# What if an opera star can't make that note: Poll



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I'm not talking about rising talent here but a big big name singer who finds that those few top notes in a role elude them. Let us know your preference.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Age seems to affect any performer it seems. Imho, it's far better to admit that one can't hit those notes any longer as opposed to giving a sub-par performance. 

As a professional organist there are certain pieces that I just cannot play anymore due to aging and declining agility. I can accept that and have great memories of the times when I could play them. 

Kh


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Of course the most (in)famous instance is when Schwarzkopf filled in the top Cs for Flagstad in Furtwangler’s Tristan. Great indignation from some critics but most folk think it was worth the compromise for the sake of capturing the performance.

In general a singer has to realise that their voices don’t last forever. It applies in other fields too. Many mathematicians do their most innovative work before they are 40.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It's one of the top things about Callas. She almost always tried for it. THAT'S a star!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There should be a fifth choice: "It depends on the music."


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> There should be a fifth choice: "It depends on the music."


I agree with this. An older singer past his or her prime might still sing the role better and hit more notes (even if not all of them or not as many as in the past) better than anyone younger.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I have no objection to a tenor insecure about his top C either transposing an aria (e.g. "Di quella pira") down or omitting the note, so long as it doesn't make a musically awkward effect. Sometimes composers are sympathetic to singers and provide alternatives in the score. I'd say that the mere inability to manage one top note rarely disqualifies a singer from singing a role, but if it gets to be more than one note it may be time to reconsider the direction of a career.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

It is of course tough to give up the thing you love best and identify with. See a certain Mr Domingo.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I choose they should try it anyway. Apart from the 'it depends' choice that Woodduck suggests, I also think it depends somewhat on the role and whether it is just one high not across the course of an entire opera. Callas has some sour high notes in her live 1964 Tosca, but nobody has equaled that level of dramatic truth in that role (even when compared with her former self in 1953) and so I would be prepared to take the rough of those notes with the smooth of an unforgettable night in the theatre.

If the only issue is missing the odd high note here and there and the rest of the performance is a complete dramatic experience, then that's fine. The issue comes when someone just doesn't have the technique to sing whole stretches of a part with zero dramatic insight. When you see an aging Domingo in a Verdi baritone cabaletta singing for survival and the only emotion is your embarrassment then that's another situation entirely.

N.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Handelian said:


> Of course the most (in)famous instance is when Schwarzkopf filled in the top Cs for Flagstad in Furtwangler's Tristan. Great indignation from some critics but most folk think it was worth the compromise for the sake of capturing the performance.
> 
> In general a singer has to realise that their voices don't last forever. It applies in other fields too. Many mathematicians do their most innovative work before they are 40.


I've heard that too, but i have a friend who is a retired math professor at the UW and he is still doing important work. I think the prodigies are the first to burn out usually.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Handelian said:


> Of course the most (in)famous instance is when Schwarzkopf filled in the top Cs for Flagstad in Furtwangler's Tristan. Great indignation from some critics but most folk think it was worth the compromise for the sake of capturing the performance.
> 
> In general a singer has to realise that their voices don't last forever. It applies in other fields too. Many mathematicians do their most innovative work before they are 40.


How about Schuyler Chapin's story about Domingo panicking at the thought of missing the high note in "Pira" and asked for the comprimario to sit in the orchestra and be prepared to do it while he mouthed the note, and at the last second decided to try it, and it worked! Proving that when you have the pressure off you, sometimes you can come through a winner.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> How about Schuyler Chapin's story about Domingo panicking at the thought of missing the high note in "Pira" and asked for the comprimario to sit in the orchestra and be prepared to do it while he mouthed the note, and at the last second decided to try it, and it worked! Proving that when you have the pressure off you, sometimes you can come through a winner.


I heard him sing Manrico at Covent Garden and a big hoohah was made about him not singing the top Cs. However he had gone out of his way in interviews before the performance to tell everyone he would't be singing them. He simply admitted that the note was now very risky for him and that he preferred not to make a downward transposition in order to make the public think he was singing a note that Verdi didn't even write. Personally I applauded his decision.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> It's one of the top things about Callas. She almost always tried for it. THAT'S a star!


Not always. Already in 1955, she was omitting the top Ebs in *Lucia di Lammermoor*, at least she doesn't attempt the first one in the Mad Scene in Berlin. By 1958, the time of her final Lucias in Dalas, she doesn't attempt either. Mind you it was the last time sha sang the role on stage.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I've heard that too, but i have a friend who is a retired math professor at the UW and he is still doing important work. I think the prodigies are the first to burn out usually.


I didn't say you can't do important work. I was talking about innovative work. I got that straight from the horse's mouth from a leading astrophysicist. Einstein made all of his breaththroughs as a young man.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I heard him sing Manrico at Covent Garden and a big hoohah was made about him not singing the top Cs. However he had gone out of his way in interviews before the performance to tell everyone he would't be singing them. He simply admitted that the note was now very risky for him and that he preferred not to make a downward transposition in order to make the public think he was singing a note that Verdi didn't even write. Personally I applauded his decision.


As Verdi didn't actually write them (did he? or correct me if I'm wrong) I don't see why it's compulsory.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Not always. Already in 1955, she was omitting the top Ebs in *Lucia di Lammermoor*, at least she doesn't attempt the first one in the Mad Scene in Berlin. By 1958, the time of her final Lucias in Dalas, she doesn't attempt either. Mind you it was the last time sha sang the role on stage.


Not always is right. That's why I said "almost" and certainly not in her apres Ari years.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Not always. Already in 1955, she was omitting the top Ebs in *Lucia di Lammermoor*, at least she doesn't attempt the first one in the Mad Scene in Berlin. By 1958, the time of her final Lucias in Dalas, she doesn't attempt either. Mind you it was the last time sha sang the role on stage.


If I'm remembering correctly, think Callas *did* attempt at least one high E-flat in Dallas and was not successful. Backstage, she was heard saying: "I had the note, I had the note," and sang five consecutive E-Flats _in alt_ to reassure herself.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Another "tradition" is the high note (E-flat?) at the end of "Sempre libera," in *La Traviata*. It is not written, but how disappointing is it if you don't hear it? The lower note sounds so lame!

I don't know if the high C of "Di quella pira" is written or not, but it is tremendously exciting when the tenor can emit a rousing steady C in "all'armi! instead of a strangulated scream.

And didn't Marilyn Horne receive vitriolic reviews when she transposed "O don fatale," at the Metropolitan Opera when she sang Eboli there?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> How about Schuyler Chapin's story about Domingo panicking at the thought of missing the high note in "Pira" and asked for the comprimario to sit in the orchestra and be prepared to do it while he mouthed the note, and at the last second decided to try it, and it worked! Proving that when you have the pressure off you, sometimes you can come through a winner.


On one occasion at the San Francisco Opera in 1971, the tenor singing Manrico in *Il Trovatore* (James King) took ill and another tenor was announced. I didn't know the name then, but it was Placido Domingo and I could swear he sang a high C at "all'armi!" for all I know (I don't have perfect pitch). He was in tremendous form that night and could do no wrong.
His Leonora was Leontyne Price.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm reminded of this:

"Concerning the preparation of the Missa Solemnis, Schindler writes in his biography of Beethoven:
Similar complaints [about high notes] were loudly voiced during the rehearsals of the theatre's chorus. The chorus director pleaded for certain simplifications, especially in the soprano part. No. Finally he contented himself with requesting a change in the four B flats above the staff that the sopranos had to sing in the fugue subject of the Credo, protesting that none of his sopranos could reach high B flat. Kapellmeister Umlauf also came to his aid. Their pleas were in vain; the master would countenance no alteration of the score. The result of his obstinacy was that the soloists and members of the chorus made their own simplifications: when they could not reach the high notes as written, the sopranos simply did not sing."
< Beethoven as a Choral Composer , by Elliot Forbes , P. 69 >


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

MAS said:


> I don't know if the High C of "Di quella pira" is written or not, but it is tremendously exciting when the tenor can emit a rousing steady C is "all'armi! instead of a strangulated scream.


Had my Trovatore handy and took a peak. No written high C! Looks like it doesn't go above an A


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Bonetan said:


> Had my Trovatore handy and took a peak. No written high C! Looks like it doesn't go above an A


Thank you, Bonetan, now I know! :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm reminded of this:
> 
> "Concerning the preparation of the Missa Solemnis, Schindler writes in his biography of Beethoven:
> Similar complaints [about high notes] were loudly voiced during the rehearsals of the theatre's chorus. The chorus director pleaded for certain simplifications, especially in the soprano part. No. Finally he contented himself with requesting a change in the four B flats above the staff that the sopranos had to sing in the fugue subject of the Credo, protesting that none of his sopranos could reach high B flat. Kapellmeister Umlauf also came to his aid. Their pleas were in vain; the master would countenance no alteration of the score. The result of his obstinacy was that the soloists and members of the chorus made their own simplifications: when they could not reach the high notes as written, the sopranos simply did not sing."
> < Beethoven as a Choral Composer , by Elliot Forbes , P. 69 >


An amusing anecdote. Having sung the choral tenor part in the _Missa,_ I sympathize. Of course professional choruses nowadays are up to these challenges (more or less) and there's no need for alterations, but If a chorister needs to rest for a moment there are others to cover. I'm sure I rested quite a few times!


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

It is Riccardo Muti who has been doing some puritanical cleaning up of operas over the years, expunging unwritten high notes in the name of authenticity. Which is a shame, because they all add to the general thrill of the occasion.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> If I'm remembering correctly, think Callas *did* attempt at least one high E-flat in Dallas and was not successful. Backstage, she was heard saying: "I had the note, I had the note," and sang five consecutive E-Flats _in alt_ to reassure herself.


She attempted it on opening night but not again.


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## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm reminded of this:
> 
> "Concerning the preparation of the Missa Solemnis, Schindler writes in his biography of Beethoven:
> Similar complaints [about high notes] were loudly voiced during the rehearsals of the theatre's chorus. The chorus director pleaded for certain simplifications, especially in the soprano part. No. Finally he contented himself with requesting a change in the four B flats above the staff that the sopranos had to sing in the fugue subject of the Credo, protesting that none of his sopranos could reach high B flat. Kapellmeister Umlauf also came to his aid. Their pleas were in vain; the master would countenance no alteration of the score. The result of his obstinacy was that the soloists and members of the chorus made their own simplifications: when they could not reach the high notes as written, the sopranos simply did not sing."
> < Beethoven as a Choral Composer , by Elliot Forbes , P. 69 >


Times-- I was very impressed by Edda Moser as the soloist in the Missa with Bernstein, but equally with the chorus' ability to do what has to be done. Now they hire singers who can do it.
Beethoven accomodating mere mortals, funny idea.

If, out of malice or fun, or both, you want to experience an epic fail recorded for the ages, look at what Gwyneth Jones did to Haitink's Mahler 8. It's online for all to see, wow.


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