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!
How to sing with cojones!
Or these -- on how to sell your aria no matter what/how to bring opera to the masses, lol -
Oops, I forgot my explanatory appendage! The second part is a joke, of course. So, as for Stratas’ performance: Great opera is great theater, it is about real flesh and blood, no matter the context. Stratas did all the suffering to master this music so she could use it for deep and specific communication. The screaming, and then the gorgeous refrain about the bird- it all takes such guts as a singer and actress. Sometimes it’s sublime, sometimes hideous – but always truthful. Here we really experience someone else’s heart and psyche through music, not just something beautiful, though pure beauty is wonderful, and though the beautiful, functional voice is always prerequisite…
. . . and the third part was pure Zen.
Heehee, yes, obviously. Sorry to be unclear, I meant “second part” to encompass the last two… Heehee…
Holy fuck, I had forgotten about this scene from Ghosts. Yeah, Teresa milked every drop of blood, sweat, and tears out of this one. Unbelievable.
And speaking of Dementia…
My first love — Fritz
I don’t presume to be able to do this voice justice with my casual knowledge of opera and limited writing skills. I just know that I hear a perfect timbre and amazing legato with so much tenderness, mixed in with the right amount of heft that makes for a beautiful Mozartian performance.
and thanks to that picture of JG, I am going to watch clips of Donnie Darko.
In a perfect world Jussi would have not died so young and Fritz would have carried on Jussi’s legacy for many years. Two immortals! Thank you.
Tim
This is how to sing in French i.e. with absolute charm, lovely voice, and total ability to communicate in the French language.
Maggie Teyte sings IL N’EST PAS BEAU from LA PERICHOLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mx15qEDkU I give up. . .I have tried three different ways to embed the YouTubes. sorry all.
operacat: Babs got similarly frustrated. Have you had a chance to try out the steps in my reply at 34.1 on this thread?
The most important thing is to completely ignore the EMBED button beneath each YouTube clip. It threw me into confusion at first. It’s Cieca’s instructions, of course, that take immense precedence.
Perfect voice. Perfect presentation. Gorgeous gown.
Here is my contribution -- before she went off in very much her own unique direction, Dame Gwyneth really was the most wonderful exemplar of ‘How it’s done’ in Verdi in particular.
Who cares if I get disqualified from the contest for submitting too much stuff… I’m just excited to be able to share all my finds with everybody!!
I’ve divided some of my favorites up into little sub-catagories…
The first two are just incredible scenes were everything ‘works’:
Two titanesses going at it. The ferocity of Jones is almost palpable. And watch Rysanek after she receives the news of Orestes’ death. It’s like in her joy she momentarily forgot that her daughter was still there and then, being recalled back to reality, advances, slowly, menacingly, towards her. It reminds me of those horror films where the insane maniac never runs after his intended victims, but always maintains the same slow, steady, inexorable pace! Then the unbridled mania before she sweeps from the scene. Incredible!
I love this even if just for the last two minutes. Both voices ring out thrillingly and it reminds me of how glorious Gorchakova could be in her prime. I especially love the shot of Gergiev absolutely WORKING that spectacular Met orchestra for everything they GOT in the final bars at scenes end.
These next are just musical and dramatic perfection by a single performer, if you ask me. Dramatically, musically… everything is ‘there’:
A true singing actress, and legend. Look at the nuances in this performances. Someone said that Martha Modl could be gripping reading the phone book and I fully agree. She lives every minute of this role and makes this scene a rather gripping monodrama in and of itself.
Talk about commanding the stage. Every inch and every second a queen. I love the response she gets from the rapt La Scala audience at the end of the area
This last group I love just for vocal reasons alone:
It’s the stuff of legend and now, thanks to ‘Youtube’, it’s preserved for us all to enjoy- a high B held triple forte for an incredible 16 seconds.
Stunning, soaring vocalism.
Talk about visceral power. She throws out the high A, B, and C sharp like they were nothing.
Forgive me, those of you who hate her… but I think this is gorgeous. The voice just blooms at the top and everything- the pathos, the diminuendo are just ‘there’!
I really like all your selections, and I’m especially pleased somebody else has posted some Gwyneth – in truth, I prefer her later work, but only had the courage to post some 1960s Verdi, given that we’re meant to be showing shining examples (and so many people consider Gwyneth’s later work a bad example).
Who are the singers performing the German language work that lasts 7:40? Stunning, but completely unfamiliar to me. She has a strong resemblance to Pat Butcher, if that means anything to you…
Thanks, Cocky! I’m glad you liked them!!!
I know what you mean about the Jones posting… but I wanted to include it for the visceral impact and the intensity of the scene- ‘opera as performance’, kind of thing. Surely it has been sung better (cf. my Grob Prandl posting) but it terms of the scene having more thrill or sheer impact, surely THAT is ‘how it’s done!!
The selection that’s unfamiliar to you is a German rendition of the Raoul/Valentine duet from ‘Les Huguenots’, performed here by Richard Leech and Pilar Lorengar (channeling Pat Butcher… spot-on observation, BTW!!!)
You mean that much-loved singer Patricia Carnicero, who frequently appears alongside the still more loved Barbara Escorial, la regina rubia del sapon ingles.
Sorry, that should be jabon, not sapon.
… and reina, not regina. I will give up trying to be witty in Spanish — too far down my list of foreign languages.
Until today, Gertrude Grob Prandl was just a name I had seen pop up occasionally. But after that Elektra clip. WOA!!!
You mean you didn’t take any of my tips to listen to her??!?!?!?!
I am really hurt Kashania.
I must have forgotten to write it down (;)) but believe me, she has my attention now. Any particular recording you’d like to recommend?
There is a live Walkure from Geneva that is available. It is utterly stunning. Even better is a Tristan – not the one with De Sabata (horrible sound) – from ’56 I think. She is unbelievable.
The easiest way to post videos is:
go the video on youtube.
copy the URL from the address bar
Paste in the reply box on Parterre
insert v after http
Thank you Sanford.
I am sorry to be so dumb, but you made it very easy.
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Beautiful legato, lovely pianissimo
http://wwwv.youtube.com/watch?v=SW8yoX381_w
Most beautiful Leonora
I am trying again.