For the moment, I’ve decided its Leonora is my favorite Verdi heroine and am always most drawn to her memorably soaring moments: in “Tacea la notte”; at the climax of the Convent Scene; the conclusion of the trio with Manrico and Azucena in the final scene.

But most of all I’ve become mesmerized by a short recitative in the first scene of the fourth act after Ruiz leaves. Before she begins “D’amor sull’ali rosee,” Leonora sings:

Timor di me?
Sicura, presta è la mia difesa.
In quest’oscura notte ravvolta,
Presso a te son io,
Et tu nol sai!
Gemente aura, che intorno spiri,
Deh, pietosa gli areca i miei sospiri.

[Fear for me?
Sure and ready is my protection.
Shrouded in this dark night,
I’m near you,
and you don’t know it!
Moaning wind, you who blow here,
Ah, mercifully take my sighs to him.]

In just ninety or so seconds, Verdi gives us a haunting portrait of Leonora: her fearless, fatal resolve to save Manrico caused by her desperate, all-consuming love for him. After she descends into chest, these lines culminate in a magnificent phrase that rises to a (sometimes but not always) dolce high b-flat.

During my “Timor” mission, I collected more than sixty “live, in-performance” sopranos performing this passage, many of whom I’m sharing today. Trovatore experts will notice that I’ve purposely omitted sopranos familiar from complete commercial recordings of the opera: therefore, no Milanov, Mancini, Callas, Tucci, Price, Stella, Sutherland, Kabaivanska, Plowright, Millo, Ricciarelli, Banaudi, etc.

To facilitate listening, I’ve divided the collection into five (perhaps?) easily digestible groups, beginning with the fleeting return of the Vocal-ID quiz that mixes readily identifiable voices with more challenging ones.

Then, there are ten starry sopranos followed by two groups of “gone and perhaps forgotten” sopranos, some who may be familiar, others who might only be dimly recollected as a name glimpsed a few times in old issues of Opera News. Finally, you’ll find eight still-active sopranos, including upcoming Met Leonoras Rachel Willis-Sørensen and Angela Meade.

1. Guess that Soprano

Your task here is to identify the ten samples drawn from the sixteen sopranos listed below.

Lucine Amara
Maria Chiara
Elizabeth Connell
Michele Crider
Cristina Deutekom
Ghena Dimitrova
Angeles Gulin
Rita Hunter
Jennifer Rowley
Eva Marton
Lotte Rysanek
Sylvia Sass
Elena Souliotis
Cheryl Studer
Astrid Varnay
Mara Zampieri

Answers:

1. Cheryl Studer
2. Ghena Dimitrova
3. Rita Hunter
4. Sylvia Sass
5. Michele Crider
6. Elizabeth Connell
7. Lucine Amara
8. Astrid Varnay
9. Lotte Rysanek
10. Leona Mitchell

2. The Star System

1. Martina Arroyo
2. Grace Bumbry
3. Montserrat Caballé
4. Anja Harteros
5. Gwyneth Jones
6. Anna Netrebko
7. Sondra Radvanovsky
8. Renata Scotto
9. Anna Tomowa-Sintow
10. Julia Varady

3. Remember? Darling!

First Group

1. Horiana Branistenau
2. Marcella De Osma
3. Seta Del Grande
4. Susan Dunn
5. Galina Gorchakova
6. Ljilijana Molnar-Talajic
7. Silvia Mosca

Second Group

1. Maria Parazzini
2. Françoise Pollet
3. Orianna Santunione
4. Lynne Strow Piccolo
5. Sharon Sweet
6. Ilona Tokody
7. Amber Wagner
8. Felicia Weathers

4. Now and in the Future

1. Maria Agresta
2. Angel Blue
3. Saioa Hernandez
4. Angela Meade
5. Anna Pirozzi
6. Maria José Siri
7. Krassimira Stoyanova
8. Rachel Willis-Sørensen

Quiz deadline is October 21st at midnight EDT.

Let me know your thoughts on these wildly varying examples of Verdi singing. The best? Your favorite? Pure filth?

Be warned that sound quality will vary considerably from clip to clip.

Each of the five groups here can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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