the the Alceste aria. My favorite recording of Wesendonk is Crespin’s, and I thought Christine is definitely in the same league. Always wanted to hear a dramatic soprano live and now I know what all the fuss is about. I ran into an older gentlemen in the lobby who said hers was the biggest voice he had heard, and he had heard Nilsson at the met!(though he did admit you cant really compare two voices in such vastly differant venues).
Spoke to her afterward, and told her I was sorry about the ring cycle this spring. I told her I had read rumours on line that she hadn’t really hurt her knee. She seemed genuinely surprised. She said she had two months of physical therapy.”You set ‘em straight!” she told me. She said she regretted the way things turned out after four years of work.
Also ran into David Daniels(!) in the lobby he seems like a very nice man. I told him I had his CD of Les Nuits Detes.
“Your’e one of the three people who bought it” he said. He told me hes been living in Atlanta for two years.
The Stemme woman has learned a lot from the expert coachings down at Lewes but can hardly be compared with true Wagnerian voices such as Anna Green and Marie Hayward-Segal.
Noel D — I think ‘punching the air’ is an excellent vocal analogy. It’s a review!
So great to see people really excited about Stemme, who is IMHO a unique talent and one proof that great singing is not a thing of the past. Golden-aged her Isolde might not be, but it is certainly great. Re Fleming’s Feldmarschallin – this is an exmple of complete and utter involvement with the role. And the flexibility of text-pointing belongs to the Lieder-singing league.
Only I think the Glyndebourne DVD conducted by Bleholavek is a worthier vehicle for her Isolde. It is a great staging, the stage + costumes are beautiful to look at, everybody looks their part, the LPO is on splendid form. Belhloavek’s interpretation is all of a piece, slightly retrospective but having the guns when you need them.
Well I’ll turn incontinent and wet myself if Nina Stemme would just sing the Dyer’s Wife.
Just the idea of her singing the haunting “Dritthalb jahr, bin ich dein Weib” oder “Schweig doch!” sends a chill up my spine.
Stemme is taking Brunnhilde seriously – she’s also in the La Scala Ring that Barenboim’s putting together.
Siegfried is prob Ian Storey.
I’m seeing Stemme’s Isolde this coming Sunday and I’m really looking forward to it.
I’ve only seen her live once, as Amelia in Ballo, and although I was very impressed with the actual singing, particularly some very large, gleaming top notes, she didn’t seem to be at all musical, the phrasing was so mechanical. But having heard her Isolde on disc and DVD, I don’t think one can level the same charge at it.
It baffles me that some have reservations over her suitability for Brunnhilde, when people like Dalayman are having a go at the role in very important theatres. Stemme, if nothing else, is at least a natural soprano with a singing style healthy enough to preserve her instrument whatever she essays. I think the voice is very large, and has enough cut and thrust to convince in the moments where such qualities are called for, even if they aren’t the overriding qualities of her instrument.
Theorin was incredibly impressive as Turandot at the ROH in, I think, January of this year. I was disappointed by what I heard of her broadcast Brunnhildes from the Met, but heartened to hear she was better in Washington. I hope she achieves some level of consistency, because if so, she’ll probably reign supreme in her repertoire.
Urmana has a Sieglinde coming up, and repreises her Isolde with Rattle in Vienna in December. She’s recorded snippets of Brunnhilde. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if she ended up taking on the role, given her ambition and apparent refusal to settle for anything but the most glamorous title roles in the repertoire whatever her natural fach, although I’m not sure it would be the best ever idea for her.
I agree with whoever said the Nilsson comparison is unhelpful, because vocal phenomena like that should be appreciated as the unique wonders that they are, they shouldn’t set an impossible standard for everybody else. I don’t think invoking Varnay (the best, in my opinion too) or Behrens helps either, because none of these 3 ladies could be described as having a voice that was at all ‘normal’ even for a Wagnerian soprano.
In terms of timbre, vocality etc, Stemme, Theorin, Dalayman all seem to line up on an axis that includes the likes, at whichever point along it you like, of Anne Evans and Deborah Voigt. Their voices work(ed) in readily understanable, conventional ways, and to greater or lesser extents, they all have some metal and heft that makes them contenders for Isolde et al. These are the terms in which we need to understand dramatic sopranos these days, with no extraordinary one-offs around to amaze us.
“Siegfried is prob Ian Storey.”
With Berkeley-Steele and Mitchinson, he is the premium choice today.
Brewer’s Faberin in Chicago was vocally stunning, much better than her Isolde in L.A. Not convinced her Brunnhilde would work, at least not in big houses. Nilsson (who still reigns atop my pantheon) grew up on a farm, as we know. She was a healthy, grounded human being who paced herself and though she sharped noticeably at times, she was a nearly incomparable stage presence; Rysanek and Ludwig were her only real competition among women Wagnerian singers.
As we also know, Wagnerian singers in particular (or maybe not in particular) are seduced/pushed into roles they aren’t ready to take on. Europeans especially wax over Anja Kampfe. I’ve only heard her live three times (as Sieglinde) and been less impressed each time. Waltraud Meier, Eva Marton, Behrens, even the redoubtable Gwyneth, have or are encountering serious difficulties because they pushed their voices outside their fach. Johanna Meier on the other hand was aware of her vocal capabilities and had a very respectable, at times memorable, career. Johanna grew up in Spearfish, SD. Maybe there is something to be said for growing up in a rural environment and long-term vocal health and longevity.
Jay, what did Gwyneth do that was outside her fach? Had she attempted Constanze or Gilda, you might have a point, but other than a reputedly disastrous, very late Norma, she seems to have stuck pretty firmly to what she was right for, progressing from Verdi to the Wagner, Strauss and Puccini roles you’d expect any dramatic soprano to sing. The same goes pretty well for Behrens and Marton. I don’t think any of the vocal issues these ladies experienced were because they were singing the wrong roles.
In Gwyneth’s case, it was partly the fact that her womb prolapsed on the birth of her second child, partly her unfettered approach which caused her to take its voice to its limits at practically every performance, and perhaps also the fact that, experiencing success so young, she didn’t ever quite lay a solid enough technical foundation in the first place. Maybe her schedule was too full on as well.
In any case, holding up J Meier as the exemplar, when the best you can say of her is ‘very respectable, at times memorable’, against the singers you mention who people rave about, avidly collect the every utterance of, and who managed to create interpretations against which others are still measured, seems a bit perverse.
Jay, not to mention Ellen Gulbranson, the Swedish mezzo who became a dramatic soprano, who was picked and trained personally by Cosima Wagner im 1892 to become Bayreuth’s Brunnhilde. Gulbranson sang there from 1896 to 1914, with an isolated Gotterdammerung in 1924. She also sang Kundry. Her first Brunnhildes were so successful that they ended Lilli Lehmann’s Bayreuth career.
She acquired a farm in Norway and retreated there for much of the regular opera season to prepare roles and work on instructions from Cosima while running the farm.
I have not heard her recordings, so cannot comment on the voice, but she had some very good names among her early teachers (including the Marchesi family). Cosima’s influence over singers is controversial, and she’s credited with instituting the “Bayreuth Bark.”.
anyone who says Stemme’s voice is smallish must be deaf or hasn’t heared her live.
Spiderman–I heard Stemme live as Senta at the Met some years back, and the voice seemed pretty underwhelming to me then. Perhaps it has grown since then.
Last night at Zankel Brewer gave one of the best recitals I have ever heard. The voice is stupendous. I hope last spring’s setback doesn’t keep her from further exploring the big Wagner roles.
Jay at 55: I think most would agree that Behrens voice was on the light side for her chosen repertoire and Meier is really a mezzo, but how can you say that Marton and Jones pushed their voices outised thier fach? Their voices were frickin’ huge! I won’t disagree they had vocal trouble though.
maven: Could you remind us what happened to Brewer last spring? I missed this news. Thanks.
I did find Nilsson’s singing a bit on the cold side. I much prefer Varnay–and the best Isolde I have ever seen was Mödl’s!
I guess I am a Kunst-Queen!
I also love Behrens and Jones.
At the time that Dalayman first sang Brangäne to Eaglen’s isolde, I thought to myself that she would have been a much better Isolde.
It didn’t quite work out that way, I am afraid.
55: even the redoubtable Gwyneth, have or are encountering serious difficulties because they pushed their voices outside their fach.
There is no fach beyond Gwyneth’s voice. (Have you heard her live?) The only sound louder than Gwyneth is the sound of the engine of a Space Shuttle at take-off.
Marquise – love it!
Mme. la Marquise, I believe you make the common mistake of confusing vocal size for ability to sing dramatic music adequately. Volume is just that: loudness. A dramatic voice is set up quite differently than a lyric voice. A loud lyric is no more an Isolde or Brunnhilde than Nellie Melba was a Brunnhilde, her superb technique not
withstanding.
Marton was a magnificent Empress at the Met and an OK Elsa, but by the time I heard her sing Brunnhilde in Chicago she was awful. She should have stayed with more lyrical repertory. And didn’t she also sing Ortrud at the Met?
Behrens same thing, an exquite silvery lyric voice that frayed as she took on heavier repertory. As for Dame Gwyneth, I heard her numerous times, some good, some not so good but by the time she sang Isolde at the Met, well the less said the better. Once Dame Gwyneth switched from mezzo to soprano roles, she too should have stuck with the lyric repertory.
All of these artists ventured too far from where their voices were most comfortably placed and the results in all cases were disastrous.
“With Berkeley-Steele and Mitchinson, he is the premium choice today.”
Don’t ignore the legendary Kenneth Woollam, ENO’s one and only Rienzi and Opera Coach to the Stars.
Varney had a slight tendency to sing ’sharp’ Nilsson on the other hand, her voice was pin point laser accurate. ‘Like a pivoted slide rule on a draughtman’s board’. Others, I could mention , just tried to shatter glass with their vocal ‘noisy flutter- chatter’.The axiom for a Wagnerian voice though, is not always sheer ‘blast size’( though it can help!) but whether a role sits comfortably on the singer’s main point of ‘vocal axis’.
It especially needs body frame, a full capacity for ample air, and a particular physiognomy. Those that decry healthy strong V8 built people for Wagner in favor of ’some pretty curved beach babes’ / attractive ’slim janes’, are having themselves ‘on’. It ain’t too long before such tiny cylinders of air start screeching to a halt, in protest, most audible.We have all heard examples.
Vicar, how could you forget Edmund Barham, John Treleaven and the superb David Rendall. In the tradition of Walter Widdop and Tudor Davies, all.
Hey, Walter Widdop was a very good singer!
Much as I love Nina Stemme, I do not think she is a Hoch Dramatic; a Jungendlich at best. The color of her voice reminds me more of a lirico-spinto than a dramatic soprano. Let’s not fool ourselves, she started singing roles like Desdemona and Mimi, within 5-6 years she was singing Senta and the dramatic soprano roles. Do you really think it is a natural progression?
Furthermore, if you look at the Hollander final scene, you can see how the body tenses up as she punches out the high notes like she was batting at a baseball practice. Do you think true Hoch dramatisch have that much touble with that?
I do not hear a Brunnhilde in her voice, I hear a Marschallin, a Desdemona, maybe Amelia, Donna Anna, Manon Lescaut, Lina, Seglinde, Alceste (maybe); but the Brunnhilde of the Immolation scene?, no way.
@68, Harry, I heard Nilsson live many times and she could go sharp. But she was such a presence no one really gave a damn. Same with Rysanek. We overlooked her vocal imperfections because she was such a compelling artist. Just as people are increasingly doing with Mattila.
Vocally peeling paint, a chronic wobble, continually scooping and/or veering off pitch and other chronic vocal issues are another matter, especially when a singer doesn’t have the kind of outsized personality that Rysanek had.
Krunoslav is right. Widdop was a very good Wagner singer indeed, judging from his recorded performances.If only …he was around today!
Lindoro Almaviva: I also agree that Nina Stemme is being too ambitious, too quick. This fast track ‘great -hope anticipation’ when a singer gets on the operatic ‘grid’ today, is a big killer of voices. This ‘Brunnhilde ‘ fascination is like a singer is daring to go for ‘Gold’ at some Olympic marathon voice – race. From just some simple announcement ‘of the possibility’, the casting machine and the fans start pushing and shoving as they all go into media overdrive. They all want to ‘be there’-to get the ‘first look in’.
Most times the ability of a singer to actually ‘endure’, is the last consideration. For many, they fall over with a mouthful of gravel rash in their mouth…..and burnt vocal cords, as their prize. And off they then go, in relative oblivion or quick retirement.
Turandot’s one big riddle for operatic women: role of ‘Brunnhilde’!
Puccini’s riddle for operatic women: the role of Turandot! The Calaf may lose his head. She can lose her voice.
It all depends how the individual sound of a voice also hits our ears. I admire Rysanek, but always found her vocal ‘histrionics’ brought a funny ’sobbing like’ quality to my ears – as Sieglinde.
I agree that Stemme is a Jugendliche at best, but WHAT a Jugendliche! Reg legendary (or not) 50s-80s singers, it’s basically a question of taste. Also, I fear that most singers whose recordings I adore and whom I have never heard, alas, live, would have proven to be variable and sometimes infuriating if experienced live, like Callas, Rysanek, Jones, Moedl et al. Alternately, I often ponder that maybe people I don’t care that much about, like Nilsson, would have given me the excitement of a lifetime, live. When hearing singers at home in a laidback environment you tend to nit-pick. So Nilsson, despite the obvious resplendency, laser qualities and utter vocal ease, strikes me as not exactly musical, not singing “inside” the notes or the music. Not a question of being flat or sharp, but tracing the musical line with enough colour or gradations. I can’t really explain it, but it seems much less “musical” and intelligent than Varnay, or Moedl. Flagstad seems to be detached at times, etc etc. But, repeating what I’ve said earlier, all this is a function of home listening. Isokoski, for example, sounds on record a bit sharp and has a pronounced vibrato, but live it is a magical voice. We had to be there. Based only on recorded evidence, however, I greatly enjoy Varnay, Moedl and Behrens as a living room presence. Alive, attuned to the situation, intelligent with words and music alike, whereas Nilsson doesn’t deliver, as I’m not such a high-note fanatic. On an aside note, and interestingly enough, Nilsson and Sutherland, besides having both recorded their most substantial output for the DECCA label, have made markedly similar career decisions. Both seems to have abandoned on purpose the warmth and integration of the middle register for the sake of those gleaming high notes. Sutherland, furthermore, deliberately forsook the careful distinction between consonants in order to strengthen her top. She sounds very different in her Giulini Giovanni and the Art of the Primadonna. Likewise Nilsson, who sounds like an utterly different singer in Kliber’s live Fidelio from 1956. Much more to my liking, in fact. The middle is buch better supported and has more colour.
Regarding Gwyneth Jones, it seems to me that the verdict as to her being a giant-voiced full lyric is actually close to the mark. Her 1964 Leonora, her 1968 (is it?) Aida and her DECCA debut recital are very different from the highly problematic, if fascinating, hochdramatische of later years. So maybe the move into heavier stuff was erroneous. Still, we have her blazing Goetterdaemmerung Brunnhilde, and her generally demented Elektra. And I love her, warts and everything. So I can’t really complain, can I?
Staying with Jones, let me add that during the late 60s she was probably the best Fidelio Leonore around, Rysanek notwithstanding. And she still sounds marvellous in the Boehm recording, perhaps the most convincing interpretation of this difficult role that I have ever heard.
I never thought Behrens had the vocal power or physical presence to be a good Brunhilde. You need a powerful voice that doesn’t have to be forced for the role: Flagstad for that reason was and is unbeatable.
Flagstad was unbeatable, but she’s been dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and (according to rommie), I’m not young.
Who would be worth hearing as Brunnhilde who is still singing?
I should repeat that I’m looking forward to hearing Stemme in this role in 2010.