Question about Bellini's "Norma"

[Nick Armstrong]

I wonder if any of the opera folk here could answer this query.

I have just been listening to the French CD critics' programme about "Norma". They started with 'Casta diva' - in versions by Rosa Ponselle, Callas (x3), Sutherland, Caballé and Jane Eaglen.

Why - in the climax of the aria, when there's a long high note after a 6 note scale upwards - do some singers, notably Sutherland and Caballé, insert great 'scoops' in the middle of that long note?

I have no access to a score, but Jane Eaglen with Muti certainly didn't do it - just a straight, held note, no awful 'whoop.... whoop' in the middle...

Is it just some sort of 'operatic' mannerism??

[Chris Newman]

I think Jane Eaglen sang that sort of thing early in her career so could manage holding the breath. Now she does heftier roles and I cannot imagine her singing bel canto now. Having a quick listen at different Monserrat Caballe versions on YouTube the main body of her voice deteriorated gradually with age although ironically her top notes often became steadier. Sutherland and Caballe largely stuck to bel canto and both had very long careers. There are times in later performances where you hear both singers cheating a bit to cover imperfections in the voices. Sometimes the long held breath just will not stay there. With Callas you had the fabulous actress who as her voice wore increasingly screamed top notes. No one would say that Caballe was a great actress but early on she sang with such purity and Sutherland miraculously threw that wapping great voice around angelically though again often just stood there like a pud. I guess the fans accept a bit of rough in order to get those moments of bliss. I can think of a soprano who I have seen live three times in the last few months in different works at the ROH, ENO and WNO. Wonderful actress but some top notes are getting quite painful.

In the case of running out of breath my own personal experience was when singing Don Ottavio's "Il mio tesoro intanto" in Don Giovanni. It is possibly Mozart's most beautiful aria and yet dramatically nonsensical. Rather than let the singer set himself up for the second stanza Mozart gets him to sing passionately and angrily a long passage of coloratura between stanza 1 and stanza 2 which includes the first phrase of the second verse. Listen to all one's favourite tenors and they snatch breaths, sometimes two: Fritz Wunderlich (my hero) snatched one breath, Nicolai Gedda and Juan Diego Florez take two. Peter Pears take one but cuts out a bar as well. Jussi Bjorling, my other hero needed three breaths in 1955 . Luigi Alva and Franco Ariaza manage it! Astonishingly Richard Tauber managed it after having had a lung removed. I sang the role eight years ago and managed to sing the phrase on one breath in one out of five performances. I had said in rehearsal that if I managed it on one breath I would put in a little celebratory decoration: mind you after that I had to concentrate on the next stanza and avoid the eyes of those musicians who were grinning.

[Nick Armstrong]

Great stuff, Chris, thanks! So it's just that they didn't have breath for the note, and rather than trying to conceal the fact, they turn the gasps into swooping sob-like 'decorative features' ?

[verismissimo]

I think Richard Bonynge must have decided that it was authentic. Though on what basis I couldn't say.

[Nick Armstrong]

I think Richard Bonynge must have decided that it was authentic. Though on what basis I couldn't say.

Caballé does it too, in the version with Cossotto and Domingo cond. Cillario; and at least one of the Callas recordings...