The student princess
Which much-recorded singer has developed her use of expressive rubato to the point that she actually “stole” a professor from a prestigious British academy by offering him a veritable fortune to resign his position and devote his time to coaching her most recent CD?
#78: Just what is the recording session story of her and Joan in Turandot? I cant recall hearing an anecdote about Dame Joan getting into it with anyone.
Caballe, Caballe, Caballe – Perhaps the most frustrating singer EVER for me. She could be the sloppiest “great soprano” or sublime beyond compare. Ultimately, for me at any rate, she fails to make the top rank of post war sopranos for the following reasons:
1) Despite her reputation as a great bel cantista, she could be incredibly imprecise in florid music, too often relied on an unsupported half-voice to make it through the demanding fiorature, and had NO trill.
2) The Verdi spinto roles have one basic requirement – a strong, flexible upper register. Caballe’s top was not the best part of her voice, and I think her Leonoras and Aidas exacted a HUGE toll on her voice so that by ‘74 what had been a seamless instrument had broken into three distinct parts. A luscious middle. A squally bottom. And a top that was raucous above mezzoforte, but sublime at ppp.
3) She sang too many different roles. I think too much emphasis is placed on versatility. In truth, I think that many singers suffer by not concentrating on their most suitable rep and singing too many different kinds of roles. The voice is not a violin or piano. Muscle memory is everything, and singing all kinds of roles under all kinds of conditions can lead to some real problems. Another negative Callas legacy.
@78 Tubsinger re: Caballe “Zeffirelli famously called her an ‘armchair soprano’.
Never was that more appropriate than in the performance of ‘Traviata’ that I saw with her and Carreras in Philadelphia. She was having some trouble with the highest note (C sharp?D flat?) in the downward arpeggios in Sempre Libera, just didn’t sing them. There was a long interval after which someone came out and announced that Madame Caballe was not feeling well, but had graciously consented to continue the performance….in an armchair placed center stage. Not her finest moment. Yes, she was erratic, unreliable, lazy, but at her best, she was without a doubt one of the great singers of the last half of the 20th century. At her best she WAS involved and acted superbly through her voice. With her fabled breath control, she could spin out and inflect a vocal line like very few, with or without consonants…lol. Did she have mannerisms? sure, most every great diva does. And no, she didn’t have a trill, but her little flutter or shake, when it was there (and it wasn’t always) didn’t always bother me. It could be very effective, if not musically, then emotionally, at a moment when the composer called for it. I’d rather have something there than nothing, and it was more effective for me than the broken record revolving emphasis(lol, sorry, I don’t know how else to describe it) that is affected by many divas, L. Price among them.
No Expert @ 77:
Stage Fright!!!!!
A couple of years ago I watched a biography of Caballe; I think it’s on DVD now. She readily admitted to faking illnesses to get out of boring situations. She recounted asking her mezzo co-star once if she wanted Caballe to faint so they could leave rehearsal early to go shopping. She “fainted”, and they went. She also talked about her passion for collecting scores and finding rare and forgotten operas. I imagine her intellectual curiosity and aversion to boredom is what lead her to sing such diverse repertory.
Choosing to not do trills, headaches, being “indisposed.” I’m learning that none of these things are new, or old, but are in fact very old. From Gatti-Casazza’s memoir:
“The indispositions, headaches, and illnesses of artists come when they will, and the director cannot halt them. In this respect the musical dilettantes can be particularly dangerous. They have their own ideas. They insist that in this best of all possible worlds the opera company should contain only the finest artists, the finest operas and the artists should always be in good health.” [p. 185, Vienna House edition, 1973]
His book was published in 1940, was almost certainly completed by 1934 (according to the introduction), and reports dealings with opera singers going back into the 1890s and 1880s. We’ve read elsewhere that Colbran’s powers were almost certainly fading by the time she met Rossini, although her voice was still agile enough to inspire him to compose some of the most astounding coloratura passages for her.
All of this is to say: I’m surprised and amused that after at least 200 years of human evolution, opera singers and their fans are still locked in a battle over the perfect technique.
Noel,
The “Turandot” recording story apparently came from Edward Greenfield being sent to report back to Gramophone on the sessions. I suppose that Montsy and Joan were considered rivals and that casting them both in Turandot was a bigger dare than casting Callas and Schwarzkopf together. Evidently, at the beginning of the first session, Caballe wove her way through the orchestral set up, through the cables and wires, holding a bouquet and then presenting it to Joan. The latter apparently cooed, “oooh, flowers for the diva!” Caballe corrected with a smile, “no, flowers from the diva.”
It was either at that recording session, or those for Norma with the Bonynges later, that Caballe poutingly objected to further takes–no perfectionist she–and was delighted when everything shut down for the day. She then whispered to Joan something about now being able to get to Harrod’s before it closed. There’s also a story somewhere I read that Joan and Montsy were together in Philadelphia in the 60s, when Caballe may have been reputed to be unwell, but still ate a bowl of pasta so large the steam from it collapsed her beehive. I don’t think there are many stories about Caballe that are truly unkind relative to the way she interacted with other singers–I know Kraus wasn’t fond of her, objecting to her throwing her arms around him during Manon, and she had some recurrent beef with Vicky D over local political issues surrounding the opera house. But, from what I read, both Joan and Marilyn Horne thought she was fun to be with. I know she and Grace Bumbry fell out at Covent Garden over the keys for “Mira, O Norma”–and, whether or not it’s true, I read that Grace then chose the same key Caballe wanted when she took over the prima role later in the run.
1) Despite her reputation as a great bel cantista, she could be incredibly imprecise in florid music, too often relied on an unsupported half-voice to make it through the demanding fiorature, and had NO trill.
Luvtennis, you are exactly right! I remember one of the critics in the glory days of High Fidelity (can’t remember whom it was: they all went by initials, such as CLO, DSH, and so on) referred to her “miniaturized coluratura.”
One of her best recordings hasn’t been mentioned: Fiordiligi in Davis’s “Cosi.” She’s in great voice, and really seems to connect with the music and the character. Unfortunately, the other five cast members are almost unlistenable: Cotrubas is completely in over her head as Despina.
Every Caballe experience I’ve had,save one, has been a bitter disillusionment, most especially the “Agnese di Hoenstaufen” in Rome, along with the “Herodiade” there with Carreras, both in 1986, I believe.
The Carnegie Hall concert of ‘79, however, was unforgettable. Such a mass of hysteria I’d never seen, nor never again have witnessed.
Lately, when I think upon the confection ary product known as “Renee Fleming” the little old rhyme ‘when she was good, she was very, VERY good, but when she was bad, she was HORRID! springs to mind.
Regrettably, that works in Caballe’s case as well.
I agree with luvtennis, above in 3) re Callas legacy. Not even Callas could do Callas that long!
The great sorrow and the pity, tho’, is it was not Caballe in no later than,say,’75 who introduced Il Pirata to the Met. Even if we would have had to submit to that jamon of a husband, Marti, it would have been worth it. Instead we got the Prom Queen screaming her head off and looking like an enticingly sumptuous wedding cake dolly.
I’ll never attend another Bellini opera @ the Met, so Help Me God! Between the Pirata screamfest, the Sonnambula Shenanigans, and that godawful Guleghina howling at the moon in Norma (a positively hallucinatory, maddening and infuriating excuse for bel canto)
JESUMARIA!
Even as early as the Bing Farewell (’72?), critics were saying that Caballe was only comfortable singing her high notes piano.
I adore the Caballe Cosi. I think her Come Scoglio is astounding. I think her Giovanna D’arco is gorgeous, though Renata Tebaldi’s live performance from the 50s is amazing. There’s the complete William Tell.
But my favorite Caballe may be the Elisabetta, Regina D’Inghilterra (Rossini), which is just a stupendous piece of singing.
On a side note, I though the Vicar of Wakefield would like to know that Opera Depot now has the following performance available
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
This all-Briton cast features the Amy Shuard as Isolde as well as Josephine Veasey, John Shirley-Quirk and Michael Langdon. Colin Davis conducts
I think Renee’s biggest problem is that she has no Serafin, no HvK, hell, she doesn’t even have a Bonynge!
I think the most gifted singers are often the ones who need the most guidance. Price could be extremely self indulgent during her later prime (’72-82), probably out of boredom and lack of self criticism, BUT listen to her performance of Leonora from Salzburg ‘78 with HvK. She is unbelievably disciplined. The line as clean as a whistle. The sloppiness wasn’t due to technical faults. . . .
Most of Renee’s mannerisms are post-Solti. Since his death, she has had no musical mentor (who wasn’t on her payroll). No one to scold when and where necessary. . . .
Leontyne tells about HvK sitting her down during the prep for those ‘78 Trovatores and telling her to cut the crap, playing excerpts from the ‘62 performances to show her how he wanted it sung. She got the message (temporarily).
Are you suggesting that Levine doesn’t tell Fleming how he wants it done?
I heard Fleming sing Lucrezia Borgia last year, I kept hearing Caballe’s rendition in my head. Only way I got through the entire performance.
Caballe at her best was stunning. And her very best was a relaxed zarzuela late morning recital in Munich in 1979 when she let her hair down and clicked the castanets. Compensation for about a year earlier when I took a train into the city from New Brunswick on a snowy evening only to find Caballe had cancelled a Carnegie Hall recital at the last minute. Arrrgh!!!
I don’t think her fainting just before intermission at the matinee Vespri was faked. She hyperventilated. I was in a side box and could see the chorus ladies catch her as she started to fall. It was a broadcast performance so of course she returned after intermission to finish the performance.
I also saw her Met debut in Faust. Boring! But oh, the joint concert with Marilyn Horne. Sublime. Now if there were only a decent video of the Aix Semiramide with Caballe and Horne to be had…
I ask in innocence. . . can someone please explain why I can’t stand Flemming’s vibrato? It’s so fast and warbly. Obviously, many people find it A-OK. Insights, please?
No one can explain that. If you’re on parterre and you think most people think Fleming is A-OK then you must be new.
Just when I think Caballe is a bit of a joke, I hear this…and, well, I am transported. It’s just so goddamn gorgeous, musical, and intimate.
Caballe’s looking slim in that clip.
88.
A friend of mine was with Caballe when that Cosi was taped. She apparently pitched up a day or two before and cancelled the first recording session as she wanted to go shopping. The night before the first session she took out her score to (re)learn the music and was telling everyone the next day how to sing the recits… LOL. I recall reading somewhere that the recording won awards?
I love the Caballe Cosi. Its only real flaw, to my ears, is the tired-sounding Gedda. He can sound almost unlistenable at times, but he doesn’t appear to fudge the coloratura in that demanding role as some others may have. I don’t mind Cotrubas as much as other posters evidently do. I don’t find Montsy and Dame Granite as mismatched as some people have. If Caballe’s triplets in Come Scoglio aren’t as cleanly articulated as Berganza’s on her recital disk (from the late 50s, I think, when she sang both of Fiordiligi’s arias completely immaculately), I think the rest of her singing is pretty sharp, given how sloppy she could be. Her biography recounts that during the sessions Cotrubas’s schedule was messed up trying to get her mother out of Roumania (or some such extramusical harangue), and Caballe pitched a fit about rescheduling who was to sing what at which session. Evidently, “Come scoglio” was recorded in one angry take.
I’ve never heard the Leinsdorf Cosi, and I see that it’s awaiting another cheap reissue. I never thought Leontyne had the chops to get through Fiordiligi without cutting corners. I’m tempted to get it because of Troyanos, whom I adore. Has anyone else heard it? I would imagine the conducting would be a little more generic than what would come in the 70s and 80s, maybe even as slow as HvK’s mono version for EMI, with Schwarzkopf and Merriman.
Tubsinger, I’ve heard bits of the Leinsdorf Cosi, and found it utterly sublime. I’m not a L Price fan, but I found her to be just gorgeous in the parts I heard. Thinking about it, they were all excerpts with the emphasis on long lines, so I don’t know how she deals with the coloratura, but I’ll most certainly be getting it as soon as I see it in the shops.
I don’t get this praise of Caballe’s Fiordiligi – as stated above, I’m a huge Caballe fan, but find her very wide of the mark in this particular recording. I’ve seen it singled out fairly often as an example of good Caballe for those who don’t tend to like her, which makes it even harder for me to understand why I don’t like it…