parterre box

78 comments

• CruzSF says:

  maven: Could you remind us what happened to Brewer last spring? I missed this news. Thanks.

  on October 15, 2009 at 12:47 PM
• Clita del Toro says:

  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.

  on October 15, 2009 at 1:57 PM
• La marquise de Merteuil says:

  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.

  on October 15, 2009 at 1:58 PM
• Cocky Kurwenal says:

  Marquise – love it!

  on October 15, 2009 at 2:08 PM
• Will says:

  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.

  on October 15, 2009 at 2:09 PM
• Jay says:

  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.

  on October 15, 2009 at 2:11 PM
• Often admonished says:

  “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.

  on October 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM
• Harry says:

  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.

  on October 15, 2009 at 2:56 PM
• Gualtier M says:

  Vicar, how could you forget Edmund Barham, John Treleaven and the superb David Rendall. In the tradition of Walter Widdop and Tudor Davies, all.

  on October 15, 2009 at 2:57 PM
• Krunoslav says:

  Hey, Walter Widdop was a very good singer!

  on October 15, 2009 at 3:03 PM