Great Opera Singers You Just Don't Care For

[Beppe]

I will name a few. They are okay and I do have some operas with them in it, but generally if there is a choice, I will get a different set.

So I am not excited about Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, or Luciano Pavarotti.

[Richard Tarleton]

I will name a few. They are okay and I do have some operas with them in it, but generally if there is a choice, I will get a different set.

So I am not excited about Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, or Luciano Pavarotti.

Hi Beppe. A shock to see some of these old threads resuscitated for another walk round the paddock - I was about to reply to a couple when I realised I already had, 5 years ago

If there's one thing threads like this teach us, it's that one person's meat is another person's poison, when it comes to singers. No two people hear or experience the same voice in the same way, our aural equipment is unique to us (just as two people standing side by side will see the same landscape in different ways, selecting different aspects of it according to their own life, experience, knowledge, colour sense - see George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty). Look no further than, for example, English tenors.

My first thought is that all of them, starting with the three you mention, were living breathing singers and performers, to be seen and heard live on stage, not just frozen in time on recordings, often (in the case of the great voices of the past) of variable quality. I'm too young to have heard Callas in her prime, though I did see the other two, together, in Lucia, and it was probably the most thrilling night at the opera of my life. To my ear Callas has a sort of gargle in her voice with appears at certain moments, which I find unpleasant, I have a collection of her greatest can belto arias spread across several LPs and that's it. But that is to miss the point, she was one of the great performers in her chosen field, thrilling to behold, so we are told. I adore Sutherland's voice whilst being fully aware of the "mushy diction" issues, she was no actress but that hardly mattered. My favourite voice from the Callas era is, rather, Renata Tebaldi - I have several of her recordings, just as I have lots of Sutherland. But you can't really compare them, for a start they tended to sing different things.

[kernelbogey]

If there's one thing threads like this teach us, it's that one person's meat is another person's poison, when it comes to singers....

My first thought is that all of them, starting with the three you mention, were living breathing singers and performers, to be seen and heard live on stage.....

[Darkbloom]

Hi Beppe. A shock to see some of these old threads resuscitated for another walk round the paddock - I was about to reply to a couple when I realised I already had, 5 years ago

If there's one thing threads like this teach us, it's that one person's meat is another person's poison, when it comes to singers. No two people hear or experience the same voice in the same way, our aural equipment is unique to us (just as two people standing side by side will see the same landscape in different ways, selecting different aspects of it according to their own life, experience, knowledge, colour sense - see George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty). Look no further than, for example, English tenors.

My first thought is that all of them, starting with the three you mention, were living breathing singers and performers, to be seen and heard live on stage, not just frozen in time on recordings, often (in the case of the great voices of the past) of variable quality. I'm too young to have heard Callas in her prime, though I did see the other two, together, in Lucia, and it was probably the most thrilling night at the opera of my life. To my ear Callas has a sort of gargle in her voice with appears at certain moments, which I find unpleasant, I have a collection of her greatest can belto arias spread across several LPs and that's it. But that is to miss the point, she was one of the great performers in her chosen field, thrilling to behold, so we are told. I adore Sutherland's voice whilst being fully aware of the "mushy diction" issues, she was no actress but that hardly mattered. My favourite voice from the Callas era is, rather, Renata Tebaldi - I have several of her recordings, just as I have lots of Sutherland. But you can't really compare them, for a start they tended to sing different things.

Callas falls into that category of singers who are great but aren't for everyone. There are lots of singers like that (Hotter, Vickers, Christoff, just off the top of my head) where you either get it or you don't, and if you don't it isn't worthwhile fretting too much over it because there are lots of other singers out there to enjoy. I usually only listen to Callas when she's with Tito Gobbi, who's another great singer that doesn't appeal to everyone.

But I do think that sometimes showbiz gets in the way of judgement and a critical consensus can build around certain singers to the point where any less-than-adulatory comment is seen as perverse and wilfully contrarian (the plaudits directed towards a certain Welsh baritone come to mind). I remember the fuss created over Jonathan Lemalu a few years back. He was the kind of decent singer you'd hear at the Coli, but no star, yet critics fell over themselves to praise him for a while.

[pastoralguy]

I knew someone who had seen Callas on many occasions and his opinion was that you had to SEE her acting as well as singing to appreciate her phenomenon. He felt she was unique and he'd never seen or heard better.

[cloughie]

I knew someone who had seen Callas on many occasions and his opinion was that you had to SEE her acting as well as singing to appreciate her phenomenon. He felt she was unique and he'd never seen or heard better.

Callas probably top of many a list - voice quality and tuning not always spot on! I’m not over-keen on Opera in general so I have not studied individual singers in depth but in general I like little vibrato, clear diction and not too much sign of strain on the voice. I know from personal experience, not as an opera singer more of a bathroom baritenor that the top end of my range does not always sound pleasant, but I don’t want to pay out money to listen to someone who sounds similar!

[Darkbloom]

Probably the closest we get to a contemporary Callas (loosely) would be someone like Waltraud Meier. Vocally she's OK, but it's unfair to judge her until you've seen her on stage.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I know from personal experience, not as an opera singer more of a bathroom baritenor that the top end of my range does not always sound pleasant, but I don’t want to pay out money to listen to someone who sounds similar!

Oh, yes - there's a huge difference between plughole and lughole.

I adore Callas' voice (from the 1950s recordings at any rate) without ever being able to say why; so many aspects of the timbre are what would normally repel me ... but somehow, I just find it utterly captivating and astonishingly beautiful in its frequent "uglinesses".

[Serial_Apologist]

Callas probably top of many a list - voice quality and tuning not always spot on! I’m not over-keen on Opera in general so I have not studied individual singers in depth but in general I like little vibrato, clear diction and not too much sign of strain on the voice. I know from personal experience, not as an opera singer more of a bathroom baritenor that the top end of my range does not always sound pleasant, but I don’t want to pay out money to listen to someone who sounds similar!

I'm pretty much at one with you on that, cloughie - not especially fond of classical music singing in general especially with too much vibrato. The other night I was listening to a soprano whose vibrato was so wide, probably encompassing three full tones! that it was impossible to say she was in tune! Swinging the lead seems an appropriate metaphor!!! Vibrato, to me, makes little sense in modern operas, song cycles and choral works, unless serving retrospective purposes, and is as odd as the appearance of a couple in 19th century attire in a Mies van de Rohe house; I have to say I found Frank Zappa's use of jazz, blues and rock singers liberatory, with their more "natural" vocal delivery, and it surprises me that few 20th and 21st century composers have broken with the past in this respect, or only part-broken, eg Cathy Berberian. Trained opera singers trying to sing jazz or Soul music, on the other hand, never sound right to me: I guess their vocal chords have been too well trained in another direction, in another field rather like long-distance runners who've lost the ability to sprint, or something.....

[Conchis]

Schwarzkopf. I hate her voice. She is a liability to every recording she appears on.

[Serial_Apologist]

Schwarzkopf. I hate her voice. She is a liability to every recording she appears on.

Ah yes: Lizzie Blackhead!

[Lat-Literal]

I will name a few. They are okay and I do have some operas with them in it, but generally if there is a choice, I will get a different set.

So I am not excited about Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, or Luciano Pavarotti.

I don't go along with the anti-Callas and think it is modish.

Also like Pavarotti and Sutherland,

[Beppe]

Schwarzkopf. I hate her voice. She is a liability to every recording she appears on.

I have not been too excited about Schwarzkopf but when it comes to Lehar's operetta, Das Land des Lächelns, hers is the best.

[Beppe]

Well, the reason I started this thread is that I got tired of so many recommendations that I get the Callas set etc (on some other site), so thinking that here I have not seen that, and so maybe I could find some common ground, that perhaps there are others who are not enamoured of these singers. But looking back at it, the way it is worded does seem more of a "what opera singers do you hate" type thread. But as a recent example, I was told that for Bellini's Norma, i have to get the Callas recording and a specific one, and that sound quality doesn't matter because it is such a great performance. It's like no other recording mattered. I said that the Caballe recording I have of Norma is quite good, but was told that Caballe herself said that Callas is better. Well, I guess that is fine, but I don't care. I am happy with Caballe. Something about Callas' voice is annoying to me. At first I loved it but any time I hear it now and Lucia Aliberti to some extent, it makes me think they are singing with a wad of chaw in one cheek. I don't know. Just me I guess, but I acknowledge she is a great singer and actor.

[Conchis]

I have not been too excited about Schwarzkopf but when it comes to Lehar's operetta, Das Land des Lächelns, hers is the best.

I have the one with Gedda and Annelise Rothenberger and much prefer it. I try to avoid Betty Blackhead whenever I can but sometimes it's not possible - the Karajan Rosenkavalier, for example.

I've always loved Jon Vickers' voice but apparently he's quite controversial and a few people (including some on this board) have accused him of 'crooning'. I'll admit there may be some justice to this charge, but I'm still a fan....