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[Dame
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf]
***
by
Ricardo Ortale
***
I
love the word ‘soprano’ ! It sounds so musical and
majestic, yet the soprano register is the most crowded among all
vocal registers. No danger of extinction in this
species ! Sopranos have to work hard to make themselves
noticed individually. The compensation of this struggle is
the very high level of excellence to be found in most of
them. There is another ‘plus’ and it is that there are
many subdivisions within their range like the Pure
coloratura, the lyric-coloratura, the pure lyric, the
lyric spinto and the dramatic. There are also the ‘soubrettes’
( who generally have a small lyric ‘quasi-coloratura’
voice and sing pert roles with not a very wide range of
notes) and the awesome SOPRANO ASSOLUTAS, who can sing ALL
soprano roles with almost equal ease.
The
tenors OWN the world, but sopranos own the opera
audiences. Tenors, like Pavarotti, Carreras and Domingo,
like the ‘show biz’ and their fame to be wider than
that provided by the opera world. Sopranos are less
ambitious so except for the very notable case of Maria
Callas in the 50’s and 60’s, or perhaps Maria Jeritza
at the first decades of the 20th century,
people do not know a lot about them. Yet during a typical
opera performance, sopranos somehow monopolize the
attention. Many composers had almost an obsession with the
soprano voice, notably Giacomo Puccini and Richard
Strauss, who were not so generous with tenors or
baritones. These two composers give
the soprano too much vocal and dramatic work. The result
is often exciting but tests the voices and the techniques
to their limits.
People
often picture sopranos as matronly women, with broad
shoulders, very big breasts, a comparatively small
waistline ( thanks to an unmerciful corset ! ) and many
jewels decorating their powerful bodies. The cartoon of my
very much admired BIRGIT NILSSON shows that visual ‘cliché’.
She was that way, yet she always had that great sense of
humor and self-criticism. She included this caricature in
her book “ My memoirs in pictures “. We will return to
her later.
**********
THE
“ SOPRANO ASSOLUTA “ ( MARIA CALLAS and… )
The super-famous Maria Callas is
one of the clearest examples of
Soprano Assoluta: She could sing ALL soprano roles
with similar ease , and eventually jump from the big
Wagnerian sound required for Isolde or Brünhilde -
two typical roles for a dramatic soprano to – after a
few days - Elvira in “Puritani” by Bellini, a lyric
coloratura role in which the soprano needs a special
mastery of the many runs and trills, roulades and
interpolated high notes that exist in the score and out of
it (included by tradition ) and therefore have an agile
vocal production and a flexible voice. Callas could also
sing typically lyric soprano roles like Mimi in “ La
Bohème” by Puccini or provide exciting performances as
“Tosca” an opera which demands a lyric spinto
delivery.
Maria Callas was the living proof of what
an individual can reach through will power, very hard work
and a burning ambition. She was the only soprano in her
era whose popularity surpassed the frontiers of the opera
world. Her name was known the world over through her
temperamental outbursts, noisy cancellations of
performances at the last minute or after a first act, her
spectacular weight loss in 1954, her presence at many of
the most sophisticated parties given by members of the
so-called “jet set “ and last but definitely NOT LEAST
for her scandalous romance with Aristotle Onassis. She
knew perfectly how to manipulate her scandals for her own
benefit. She used the press with the same, if not more,
skill than that of a Hollywood star. Yet reality and
fiction took revenge on her, and Onassis’
sudden, unexpected decision to marry Jacqueline
Kennedy was a death blow for Callas. Her girlish claim for
love, her lack of self-esteem (skillfully disguised with
the mask and bearing of a ‘prima donna assoluta’,
capricious and demanding, vain and choleric ) finally came
to the surface and Callas begun
an almost ‘hermit life’ in her luxurious flat
at Avenue Poch, in Paris. Some friends declared that she
was showing symptoms of paranoia during her last years.
She stayed mostly at her flat, studying again. Half
retired at a very early age (just above forty) she was
afraid of a ‘come back’. She made an international
tour with tenor Giuseppe di Stefano during 1974. It was a
sad affair. Not only she had lost vocal powers but, worse,
she had lost her personality. The ‘tigress’ was absent
and in her place there was a very slender and elegant
woman with no trace of the ‘fire’ she had formerly
shown.
She was found dead
one day, on the floor of
her bedroom, holding a Rosary in her hands. She was
just 53 years old.
**********
You
can count the ‘sopranos assolutas’ with the fingers of
one hand. Leyla Gencer, the Turkish, exotic soprano of
very personal voice, could sing
the Gilda of Rigoletto or the Amelia in “ballo in
Maschera” with equal quality and proficiency. I saw her
at Teatro Colón in “Norma “ when I as eleven and I
will never forget her fiery temperament and her beautiful
– yet ‘weird’ voice. We have in Argentina one of the
greatest assolutas, Adelaide Negri. A bad voice teacher
had ruined her voice and at just 26 many sounds were
effortful and the B natural was a shriek. She had a very
limited range. Some colleagues advised her to try a
new voice teacher who loved opera but who had started by
teaching voice to tango singers and whose name was
Bernardo Toscano. She had nothing to lose so she
went. Not only did Toscano solve her vocal crisis but he
found in her the possibility of singing stratospheric, ‘pearled’ top notes up to ‘supra F natural’ while retaining a dark
quality in the center of her voice and the volume and
range to sing ALL soprano roles. Plus, Miss Negri and
Toscano fell in love and he abandoned all his previous
business in order to follow her around the world being at
the same time the teacher of voice and the manager. Her
debut at the Metropolitan Opera
House in “Norma” was so excellent that she was
included in a book which was about to be printed on “The
Prima-Donnas” a few weeks later !!!
**********
THE
PURE COLORATURA
There
are not so
many sopranos of this type nowadays. These women are
generally short, active and witty .
Their personalities reflect the quick splendor of
their vocal abilities. Their voices are not very beautiful
in the center of the register or center-high registers,
but the quality of the sound gets better the higher in
pitch the scores ask them to sing. Legato line is not so
comfortable for either. They are happy with
staccato. “pearled” notes, which often ‘carry’ in
the opera house with amazing ease. Because of its higher
frequency, the C,s, D flats, D naturals, E flats, E
naturals and F natural though produced by small bodies
with small voices, are heard evenly
above the heavy orchestrations. France has produced some
of the most brilliant coloraturas like Mado Robin, the
charming Lily Pons or Mady Mesplé. Miss Robin had an
extra high register and was able to sing a supra A-natural
which was of course an embellishment she added to some of
the scores she sang, for no composer ever wrote such a
note for a human voice ! The repertoire they sing is not
very interesting dramatically, except in some special
cases like Olimpia in “ Les Contes d’Hoffmann by
Offenbach and that is not because a mechanical doll is
interesting in itself but because the passionate Hoffmann
is deceived into believing that Olimpia is a real woman.
The charming fireworks of Olimpia underline
her coldness and Hoffmann’s error.
**********
THE
LYRIC COLORATURA
The
lyric coloratura has a more beautiful center than the pure
coloratura and is more comfortable in the legato line.
Even the highest notes and the ‘staccatos’ are
approached in a more slow and melting way. It is a voice
which needs a good breath support for long lines in the
center of the voice, yet it must also have the top notes
in order and easily produced. The lyric coloratura roles
are more interesting than the pure coloratura´s yet they
still belong to the realm of canary-fanciers and were
written by composers for whom the human voice and its
possibilities were more interesting than the plot, the
words or the dramatic evolutions. Gaetano Donizzetti and
Vincenzo Bellini among other authors of the famous ‘bel canto’ era wrote
some magnificent parts for the Lyric Coloratura, like that of Lucia in “Lucia di Lamermoor” by
Donizzetti or Elvira in “ I puritani” by Bellini.
There is also the sparkling Manon in “Manon” by Jules
Massenet, and the shy Girlish Gilda in “ Rigoletto” by
Giuseppe Verdi. Sometimes, as it happens in Lucia, there
is a woman in love who goes mad. For the romantic parts
Donizzetti uses mostly long beautiful lines occasionally
illustrated by some high notes and trills, for the famous
Mad scene the great Italian composer wrote a long solo of
vocal pyrotechnic and a duet with flute that makes Lucia’s
madness the more telling. Lucia and the instrument are
like one entity. Here we see how the belcantist is giving
place to the man of the theater. Anna Moffo was one of the
greatest lyric coloratura sopranos. She had been a novice
but left the cloisters
and dedicated her life to opera singing. Beautiful
woman and great artist, her career included some
incursions into actual movies. One of the most gifted
voices in this repertoire was that of Dame Joan
Sutherland, a very tall Australian lady with a voice big
enough as to make some specialists have doubts about which
was to be her best repertoire. Her husband, conductor
Richard Bonynge worked with her in the highest parts of
her register and
both discovered that she could sing lyric
coloratura operas
with unusual evenness and with a central register of
special solidity. Hers is un unusual register, with some
remnants of the heavier repertoire of her first years of
career.
**********
THE
PURE LYRIC SOPRANO
The
lyric soprano roles are the epitome of femininity. Within
the many nuances and subdivisions of soprano voice, the
lyric is the most crowded, to which belong the highest
percentage of women. Lyric soprano can usually ‘touch’
some extra high notes, but they mostly sing up to B flat,
B natural and C natural. To make their mark in the opera
world they must have a specially beautiful voice and a
sound technique which can allow them to produce exquisite
‘pianissimi’ and ‘filati’ ( filo = thread. A ‘filato’
is a thread of voice). Lyric sopranos have a somehow slow
vocal production. The cannot ‘stamp’ an orchestra like
a spinto or a dramatic do , their notes must be filled
with breath and a good support and ‘pass’ through the
orchestra waves with skill and a good projection. The
roles associated with lyric soprano repertoires are
generally very feminine, soft, often victims of
circumstances like Mimi in “La Bohème” by Puccini,
Desdemona in “ Otello” by Verdi or Micaela in “Carmen”
by Bizet.
In this last opera Micaela
offers with her mild, shy and religious personality
a strong contrast for the protagonist, the sexy Carmen who
is a rebellious, sensual and audacious personality. In “
Turandot” Liù, the submissive slave is a perfect
counterpart to the icy and demanding Turandot, a soprano
‘spinto’ role full of high, steely notes which are a
mirror of her resentful, vindictive and domineering
personality. There have been wonderful prototypes of the
lyric soprano species, like the Italian Mirella Freni, the
Maori Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, the Czech Gabriela Benackova or
the Polish Teresa Zylis Gara. In Argentina there is a
beautiful lyric voice which can touch the lyric
coloratura, whose name is Myrtha Garbarini. She is one of
the most beautiful soprano sounds
I have ever heard, but some familiar bonds had her
tied to a local career.
**********
THE
LYRIC SPINTO
SOPRANO
Spinto
comes from the Italian verb ‘spingere’ = to push.
Soprano spinto’s have more volume, more steel and a
natural vocal promptness of attack. The heavy voice with
a strong center and good chest notes suddenly
releases powerful top notes
which ‘stamp’ the orchestra as if they were
vocal whips. The ‘spintos’ still retain a bit of the
pure lyric soprano's natural legato. The spinto roles for
soprano offer a wide variety of dramatic possibilities.
“ Tosca” by Puccini is the perfect example. She starts
as a woman in love, almost girlish, the next moment she
becomes jealous and capricious then she goes back to
tenderness. The next scene of the first act she is
careless and diva like in her first few
phrases with the Baron Scarpia, then she gets furious at a
possible betrayal of her lover Cavaradossi, swears revenge
and finally represses herself because she has lost control
inside the church. In the
second act she starts very much the opera diva,
elegantly dressed , proud and calculating her every
phrase, then she becomes desperate, desperation gives
place to rage,etc By the end of the act she stabs Baron
Scarpia to death and utters a couple of phrases in almost
manly voice. A few minutes before this tragic end she had
complained of her faith in the famous aria-prayer “Vissi
d’arte “ ( I lived of art). In the last act she
commits suicide jumping from the top of Castel Sant’Angelo.
There are many of these soprano spinto opportunities in
verismo repertoire, for verismo is a revolution in opera
singing. The music follows the action and illustrates the
words with much more intensity than any other previous
opera styles. No longer ugly situations with comparatively
beautiful music. Operatic history is full of great names
of spinto sopranos:
Ghena
Dimitrova, the super-diva Renata Tebaldi,
Zinka Milanov, Antonietta Stella, Leona Mitchell (
a beautiful black soprano with whom I sang twice. Her very
pretty face had the bonus of yellow, cat-like eyes ! )
The
Caballé of her more mature years, Galina Vishnevskaya
(who could also switch to lyric in a wonderful
rendering of Liù in Turandot), and many others.
**********
[Birgit Nilsson]
THE
DRAMATIC SOPRANO
Dramatic
sopranos have a robust, voluminous center and a dark
colour in the center – low notes. Sometimes they are
very close to the mezzo ‘tessitura’. In fact
some of them started as mezzos (As that great
singing actress who died a few months ago, Marta Mödl.
Her last years found her singing mezzo roles again) some
others switched to mezzo range at the end of their careers
as was the case of Swedish-American Astrid Varnay. Varnay,
Mödl and the great Kirsten Flagstad ( a Wagnerian legend
) whose voice had the homogeneity
and nobility of a pipe organ, all had certain
difficulty with the highest notes, which had to be ‘won’
somehow. The great French soprano Regine Crespin had a
huge voice of unusual solidity in the center and low
realms of her instrument. Her top notes were also
excellent for many years but then a vocal crisis turned
the higher register more difficult for her. A great
artist, she knew how to scale down her large voice to the
requirements of the exquisite ‘chansons’ of Debussy,
Pulenc or Fauré.
***
Dame
Gwyneth Jones had a beautiful spinto voice which turned
more dramatic as years passed. She had everything from the
beauty of her voice to a special acting intensity and the
bonus of a beautiful face and nice figure. Now in her mid
sixties she sings few performances of character and mezzo
roles.
***
What
can I say of Leonie Rysanek, one of the greatest actress
singers that ever honored the opera world ?
Like Jones or Nilsson a bit in between spinto and
dramatic, with a register of uneven quality which she used
as the palette of a painter, she had a hollow’ smoky’
center, good chest voice and a brilliant top register
which she supported like few
do. Her name was very appropriate : Leonie. She was a
lioness on stage, and even a single gesture would ‘catch’
our attention
***
Pure
dramatic soprano roles are to be found mostly in Wagner
and Strauss operas. For instance the three Brünhildes of
‘ the Ring’ (in “ Die Walküre”, “Siegfried”
and “ The Twilight of the Gods”) or the terribly
neurotic Elektra in Strauss’
great masterpiece based on the Sophocles play. Dramatic
soprano roles are usually very majestic and they are
involved with epic situations, great human conflicts with
power and ambition, royalty and duty. No girls-next-door
here ! There are a few exceptions like the earthy Dyer’s
wife, a woman with commonplace problems, a practical,
earthy personality. Isolde is the proud daughter of a
King, Elektra too and she is part of the typical Greek
tragedy in which there are deep resentments, past and
present murders, extreme passions
and a pre-christian idealization of revenge as
synonymous with justice, Brünhilde is the daughter
of Wotan, the king of all gods, and she is a brave warrior
too, spear and helmet included (and sometimes a couple of
good horns)
**********
BIRGIT
NILSSON :
Why
not single out the soprano whose caricature is included in
this cartoon ? Nilsson was one of the greatest
personalities that the opera world had in decades. Born in
West Karup, in Malmö, south of Sweden and the only child
of a farming couple, she came into this world on May 17,
1918. They discovered a prodigious voice in this shy girl. She
always said that she sang before she was able to walk, yet
many years were to pass since that early discovery till
her debut at the Royal Opera House, Stockholm during the
1946/47 season. A possessive and jealous father did not
want her to break the tradition of seven generations of
farmers and she was somehow forced to pull potatoes and
beets from the fields of their farm. She didn’t know
what opera was about but enjoyed singing very much and
Ragnar Blennow, an organ player who gave her the first
singing lessons was so moved that
he advised her to go to Stockholm and audition for
the Royal Opera House School.
Her
mother paid for her train ticket, gave her extra money and
out she went. She together with a colleague were the first
choices among 150 auditioners. She rented an apartment
with a young lady painter and earned
a living singing at Lutheran funerals.Her father had to
accept her decision reluctantly…but also with a hidden
pride . After a few years of study she made an unexpected
debut at four days notice covering for an ailing soprano
the role of Agathe in “ Der Freischütz”. The
conductor of that opera was merciless about some musical
mistakes she made during rehearsals and in the first
performance and labelled her as “ unmusical and
untalented “. However the newspaper reviews were
exultant. Before those newspapers were issued she was
passing over one of Stockholm's bridges and thought
of jumping into the water. The challenge of studying a
quite long role in just four days – a real ‘tour de
force’- had not been enough for Maestro Blech who had
belittled her in front of the Opera School authorities.
She reflected a few seconds on how unfair to her parents
would be an extreme decision of that kind. She did not
jump. The newspapers raved about the new soprano and from
then on she was a success in Stockholm, then in
Glyndebourne, in Belgium, Germany and soon word spread
across the world about a fantastic young soprano. Eight
years after her debut she was a world renowned young
promise and by the
end of the 50’s she was doing records and making her
debut at La Scala in Milan, the Covent Garden in London
and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Her
personality grew onstage (and offstage too !) and she was
soon regarded as a DIVA. However she has always kept for
herself a good deal of the farmer’s daughter and was
famous for her witty, clever remarks and a down to earth
sense of humor. She is very much the ‘typical soprano’
(she has also been caricaturized with the ‘Walküre”
helmet with the two horns ) and she does nothing to
conceal it. In recitals she was dressed much as in the
cartoon we reproduce , her tight corset narrowing her
waistline and pushing up her generous breasts, jewels and
necklaces shining from her wrists and neck. She held here
hands as if in prayer, slightly raised her shoulders
and opened her mouth in order to free that stream of cold,
fresh sound. Occasionally she would make a smiling gesture
in order to allow more space for the highest notes. After
that, the ovations flooded the opera houses of the
world. The humble daughter of farmers who did not know a
word about opera, who was labelled as untalented by a
stone-hearted conductor , who had thought of jumping into
the water from a Stockholm bridge after a few cruel
phrases she had heard, and for whom her marriage to a
veterinary doctor and a quiet home life and a normal ‘local’
career was enough had been led to world super – fame and
musical prestige. No children, a long marriage and many
thousands of miles of jet travels and many successes in
hundreds of theaters were the fate of Birgit Nilsson. Deep
inside she knew that the Lord guided her where He wanted
her to be. Many times while receiving the soothing sound
of the ovations and with tears in her eyes she probably
recalled all her initial difficulties. We the audiences
cherished her and reflected: This wonder of nature is
somehow, the very synthesis of a soprano.
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Ricardo Ortale
