When and why did 'operatic voices' become so ugly?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My thanks to gradus for his list in #88, which does indeed confirm that this must be a "matter of taste" (and/or, perhaps, microphones). As matters can now only descend into pantomime "Oh yes it is"/"Oh no it's not" I can't comment further - EXCEPT:

It's not so many years that some critics thought that ... Janet Baker ... had [an] ugly unmusical voice[]

I miss out DF-D, because there are still those who think this ... but Janet Baker??? I require chapter and verse before I believe that!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've been listening to a recording of Tchaikovsky's "The Oprichnik". There are many who praise Russian voices, but the majority seem to be examples of the worst kind of wobbly singing, with vibrato that sounds more like a trill.

[aeolium]

Indeed! But who else? I would say there are more singers around now who can tackle this repertoire. We've been talking mainly about sopranos, but it goes for tenors as well.

Marilyn Horne I think is superb in Rossini - and Handel, and much else.

But then again now we have Sarah Connolly, Alice Coote and Christine Rice (the last of whom I heard in Rossini's Moise in Egitto at WNO last year).

I think the proposition that talent in singing has at some point, like the Baker encountering the Boojum, softly and suddenly vanished away is no more plausible than the idea that modern music since the war (or whatever date) has become ugly, a view which sometimes finds expression hereabouts. Anyone can dig out examples from any recording period of singing that doesn't appeal to them (or, in live performance, where the singer has had an off day) but that certainly doesn't prove a theory.

jean, I didn't hear the Rossini yesterday afternoon as I was on my way to Cardiff to see WNO's Sweeney Todd, a terrific production and performance imv.

[jean]

Well, it's there on iPlayer for you! I hardly dare express an opinion.

I may go to Sweeney Todd, which is the only current production WNO are bringing to Liverpool. But I'm going to Llandudno at the end of the month, and very much looking forward to a new (to me) bel canto sop - I posted a review here earlier on this thread:

...I didn't know anything about Rosa Feola, but the signs are good:

The Italian soprano Rosa Feola, a protégé of the great Renata Scotto, sings the dippy heroine Elvira with all her mentor’s questing intelligence. Warm and easy in her top register, she phrases sensitively, shaping the line into expressive meaning and colouring words with imagination. Her Mad Scene in Act 2 was exquisitely done, as was the miraculous (if implausible) recovery of her senses that ensues...

I'm also considering Opera North's Barber, though they're doing it in English. Rosina is Katy Bray, also unknown to me.

[aeolium]

Well, it's there on iPlayer for you! I hardly dare express an opinion.

I'll have a listen perhaps later today.

I may go to Sweeney Todd, which is the only current production WNO are bringing to Liverpool. But I'm going to Llandudno at the end of the month, and very much looking forward to a new (to me) bel canto sop - I posted a review here earlier on this thread:

I'd certainly recommend Sweeney Todd, if you like Sondheim's work. Last night was a real tour de force particularly by the two principal singers but also among minor roles and as ever the wonderful WNO chorus.

I'm afraid I don't admire Bellini's or Donizetti's work as much as Rossini's - strange and my loss no doubt but there it is. So I'll be missing I Puritani, but I am going to the WNO 'Figaro' season next Spring, with Mozart, Rossini and a new opera by Elena Langer, Figaro Gets a Divorce with a libretto by David Pountney based in part on the play Figaro Läßt Sich Scheiden by Ödön von Horvath.

[gradus]

ferney re Janet Baker, I can't remember which critics now but I came across the adverse views expressed in a sort of coded reference in (I think) a letter/letters to the Gramophone in the sixties and I too found it surprising as she and DF-D were regarded very highly at the time, but there have always been and presumably always will be those for whom yesterday's artists were to be preferred.

[umslopogaas]

gradus, wise words. I remember meeting a man at the time Emma Kirkby first came on the scene and he said he couldnt stand the sound of her voice.

Perhaps any "great" voice has to break a few misconceptions. Imagine now anyone complaining that Emma Kirkby sounds girlish. Or complaining anything at all about Dame Janet (I've no idea if anyone ever did).

[David-G]

I've been listening to a recording of Tchaikovsky's "The Oprichnik". There are many who praise Russian voices, but the majority seem to be examples of the worst kind of wobbly singing, with vibrato that sounds more like a trill.

Forgive my saying so, but there seem to be an awful lot of generalisations in this thread. Maybe it is just a bad performance.

[Barbirollians]

Not sure if she's what you have in mind ferney, being in her early 50s, but I'd single out Nina Stemme as a notable exception among present-day Wagner singers [in her Wagnerian prime, of course]. I've heard some pretty grim Wagnerian sopranos and tenors at ROH in recent years but she holds her own against previous generations. I've heard several of your list live

I couldn't agree more . Just listen to her recording of the closing scene from Salome too where so many sopranos have a bit of a screech . Her Isolde with Pappano at the ROH a few years back is undoubtedly the highlight of my opera going life .

[verismissimo]

Forgive my saying so, but there seem to be an awful lot of generalisations in this thread. Maybe it is just a bad performance.

Generalisations? Alpie? Come come, David-G.

[jean]

The whole thread depends from a generalisation!

(Though to be fair, it wasn't originally a stand-alone generalisation, which might excuse it a bit.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Forgive my saying so, but there seem to be an awful lot of generalisations in this thread. Maybe it is just a bad performance.

Of course I'm generalising, but having collected many recordings of Russian operas, it is the home-grown Russian ones that generally exhibit this characteristic. It's interesting that Mirella Freni only turned to Russian opera it later life, when her previously magnificent voice was taking a turn towards wobbliness.

[Flosshilde]

I find a very clear deterioration in the quality of "Operatic" singing from what I heard (broadcast and Live) in the '70s & '80s.

How can you possibly compare what you remember of a performnce 30 or 40 years ago with the reality of what you hear now?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How can you possibly compare what you remember of a performance 30 or 40 years ago with the reality of what you hear now?

I posted that ten days ago, Flossie - is there something wrong with your Broadband speed?!

[gradus]

To be a little more specific in all this,has anyone been listening to the young Australian Nicole Car on In Tune this evening? Shortly to sing Micaela and Tatiana at the ROH, she sounds very good indeed to me but what do others think? Is this voice ugly?