# Waltreud Meier Voice Type



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I admire Waltreud Meier, I love her video Isolde, I think she has a lovely voice and is a very skilled actress, but I am watching her Carmen and I just can't buy her as a mezzo. Is is just me? She can handle the tessitura with ease, but to me her voice has the color of a soprano. What do you think?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Didn't she start as a mezzo? Isn't it just possible she might be a _Soprano Falcon _, or maybe she sings whatever parts interest her? Assuming she has the compass. Isolde's _tessitura _lies mostly in the middle to upper middle, though she has a C or two. She might sing Ortrud, it being the most interesting part - it lies quite high in places.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I admire Waltreud Meier, I love her video Isolde, I think she has a lovely voice and is a very skilled actress, but I am watching her Carmen and I just can't buy her as a mezzo. Is is just me? She can handle the tessitura with ease, but to me her voice has the color of a soprano. What do you think?


basically this. most real dramatic sopranos can sing mezzo


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> Didn't she start as a mezzo? Isn't it just possible she might be a _Soprano Falcon _, or maybe she sings whatever parts interest her? Assuming she has the compass. Isolde's _tessitura _lies mostly in the middle to upper middle, though she has a C or two. She might sing Ortrud, it being the most interesting part - it lies quite high in places.


She started as a mezzo soprano. I believe she sings Ortrud. She virtually owns Kundry. She sang Carmen with ease, but I guess Stephanie Blythe spoiled me in Carmen with her rich, rich mezzo, but Waltraud just never had the color of a mezzo to me. No chest notes at all. She acted wonderfully and her singing was lovely. I love sopranos that sound like mezzos, I guess I should like mezzos who sound like sopranos. I remember Leontyne Price sang Carmen and really sounded like a mezzo.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> She started as a mezzo soprano. I believe she sings Ortrud. She virtually owns Kundry. She sang Carmen with ease, but I guess Stephanie Blythe spoiled me in Carmen with her rich, rich mezzo, but Waltraud just never had the color of a mezzo to me. No chest notes at all. She acted wonderfully and her singing was lovely. I love sopranos that sound like mezzos, I guess I should like mezzos who sound like sopranos. I remember Leontyne Price sang Carmen and really sounded like a mezzo.


I would think that, for me, Blythe's voice is totally unsuited to Carmen (I don't like Price's, either). Meier has a little more toughness in her voice, and is not so luscious.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Meier is a dramatic mezzo to my ear and so is perfect for Wagner's mezzo roles: Venus, Ortrud, Fricka, Waltraute and Kundry (which is possibly strictly speaking a soprano role, but is often better when performed by a mezzo). She has also sung Amneris, Eboli, Dido and Klytemnestra well. All which points to her being a mezzo. She is very similar to Christa Ludwig in terms of voice category and her soprano roles have been mostly low ones that are often taken by mezzos (Leonore in Fidelio or Santuzza in Cavalleria). She has also sung Isolde and Sieglinde which are pretty much the only true soprano roles she has sung and whilst she sings both well (provided one overlooks her rather wild high notes in the former of those two), I don't think the colour of her voice suits Sieglinde.

Another role that I don't think she's quite right for is Carmen, which is an odd role as it can be performed well by a soprano with a bright tone (De los Angeles), a mezzo with darker tints (Callas) or a black toned contralto (Simionato). Others may prefer a particular voice category in Carmen, but I think it can be played in so many different ways that I'm not dogmatic about the voice type singing it. The key characteristic that I think someone needs for Carmen is a smooth, silky tone with very little metal in the voice. Meier has a lot of steel in her vocal tone and so that's why I don't think she is quite right for Carmen.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> Meier is a dramatic mezzo to my ear and so is perfect for Wagner's mezzo roles: Venus, Ortrud, Fricka, Waltraute and Kundry (which is possibly strictly speaking a soprano role, but is often better when performed by a mezzo). She has also sung Amneris, Eboli, Dido and Klytemnestra well. All which points to her being a mezzo. She is very similar to Christa Ludwig in terms of voice category and her soprano roles have been mostly low ones that are often taken by mezzos (Leonore in Fidelio or Santuzza in Cavalleria). She has also sung Isolde and Sieglinde which are pretty much the only true soprano roles she has sung and whilst she sings both well (provided one overlooks her rather wild high notes in the former of those two), I don't think the colour of her voice suits Sieglinde.
> 
> Another role that I don't think she's quite right for is Carmen, which is an odd role as it can be performed well by a soprano with a bright tone (De los Angeles), a mezzo with darker tints (Callas) or a black toned contralto (Simionato). Others may prefer a particular voice category in Carmen, but I think it can be played in so many different ways that I'm not dogmatic about the voice type singing it. The key characteristic that I think someone needs for Carmen is a smooth, silky tone with very little metal in the voice. Meier has a lot of steel in her vocal tone and so that's why I don't think she is quite right for Carmen.
> 
> N.


I'm not sure I'd categorise Leonore as a mezzo role. Christa Ludwig is the only mezzo I can think of who has sung it with success, and even she stated that after experimenting with Leonore and one or two other soprano roles, she decided to remain a mezzo.

I'm also not sure I'd categorise Callas as a mezzo with darker hints. Even in the 1960s when she recorded Dalila's arias, Legge said she had difficulty sustaining the low tessitura. The collapse of her top register didn't suddenly turn her into a mezzo, though there are undoubtedly mezzo roles I wish she'd have considered towards the end of her career.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

MAS said:


> Didn't she start as a mezzo? Isn't it just possible she might be a _Soprano Falcon _, or maybe she sings whatever parts interest her? Assuming she has the compass. Isolde's _tessitura _lies mostly in the middle to upper middle, though she has a C or two. She might sing Ortrud, it being the most interesting part - it lies quite high in places.


I saw her as Isolde in Berlin in 2014, with Rene Pape as Marke and Peter Seiffert as Tristan with Barenboim conducting. I thought she was superb and I couldn't say whether or not she missed any of the top Cs as I was concentrating on her superb emotional delivery.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Barbebleu said:


> I saw her as Isolde in Berlin in 2014, with Rene Pape as Marke and Peter Seiffert as Tristan with Barenboim conducting. I thought she was superb and I couldn't say whether or not she missed any of the top Cs as I was concentrating on her superb emotional delivery.


 A wonderful memory for you.

I don't think it's necessarily just an ability to sing the top Cs though, when it comes to mezzos taking on soprano roles. I remember reading an interview with Ludwig where she talked about either Isolde or Brünnhilde (I can't remember which now) and her saying that she had all the notes, but that the tessitura just didn't feel right. She also felt the same about Leonore, which is why she dropped it from her repertoire.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Meier was never afraid to tackle the difficult rôles and she always gave of her best even in less suitable parts. I think though that the real mezzo rôles suited her better.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

We can also remember her Eboli, another "not quite mezzo" role. Verdi must have been thinking about two different ladies when he wrote that part


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I'm not sure I'd categorise Leonore as a mezzo role. Christa Ludwig is the only mezzo I can think of who has sung it with success, and even she stated that after experimenting with Leonore and one or two other soprano roles, she decided to remain a mezzo.


I agree that it is a soprano role, I thought it had been taken by mezzos more often (I would count Modl a mezzo).



Tsaraslondon said:


> I'm also not sure I'd categorise Callas as a mezzo with darker hints. Even in the 1960s when she recorded Dalila's arias, Legge said she had difficulty sustaining the low tessitura. The collapse of her top register didn't suddenly turn her into a mezzo, though there are undoubtedly mezzo roles I wish she'd have considered towards the end of her career.


We've discussed this before and at the moment I remain of the opinion that Callas was actually a mezzo (though not a contralto), but in any case don't you think that her voice had darker tints than De los Angeles'?

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> I agree that it is a soprano role, I thought it had been taken by mezzos more often (I would count Modl a mezzo).


I don't know Mödl so well, but I assumed that she was a soprano as she sang Isolde and Brünnhilde, though, looking at her career, it seems she hovered around between mezzo and soprano roles. I still think Leonore is essentially a soprano role and that most mezzos would find it a stretch.



The Conte said:


> We've discussed this before and at the moment I remain of the opinion that Callas was actually a mezzo (though not a contralto), but in any case don't you think that her voice had darker tints than De los Angeles'?
> 
> N.


In one sense I agree with you, but De Los Angeles's middle register was always particularly rich and she has no trouble with the slightly lower tessitura of Charlotte, a role that suits a soprano like Gheorghiu less well. At no point in De Los Angeles's career did she have the freedom on top that Callas had in her early career. You can't imagine her tossing off a role like Rossini's Armida, for instance. If anything I'd say De Los Angeles was closer to being a mezzo and in fact I know one contributor on another site, a singing teacher herself, who always insists De Los Angeles was a mezzo. (I don't necessarily agree, by the way.)


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I really love her in Wagner roles but other rep just feels strange with her. I've sene her do Eboli both French and Italian and I was like "ok but weird".


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