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.