# Golden Age of Opera Singers



## MichaelNahari (Feb 3, 2019)

Hi guys,

I've recently come across with footage of old school opera films, such as this Bellini's Sonambula 



. It has been a true discovery to me. After spending most of my listening experiences with rather contemporary opera singers and productions, these old school films have opened a whole new world of what the true lyric bel canto is supposed to sound like. These golden era singers produce the most beautiful sound, their voices are so polished and rounded, not at all sensationalistic or with over-the-top dramatism. It has led me to think that contemporary singers, for the most part, are downplaying the art of opera.

Give it a shot at listening to it. Totally worth it. Let me know about your perceptions.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It was interesting to see an early Anna Moffo. I hope you also are able to add to your collection Sutherland and Callas -- two hard to beat bel canto geniuses. Moving on up in years (2009) Natalie Dessay was also excellent and deserves to be mentioned along with the others even though the Zimmerman production left a lot to be desired.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

There were several golden ages, but the 50's thru 70's included the primes of such great divas as Callas, Sutherland, Sills, Nilsson, Jones, Price, Verrett, Bumbry, Moffo, Steber,Simeonato,Horne and Ferrier. We have no singers today in their leagues.
'


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> There were several golden ages, but the 50's thru 70's included the primes of such great divas as Callas, Sutherland, Sills, Nilsson, Jones, Price, Verrett, Bumbry, Moffo, Steber,Simeonato,Horne and Ferrier. We have no singers today in their leagues.
> '


Can you say Fleming/Netrebko/Radvanovsky/Damrau/Yoncheva/DiDonato/Barton/Blythe/Goerke?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> There were several golden ages, but the 50's thru 70's included the primes of such great divas as Callas, Sutherland, Sills, Nilsson, Jones, Price, Verrett, Bumbry, Moffo, Steber,Simeonato,Horne and Ferrier. We have no singers today in their leagues.
> '


You could have added others from that 20-year period - Tebaldi, Olivero, Arroyo, Scotto, Caballe, Schwarzkopf, Grummer, Baker, Ludwig, Forrester, et al - and those are just the women. I detect few singers of today in their league, and none equal to the best of them.

Let us not speak of tenors.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Can you say Fleming/Netrebko/Radvanovsky/Damrau/Yoncheva/DiDonato/Barton/Blythe/Goerke?


Of that list I personally would say all are good but only Fleming, Barton, Blythe and possibly Goerke would have fit in with the earlier greats mentioned. I don't know Yoncheva. Goerke is great but I don't have enough experience with her since she became a dramatic soprano to say she was in Nilsson's league. One problem with today's stars is the lack of studio recordings you can live with. DiDonato is marvelous, but lacks a distinctive sound which I require for greatness, but is likely overwhelming live. Fleming is marvelous, marvelous, but in her frequent Bel Canto roles is not quite in the same league as Callas, Sutherland and often Caballe. I can't believe I forgot to mention Tebaldi in my earlier list. I was close to bedtime.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I will give you back that DiDonato if you will try to see the magnificence of Sondra Radvanovsky's "Norma" that equals Callas'.

(running for cover)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Radvanovsky may be a fine Norma, but she isn't the equal of Callas, neither in vocal technique nor in musicianship. That much can be determined from recordings. If she's the best we have, the premise of this thread is supported.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

@nina foresti: I *would* like to see the magnificence of Radvanovsky's _Norma_ equal Callas, but haven't yet (Saw/heard her in San Francisco). No contest.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

MAS: No contest? Wow! That's taking it a bit far don't you think?
I certainly respect anyone's right to prefer Callas. I myself am enthralled by her Norma but to say there's no contest really is an over-the-top remark IMO.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> MAS: No contest? Wow! That's taking it a bit far don't you think?
> I certainly respect anyone's right to prefer Callas. I myself am enthralled by her Norma but to say there's no contest really is an over-the-top remark IMO.


Some members may try to get you barred from the forum for saying that LOL LOL LOL Just kidding... almost.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Are there members on TC who heard Callas in the house?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I asked earlier and I think someone did hear her comeback recital at the end of her career. I had a friend who saw her in Tosca and he said it was bigger than Nilsson's. His words.


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

*innovation*



nina foresti said:


> Can you say Fleming/Netrebko/Radvanovsky/Damrau/Yoncheva/DiDonato/Barton/Blythe/Goerke?


I also look to singers for innovation, and on that front I was very pleased when I caught Pretty Yende at the Met a few weeks ago in La Fille du Regiment. She reinvented the role with South African stylings, postures and gestures. I don't claim to have a good enough ear to know the difference on a musical level between a typical soprano and a great soprano. But I can tell great acting, and this was great acting.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

marceliotstein said:


> I also look to singers for innovation, and on that front I was very pleased when I caught Pretty Yende at the Met a few weeks ago in La Fille du Regiment. She reinvented the role with South African stylings, postures and gestures. I don't claim to have a good enough ear to know the difference on a musical level between a typical soprano and a great soprano. But I can tell great acting, and this was great acting.


Of my list above, the great actresses are Damrau, Blythe and Goerke (add Felicity Palmer to the list). Going back to the Golden years some of the great actresses were: Callas, Olivero, Dessay, Stratas, Rysanek


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> There were several golden ages, but the 50's thru 70's included the primes of such great divas as Callas, Sutherland, Sills, Nilsson, Jones, Price, Verrett, Bumbry, Moffo, Steber,Simeonato,Horne and Ferrier. We have no singers today in their leagues.
> '


Three decades is an awfully long time to define as one "age" of singers. I certainly wouldn't consider Te Kanawa, singing in the 70s, and Milanov, singing in the 50s, to be of the same era. I generally think of the 50s, 60s and 70s as all pretty distinct periods with different generations of singers in their peaks in those decades.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Three decades is an awfully long time to define as one "age" of singers. I certainly wouldn't consider Te Kanawa, singing in the 70s, and Milanov, singing in the 50s, to be of the same era. I generally think of the 50s, 60s and 70s as all pretty distinct periods with different generations of singers in their peaks in those decades.


Wouldn't it make the most sense to define an era by cultural or other specific factors? Think of the 50s through the 70s as the postwar era, a time of unprecedented and accelerating change, before the baby boomers reached maturity (or whatever it was we reached), digital technology revolutionized every aspect of life, classical music lost its admittedly faded cachet in the onslaught of mass media and mass "culture", and, in America at least, a sense of the common good yielded to limitless greed and resulted in economic and political schisms which have reached a critical stage today. The war altered life in innumerable ways, and it's arguable (and I would argue, having grown up in the 1950s) that by the 1980s and '90s everyday life had for many become virtually unrecognizable in important ways. I think the '50s through the '70s constituted a definite era, not a homogeneous period but one of rapid and sometimes crazy transition from the simpler, more relaxed and personal culture of the prewar years to the hyperintense, technology-engulfed one we live in now.

Like much else, operatic traditions which had been long-established before WW II gave way rather quickly in the postwar years to new ideas. The 1950s saw the careers of many great prewar artists come to an end, but there was still enough of a tradition to produce great singers in an abundance that seems astonishing today, as the rich legacy of recordings from the few decades after the war attests. I didn't think of those decades as a "golden age" - I was, back then, comparing contemporary singers to the likes of Caruso, Ponselle, Schumann-Heink, Schipa, Amato, Flagstad, Melchior, Lehmann, Schorr, et al. - but they look ever more golden in retrospect. We can debate what happened to the grand tradition after that, but, many of us believe, something sure as hell did. I suppose we could ask why we'd expect anything else, given the concurrent disappearance of so much else that was beautiful in the world we caught precious glimpses of even as it was disappearing.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

howlingfantods said:


> Three decades is an awfully long time to define as one "age" of singers. I certainly wouldn't consider Te Kanawa, singing in the 70s, and Milanov, singing in the 50s, to be of the same era. I generally think of the 50s, 60s and 70s as all pretty distinct periods with different generations of singers in their peaks in those decades.


Exactly. To compare 2019 to a period of three decades is ridiculous. If one must compare, let's compare the singers of 2019 to the singers of a single year in the past.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

The other thing in this thread I disagree with--Moffo as the example for the Golden Age? She's got a lovely voice, but I always find her a little bland. 

I'd probably rather listen to Fleming, Netrebko, Gheorghiu over Moffo, just to pick a few recent ladies.

I do agree with the spotlight on those old black and white opera videos from the 50s though. If you'd mentioned the Tebaldi/Corelli/Bastianini Forza or the Gencer/MDM/Bastianini/Barbieri Trovatore, I'd have co-signed this thread more enthusiastically I think....


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

MichaelNahari said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> I've recently come across with footage of old school opera films, such as this Bellini's Sonambula
> 
> ...


I have that Moffo Sonnambula on DVD with English subtitles. It is great!


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