Now, that’s how it’s done!
La Cieca proposes a new weekly competition: she provides the theme, you provide the examples. This week: “Now, that’s how it’s done!”
The concept is: if you want to know how an aria or operatic scene should be performed, look no further. Your task is to find and to properly embed a YouTube video exemplifying some operatic superlative, then append a few sentences explaining why your choice is indeed the best of the best.
La Cieca will now offer an example.
Everything about this Renata Tebaldi clip if pretty fabulous including (especially) the hair, but what really is “how it’s done” here is the expert and fearless use of chest voice. Especially impressive is the soprano’s deliberate contrast of timbre between the hard, snarling chest tone and the limpid mezza voce in the middle register. Some Giocondas are good at expressing rage, others vulnerability, but Tebaldi can modulate between the two almost instantaneously without sacrificing the quality of the voice.
So, go look for a YouTube clip of your favorite “Now, that’s how it’s done!” moment, and post it in the comments section for this posting, along with your commentary, by midnight on Sunday, June 20. The clip and comment La Cieca judges the best (and her whim is final) will receive a copy of the newly-released DVD The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991: 25th Anniversary at Lincoln Center
So, show La Cieca how it’s done!
I have 2 of those:
1. Any Mimi who needs to hear how the end of act 1 goes needs to go no further than Caballe. Those last couple of bars are perfetion, pure and simple.
2. Anyone who would like to listen how the first bars of Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine should just spend 30 seconds with this recording, done live. Gruberoba sings this very difficult phrase in one breath. She also recorded the piece commercially and I took the same 30 seconds, made it a ring tone and it is assigned to my mother and father’s cell phone.
Lindoro, I would add that the Domingo/Caballe “Boheme” is proof that the harmonized ending (“Amor, amor! Amor!”) is always preferable to a unison version. So much more musical and subtle, the blending of two voices into a sublime harmony.
How many times have we heard a soprano floating up to that high C offstage only to have the tenor bark out his competing high C at the same time and sounding more like an ambulance siren. Same goes for the end of the Act 1 Butterfly duet.
Tenors, please, unless you are Caruso or Corelli and make a true pianissimo on those – when given the option – take the harmony! We’ll still respect you in the morning. Promise.
Caruso? Corelli? Neither of those 2 could actually produce the high C pianissimo in live performance. There is a clip of caballe and Corelli doing the duet and they both yell out a high B (I think it is transposed down) that made me think someone pushed both of them out of a 5th floor window.
It is my underastanding that when Alagna did his met debut (as Rodolfo) he actually did a diminuendo on that last high C to match the soprano and that it was very impressive.
I once saw Maria Spacagna float that high C in Cincinnati. it was amazing!
I’m boringly going to bang on about Janowitz here, but her high C with Cossutta in that duet is utterly exquisite. I think she’d have made a lovely Magda, Liu or Angelica- it’s a shame she didn’t do more Puccini.
Give us a clip!
It’s not on Youtube, unforch. Her Vissi d’Arte is on there- she’s undeniably not a Tosca as far as temperament is concerned but it is gorgeous. I have a soft spot for placid Germanic singers in this aria- Della Casa and Stich-Randall both do it beautifully, much though I wouldn’t have wanted to hear them in the whole part.
These FAB clips are kicking my ass and making me very emotional–esp. Callas Amina, both Scottos, Shicoff! Bravissimi!
This is how a tenor lays claim to Orphee and transcends a goofy headdress.
Holy crap, aren’t we playing nicely together?
Look, Miss Cieca, Ma’am. Don’t this fuck all !
Agreed. Just for this once! And Babs, you shy creature, I’ve SEEN you post a YouTube video before, I’m sure of it. To remind (though I’m sure it’s not a memory problem, my little Mousetrap):
1. Ignore that useless thing on the YouTube page with the clip you want to embed on Parterre.
2. Go down to the WHiITE BOX at the bottom of the Parterre page where we submit comments. Click on “post YouTube URL” and the directions will open above the box (they’ll also stay open if you’re REPLYING to someone else’s post, when the box turns BLUE.)
3.I find it useful then to open a new window to go to YouTube, so that I don’t lose my place on Parterre.
4. Select and Copy the URL on the YouTube page with the clip you’ve chosen. Come back to Parterre. Now Paste that URL in your white or blue comments box.
5. Add a small v (see the graphic) directly after the initial http of the URL you’ve just pasted.
6. You can type comments above or below this “v’d” URL as you wish.
7. Click on Submit Comment. Success!
PS. Do what I did at first and find an old thread that no one’s paying attention to anymore and experiment until you’re fully confident that you can share your favorite clips wherever the fck you want without risk of embarrassment.
PPS. I think you said somewhere back that you’d learned how to do italics and actually did it for all to see. I still don’t know how, and would prefer italics to the shouting CAPS I’m forced to use. Please teach. If the directions are under “these HTML tags,” I’m lost because the directions are inscrutable. I tried just using “COMMAND I,” which works on my Mac, but didn’t seem to do so here.
Do Try! Would love to see more clips from you.
DonnaC:
Am copying and asting for you :
To make italics surround the chosen text with these tags:
chosen text
The “/i” tag is essential; this will close the tag and stop the italics. If this is not done, all the text which follows the first, , tag will appear italicized.
Exactly the same fr bold, except replace the “i” with a “b”.
Jeu d’enfant.
Pasting, fOr, etc.
Am very sleepy.
Chère Manou:
1. So I select (highlight) the word or phrase I want to italicize. Got that.
2. I can’t follow the rest: perhaps it’s because I don’t know what a tag is. Do you mean I type /i (no quotation marks) both directly before and after the selected word or phrase: /iselected phrase/i. And then the phrase will appear (when posted) in italics?
3. Or do I first italicize the phrase (on my Mac, “Command i”) BEFORE I put the /i as a kind of parentheses around my already italicized phrase?
4. Any clarification would be great. Then I can follow my advice to Babs and practice in an unnoticed corner of Parterre until I get it right.
Merci, Ma Somnolente Chérie. I’m taking a long break too to watch a DVD Dialogues. Va, va te coucher et fais de beaux rêves. Je veux que ma Manou soit tout à fait alerte, comme PRESQUE toujours. (Et tu garderas notre secret, n’est-ce pas?)!
pointybracket i pointybracket before the text you want to put in italics, and then pointybracket backslash i pointybracket after it.
But without spaces, and where pointybracket=<
It's really hard to explain, it turns out.
PPPS: re Direction #1: “That useless thing on the YouTube page” is beneath the clip and reads . Ignore it. Doesn’t work here and confused me no end at first. DC
I see that Manou ran into the same problem I was facing, which is that you can’t really type the instructions because they disappear when you submit. The tag to start italics is that little pointy thing above the comma, followed by the letter i, followed by the little pointy thing above the period. The tage to indicate you want italics to stop is pointy thing above the comma followed by / followed by pointy thing above the period. Your sentence will look something like this before you submit it.
My name is Donna Carlo. But when you submit it, it will be “My name is Donna Carlo.”
Well, fuck it. That didn’t turn out right. Them pointy things just don’t cooperate.
Double fuck it. Forgot to include the letter i to stop italics: pointy thing slash letter i pointy thing. Must outwit laptop.
I will substitute Percent for pointy thing above comma and ampersand for pointy thing about period.
My name %i& is %/i& Donna Carlo. That will do it.
Babs, honey. I think I got it. The pointy things ARE frustrating. I tried twice to write: “ignore that useless EMBED thing under the YouTube clip you want to post” but I surrounded the EMBED with the pointy things (as it appears on YouTube). And BOTH the word EMBED just disappeared!
So now you’ve taught me TWO THINGS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!”
You are a bargain at any price. God, I’m turning sweet. This thread has some strange contagious balm in it.
Ain’t that the bomb!
Okay – still awake (just)
http://www.austen.com/tutorial/#whatis
go there and check Italics and Bold.
Bonne nuit.
Here’s a cheat sheet for HTML tags.
Being La Cieca’s children, we all have been playing up and been naughty of late….. BAB. Look at us now!
She gave us some real activity to keep us all amused.
And this one for Rusalka wannabes. The line, the voice, everything in this is just how it is supposed to go:
And while we are talking about Lucia Popp, this should be required listening and watching for anyone wanting to sing Strauss’ 4 last Songs. I know there are many wonderful versions (how lucky we are!), but for me this takes the cake.
And also let me put in a word for Elisabeth Parcel’s Vorrei Spiagarvi oh Dio. The only one in my book that can rival Sills. If you are wanting to learn this piece, this is how it is done:
Luckily when we look at Lucia Popp, she had a big recording career with an extensive repertoire. What I find remarkable is the fact, I cannot remember anything she recorded where a listener could take exception to. She turned in ‘best performance’, time and time again.
Wonderful posts, all.
I’m torn between two Rossini gems.
I think Valentini -Terrani nailed this -- Merrit is fine, but she’s terrific.
But then there is the reason I fell in love with Armida in the first place. Too bad Callas didn’t have these guys -- (or too bad they didn’t have her)
This is just a test… Italics
Hurrah Sanford!
I’m bookmarking your link.
We’ve got to stop cooperating like this!
Testing two: Italics
Oh how I hate doing this out loud. If it doesn’t work, I’ll experiment silently on a forgotten thread.
It worked! Babs, brilliant Babs. Your % and & idea was outstanding!
I am going to get fired after today, I just know it; but I can’t help myself on this thread.
Back in 1986, in Long Beach, I saw a “Don Carlo” with Siepi, Hines, Stillwell, and Dennis O’Neill; a Chris Alden production. One of the most incredible nights in the theater. You could hear a pin drop during Siepi’s “Ella giammai m’amo” and I pinched my leg at the end of the Inquisitor scene and quartet, so that I would never forget what I had just heard.
Some pics of that production to be found here:
http://www.longbeachopera.org/gallery/repertoire/1986_Don_Carlo/179
Anyway, I can’t find clip of that, but instead, as a paltry substitute, here is Siepi singing Luther’s hymn in Les Huguenots:
And here he is, singing Cole Porter’s “Still of the Night.” Jeepers creepers @ 2:05
I forgot my notes for the Siepi Cole Porter. It’s like a roller coaster, not for extreme high to low notes, but for the setup and how he paces it: just when you think he’s wrapping things up, around the half way mark, he lets loose all over again, at full speed and full power. Like when you think the roller coaster ride is all over, and then, wait, no, there’s another hill and here we go again…. wheeeee! That’s accelerando – if not in actual tempo, then in effect.
And then he ends it for real with a gradual slowing down, gently putting on the brakes, and quieting down. We haven’t heard from a bass like this in how long?
That’s how you do a diminuendo and decelerando.
Perfect version of one of Porter’s loveliest songs.
I’d like to contribute two clips, both of which show singers using virtuosic coloratura as a tool of characterization.
Mireille Delunsch is able to turn her Krazy Koloratura™ into the cackling laughter of a madwoman:
And Diana Damrau makes the QotN an actual character who shrieks in murderous rage, instead of a random wee woman who conveys no emotion through her body and maintains a “don’tfuckuptheFdon’tfuckuptheFdon’tfuckuptheFdon’tfuckuptheF” look on her face throughout the entire aria:
That one gives me goosebumps every time I watch it to this day. Now, that’s how it’s motherfucking done.
Cieca, ma’am, for posts that will be youtube heavy, can you somehow reduce the size of one page? Computers work hard, and many times can’t handle so many adobe flashes. I don’t know if you can do it, but maybe have one page with no more than… let’s say 10 youtube clips? Would you try, pretty please?
Mille grazie Signora.