# SOPRANO TOURNAMENT (Bonus Match): Hernandez vs Farrell



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Saioa Hernandez, Spain, 1979-






Eileen Farrell, USA, 1920-2002






'Suicidio' from Ponchielli's _La Gioconda_.

Who's singing did you prefer and why?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am so glad I listened to this round. I was not familiar with Fernandez and she is really really wonderful. I would enjoy very much seeing her in this role. She is the most impressive soprano I have heard in some time. I do find that there is something fuzzy about her voice in the middle. That is not a good technical term, but I don't know the right terms. She is good enough, though, that I could seriously take this contender against Farrell. Her teacher was Caballe and you can hear that in her voice. She has really wonderful chest notes.
Farrell won this though by a good bit by the superior beauty of her voice and her emotional involvement. Farrell is not always known for her emotionally charged performances, but here she is on fire. To my ears Farrell had one of the most beautiful soprano voices of all time and all that exceptional beauty was here in spades. Thanks for this pairing and it is great to see Farrell included in this contest as she was a very major artist. One last point about Farrell is the superb blending of her different registers. Her voice was so titanic that she didn't have to push the chest voice to get enough umph down low.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Nutshell first: Hernandez makes a good effort. Farrell gives me chills.

With the lack of spinto voices about nowadays, we don't want to complain too much when a soprano with a nice dark tone and a solid chest voice comes along. I believe I've heard Hernandez do this better earlier in her career; she's showing some of the sort of dramatic soprano-induced stress that affected Caballe as her career moved into its later phases, with more effort and a slower vibrato. But why linger on it? Just scurry on over to New York and listen to the singer about whom Callas said, "The Met can hardly be considered a serious artistic institution. They don't even have Farrell." I'm not sure I've ever been more moved by this aria, even by La Divina herself. I know big Eileen had a right to sing the blues, but damn!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> One last point about Farrell is the superb blending of her different registers. Her voice was so titanic that she didn't have to push the chest voice to get enough umph down low.


Absolutely. She was like Flagstad, Traubel and Ponselle in that respect.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

No contest, as far as I'm concerend. Farrell wins hands down. For a start, the voice is more beautiful and much more clearly focused. She phrases with more individuality too and, though her performance is perhaps not as intensely dramatic as those of Ponselle and Callas, it was touching and moving. Good to see young Lennie Bernstein in the pit too.

I'm afraid I didn't like Hernandez at all. I hear a lot of hat bottled up, falsely darkened "operatic" tone that we hear too much of these days. As far as her interpretation goes, there was a lot of copycat Callas. (I noticed it particularly in _ultima croce del mia cammin_, which was exactly the same as Callas's second recording.)

I read Seattleoperafan's and Woodduck's assessments after I'd listened to the excerpts and see that they were a good deal more charitable towards Hernandez than me, but hers is just not the sort of voice I like.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Oooh la la!
Such wonderful and rich, powerful sounds but Hernandez, as beautiful as she sings, sounds a bit too matronly whereas Farrell's emotional involvement is so overwhelmingly touching that it left me with a lump in my throat.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I voted Hernandez. her voices isn't as powerful naturally (her voices _uses_ power where Farrell's voice _is_ powerful, if that makes any sense), but her acting is better and she uses more chest voice. Eileen Farrell had a well developed chest voice. You can tell this from her pop performances and the effect that strong chest voice has on the rest of the voice, but she didn't actively engage it as often when she sang opera, and imo, this took out some of the excitement of pieces like this.

all the same, she serves as a good example of how singers sound 10x better when they develop the chest voice even when they _don't_ use it in performance. the entire voice is affected from top to bottom.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Excellent aria and *clear win for Eileen.* I enjoyed also Saioa's performance, who shows us a lot of her talent here. I found the conducting in the first video not very good. Thanks for the video and for the comments.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I voted Hernandez. her voices isn't as powerful naturally (her voices _uses_ power where Farrell's voice _is_ powerful, if that makes any sense), but her acting is better and she uses more chest voice. Eileen Farrell had a well developed chest voice. You can tell this from her pop performances and the effect that strong chest voice has on the rest of the voice, but she didn't actively engage it as often when she sang opera, and imo, this took out some of the excitement of pieces like this.
> 
> all the same, she serves as a good example of how singers sound 10x better when they develop the chest voice even when they _don't_ use it in performance. the entire voice is affected from top to bottom.


I sense that chest voice is becoming something of a fetish hereabouts. Can we agree that a singer needs to develop all of her voice without insisting that she make a point of it in every performance? I certainly enjoy the thrilling roar that some sopranos bring to "fra le tenebre," but we tend to expect the effect and it's become almost hackneyed. The solidity, beauty and expressiveness of Farrell's low notes, totally of a piece with the rest of her voice, is wonderful in its own way, and I find her gentler mournfulness refreshing. I rate hers a great and original performance, and Hernadez's relatively conventional and vocally much inferior.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I sense that chest voice is becoming something of a fetish hereabouts. Can we agree that a singer needs to develop all of her voice without insisting that she make a point of it in every performance? I certainly enjoy the thrilling roar that some sopranos bring to "fra le tenebre," but we tend to expect the effect and it's become almost hackneyed. The solidity, beauty and expressiveness of Farrell's low notes, totally of a piece with the rest of her voice, is wonderful in its own way, and *I find her gentler mournfulness refreshing*. I rate hers a great and original performance, and Hernadez's relatively conventional and vocally much inferior.


I can see what you mean here, but I don't want this piece to be "gentle mournfulness".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I can see what you mean here, but I don't want this piece to be "gentle mournfulness".


"Gentler," I said, not "gentle," and not referring to the piece, but to a piece of the piece. Mais chacun...


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I sense that chest voice is becoming something of a fetish hereabouts. Can we agree that a singer needs to develop all of her voice without insisting that she make a point of it in every performance?


not part of every performance. I don't expect a mammoth chest voice singing Una Voce Poco Fa, Caro Nome or Song of the Moon, but for certain performances, it is absolutely a must. like, I would walk away sorely disappointed without hearing some monster chest tones in Carmen, Norma, Nabucco or Macbeth. a raw verismo piece about suicide....definitely falls into the latter category.


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