“Nor women’s matters, but with awl”
“Not unlike Calisto and Linfea, two of the nymphs in Cavalli’s 1651 opera La Calisto who inhabit the Arcadia under the spell of the goddess Diana, we meet at river banks, so to speak, and feed each other’s adoration for the Huntress.” Bloggress Lydia Perovi? discusses the “Otter effect” on “relatively reasonable” gay women at The Awl.
Wonderful piece! I particularly appreciated her pointing out that Von Otter has a hard time portraying “weak” feminine characters and it makes me revisit my thoughts on Diva/Divo. I originally thought the work was an interesting meditation on mezzos as operatic gender benders. But our reading of gender bending in mezzos always assumes that the fem parts are “natural” for singers and the male roles are “harder” require more transformation etc. Definitely the case for JDD, the female roles had a natural femininity and the male roles (when she was able to do it) a more affected male-ness. But I love the idea of a bio-female having a more affected female voice and feeling “natural” within trouser roles. It shows that the supposedly “natural” femininity of mezzos like Verrett or JDD is actually “learned” from society and has little to do with nature. “The voice” this sort of weird, disembodied entity within the singer, is so often characterized as a natural, biological product, “a gift” as they say. And so when we read gender onto “the voice” it serves to shore up rigid “natural” barriers between the sexes. This may explain why despite the large number of gay men and women within the opera audience the operatic world is extremely conservative when it comes to gender performance. Von Otter, perhaps, does work to unpack the connection between the “natural,” “the voice” and gender roles. Brava Awl!!!
Born on this date in 1912, contralto Kathleen Ferrier
Now, there’s a singer I have never ‘got’. She was clearly a very likeable woman, and her personal story is very tragic and moving, but she has always sounded like a moderately gifted amateur to me -- with a narrow, peaky voice and limited linguistic skills. Am I alone in this? Please don’t shoot me down if you feel I am blaspheming (and at Easter too).
OFF TOPIC: LaCieca, could you please add the Nebs/Mariusz Don Pasquale dvd to the oh0so-elegant Parterre Store, so that we may place our pre-orders? The ASIN number is: B004QQDUZ6
Thanks very much!
Well, reactions to voices are personal of course, but I do think ‘narrow’ is an odd word to use in describing such a rich voice.
I think any ‘moderately gifted amateur’ would be pushed to come up with anything as devastating as the Ferrier/Patzak/Walter ‘Das Lied’.
That’s the funny thing, I don’t find her voice very rich at all, but sort of flat and hollow -- and asexual. I find it hard to put into words. if I hear Ernestine Schumann-Heink, or even Clara Butt, I can see much better what all the fuss is about.
Speaking of whom:
If Schumann-Heink sang Fides as well as they say she did, she was a dramatic soprano with an extended range. Another favorite of mine, I find biographical writeups of Schumann-Heink very interesting reading.
-- OT, but on the subject of Butts, that Rossini Siege of Corinth currently being broadcast on NPR Public Radio USA is well worth several listens in my humble opinion. Majella’s Cullagh may not be as grande as I would like it to be, but her voice is richer textured than most (but not all) of the Pamyra’s I’ve heard before.
Monty, Kathleen’s pointed, pencilsketched clearly defined phrasing was exemplary compared to the traditonal overstuffed grand oratorio matrons such as those mocked in the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas (Ruth, Katisha, Buttercup, etc.). I even remember seeing excellent singers (such as Monica Sinclair) who were still emulating the overpuffed vocal histronics of the grand dogmatic oratorio style.
-- There was none of that blowsiness around the edges of Ferrier’s tone. I was amazed when I first heard her because I could tell how the music actually was written. Her recordings are now old & not sonically competitive, but the style that she intiated or revived in the 20th century has become a standard in this epoch.
I find the Ferrier voice rich and beautiful and her performances very polished and properly internalised, hence very moving if you’re in a susceptible mood.
I don’t know how big it was- it does surprise me that she didn’t do the Wagner one might have expected, but then she obviously didn’t have a long career, sadly.
Clara Butt is one voice I can’t really understand through the ancient fuzzy recordings. Schumann-Heink I can, but she had quite a bit more up top didn’t she, which allowed her to take on what we now call mezzo roles.
The first time I got Ferrier was when I was listening to her Kindertotenlieder on my discman (remember those?) while walking down the street. The singing was so intensely moving that I had to stop and sit down somewhere, anywhere! I couldn’t just keep walking down the sidewalk.
I have often walked down this street before but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
You mean, you weren’t whistling along to “Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen” as you strolled along?
A moderately gifted singer -for a start- does not have a voice that is a straight supported column of air with no trace of bulges throughout its entire range. Kathleen Ferrier was a model of having all those vocal attributes. I have yet to hear a singer do the big second half of Mahler’s Song of the Earth or his Kindertotenlieder as well as she did. Her collection of English Folk Songs, she sang simply and not at you..BUT to you. Magic! O,K her recordings are not in the HI Fi league, but would be willing to listen to anything she did.
Other singers I place in that esteemed realm would be the likes of Flagstad and Lorraine Hunt etc..
All were true communicators…the art of great singers. Artistry with a capital A
I will go one step further. I find the jet setting Gheorghiu and Netrenko leave me cold whenever they touch the Italian School for instance . Dearest Angela willfully pushes and pulls music all over the place to suit herself. While I cannot get around Nebtrenko’s Slavic technique and hitting notes as if it is ‘because they just happen to be in the Score’. Both, I consider are but ‘today’s stop-gaps’ till some better singers come along. I find it a creeping monotony.
Do I want to hear Nebtrenko as Mimi when I can listen to de Los Angeles, Freni, Scotto or a whole host of others…….never! As Lucia,…forget it! I want to hear true and feeling individuality from singers that have the full arsenal on hand , ready to use their natural nous and ability in the instinstive blink of the eye. Now laughably they seem to want to make Nebtrenko a Bel Canto queen!!!
No different to ‘Debbie doing Wagner’ I have always nicknamed her voice ‘Swiss cheese’. . I am waiting for the reports later, moreover -- attempting to do Siegfried and especially Gotterdammerung. Too often the fact is, that singers and others like her somehow actually ‘make it through to curtain call’ is the great wonderful surprise and main talking point. Opera ….today!
. . . and Happy 76th Birthday Fiorenza Cossotto
It’s a very special day for the lower-voiced ladies!
A dramatic soprano with a fantiastically fulltone & vocal range in her prime! So many wonderful memories of her come flooding back, particularly beloved for me was her Amneris & her Dalila.
What a glorious “Fernando”. She was my first Amneris and Dalila. And this is thrilling too:
Sorry for OT thread highjack. Here are a few video clips of Opera ATelier’s production of La Clemenza di Tito with Measha Brueggergosman as Vitellia and Michael Maniaci as Sesto.
http://www.torontowide.com/
I think this could be a truly great role for Measha B. She has the low notes which ellude so many other Vitellias but can still nail the high notes. And dramatically, she is very inspired. Also, hearing male soprano Michael Maniaci sing Sesto instead of mezzo is really special. The tenor Kresimir Spicer is a wonderful Tito (though he’s not in these clips).
After Measha’s success as Jenny in Madrid last September, I hope that the Met will consider her for the 2013-2014 revival of Mahagonny.
Turra, will the Liceu ever put that Jenny Measha did out on DVD? What I saw/heard of that was wonderful!
phoenix -- it was actually the Teator Real, instead of the Liceu. The prima (which I attended) was transmitted to several movie theaters in Spain and the UK (adnd possibly other countries). So the ingredients for a DVD are certainly there.
Teatro
Thanks Turra!
Kashania, thanks so much. Brueggergosman has been sounding dodgy of late but I agree she sounds terrific here. Manaici is a taste I haven’t acquired I’m afraid, although I’m not against a male Sesto per se- the Ukranian who got to the final of Cardiff two years ago did a stunning ‘Parto, Parto’. I’m particularly struck by the Servilia in these clips, utterly enchanting both vocally and physically.
And, if we’re talking physically, may I be crude for a second? Publio: would.
If Publio is the gentleman in the fetching blue frock coat: agreed.
Is it just me or has Measha Brueggergeorgeoegaosgsonsan been ‘on the cusp’ for like five years? Am I imagining that?
ianw2, on a site like this you might be imaging that, but I can verify that you definitely are not imagining that.
Yes, Curtis Sullivan (Publio) has even appeared on barihunks. Measha has concentrated her career mostly on recitals and concerts but she has increased her operatic activity in the last few years. What may surprise people is that, despite her infrequent operatic appearances, she is a fabulous stage performer and is able to blend her singing and acting seamlessly. I think she’s going to be a sensation as Vitellia.
AJ: I can see that Maniaci might be an acquired taste since his voice is so unusual but believe, his “Deh per questo” is just divine.
The Servillia is a young soprano names Mireille Asselin. Let me tell you that she’s going places!
I wish I could come see this production. I adore Clemenza. It’s like an early bel canto opera.
I also like Clemenza. The music is beautiful and The opera seria formality adds a level of ‘Verfremdung’ that means I don’t have to keep trying to see how wonderfully insightful and compassionate Mozart is. And Vitellia is such a manipulative bitch -- the Alexis Colby of Ancient Rome.
OT…BUT…
NYT REVIEW of The Met’s “Trov”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/arts/music/sondra-radvanovsky-in-il-trovatore-at-the-met-review.html?scp=5&sq=MET%20OPERA&st=cse
..looks like I’ll have to rent “Night at the Opera”, instead…
I told them so. Rad was younger & fresher and likewas was her Leonora. Zajick, no matter what numerals they put up on the web, is around my age and she sounds like it.
If she can’t get through the lyric parts of Tosca nowadays with any distinction, how do they expect Rad to pull off the Trovatore Leonora anywhere’s near as well as she did a decade ago? But like let’s hope she has a ‘revival’ when we turn on the radio.
I wonder what Anthony Tommasini would have said?
Serious question. Has ZW positively reviewed any Met leading lady/diva?
And yes, I understand he criticized most aspects of the production. But, I still wonder about the diva issue.
A whole lot of nothing!
I don’t know. Saying positive as well as critical things doesn’t seem nothing to me. Is it illegal to be positive?
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not about being positive or negative. But most of Tomassini’s opera reviews are full of generic compliments that don’t go beyond the surface and show no real point of view.
This is especially true when it’s a revival of a warhorse. Unless something truly remarkable happens in a performance, Tomassini’s reviews are predictably the same from one production to the next. He could write a review without seeing the performance and it wouldn’t be much different than the one he’d write if he attended.
Interesting. Okay, I get it. I haven’t thought that. I’ve always found something interesting in a review he’s written of a performance I’ve seen. Sometimes he’s pointed something out that’s made me think a bit about what I saw. So I haven’t felt like you have.
““Sondra Ravanovsky’s supple phrasing conveyed the yearning of her Leonora. Still, her sound has a hard-edged quality that is either earthy and emotional or grainy and pinched, depending on your take. I lean slightly toward the grainy.
Marcelo Alvarez, while no longer as strapping as he was even 3 years ago, has a real tenor voice, full of throbbing warmth and ping. If his singing is sometimes gruff, it goes with his impetuous conception of the character.
Mr. Hvorostovsky may not be a classic Verdi baritone, but this distinctive artist once again makes a Verdi role his own, singing with an alluring combination of dusky colors, creamy legato and a hint of robust top notes.
Ms. Zajick, a force of nature, sings Azucena with demonic ferocity, a woman obsessed. Yet just as there is intelligence in her singing, there is willfulness in her portrayal. She sees Manrico both as the son she has raised as her own and as a tool … of vengeance.”
-adapted from Tommasini’s review of Trovatore, published Feb 17, 2009
Bravo, CruzSF. That is exactly what I’m talking about.
Amazing, isn’t it? He can give a good review to someone you like, and you still end up thinking he’s incompetent.
See, I don’t think AT is incompetent at all. If fact, he can be a very intelligent writer and knows his music. But he’s at his weakest as an opera reviewer. He lacks real insight, relies on too limited a vocabulary and mostly phones it in. To be fair, he probably suffers from having sat through a lot of mediocre performances at the Met and from overfamiliarity to people like us who’ve read one too many review of his. But that’s the challenge of anyone occupying his position.
Certainly, when Anne Midgette moved to DC, she seemed acquire a new lease on life and has been a far more interesting writer than she was at the NYT.
kashania, I agree with you that AT isn’t incompetent — in terms of his musical knowledge. When he writes of music in general, and at length, he can be more interesting. He’s certainly got the knowledge in his head. But I think he often falls down in the review length article, especially when it comes to opera, due to an frequent reliance on several stock phrases.
I’m afraid I didn’t follow Midgette when she wrote for the NYT, but I’ve liked most of what I’ve read by her in the WA Post.
I find AT’s opinion generally is closer to the majority of the public than ZW’s. Does that make AT worse?
Woolfe has a sharply defined point of view that he isn’t afraid to articulate decisively. Tommasini is straining very hard to be “balanced” at the expense of really defining what he heard. He also has a limited number of adjectives for describing voices and they don’t really fit everybody. Is Radvanovsky’s voice really “earthy”? Would “grainy” really apply either? Earthy is a rich warm quality, mellow. Grainy is a dull, buzzy sound. I wouldn’t describe Radvanovsky’s tense, sharply focused, over-vibrant, edgy sound as either grainy or earthy. What is a “hint of robust top tones” -- how can a robust high note be hinted at? It is robust and there or feinted. Which did Dima do? Again Tony Tom uses a lot of words to tell us nothing.
Woolfe may piss people off (especially those who feel protective of their pet divas) but he has a well-defined point of view and gives you a firm idea (with precise examples and descriptions) of what he heard.
What is a “hint of robust top tones” – how can a robust high note be hinted at? It is robust and there or feinted. Which did Dima do? Again Tony Tom uses a lot of words to tell us nothing.
(quoting Gualtier M. above because I don’t know where this will appear)
Tommasini never said “a hint of”! I suspect Cruz slyly “adapted” that part from a wine review.
m.p. arazza is correct. The “adapted” is meant to be taken seriously.
I added “a hint of” and a few other phrases to reflect the passage of 3 years since AT’s review appeared. I think the gist of it still stands — most of my excerpt can be found verbatim in the original review — but I certainly did adapt parts of it, which I admitted.
I liked the down-to-eart way ZW wrote that review, but it’s definitely pitched at the opera aficionado rather than someone with a more general interest in the arts.
I’ve been reading these things for years. I believe Z. Woolfe is telling the truth according to his most actute observations and I really appreciate that very much. He prepares me for reality rather than unfulfilled expectations.
-- As far as Antoinette T. goes, I don’t know what he means or why he writing it. It seems like he just got a bunch of emails from singer’s publicists & edited them all together.
grammar correction above: acute observations, not actute observations