# Examples of exceptional breath control.



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Playbill currently features a note held 20 seconds by Streisand, which is impressive. I am sure there are examples from the opera world. I can't find it but I know Sutherland holds a note forever in a big scene with chorus in one of Donizetti's Three Queens. Callas holds the famous Eb in the Triumphal Scene a very long time for such a loud/ high note. I know Jessye Norman often doesn't seem to breath in her prime. Can you think of anything?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

The long note held by Sutherland is in Maria Stuarda in the prayer in the final scene. Caballe does a similar feat in the first act of Lucrezia Borgia.

These are both impressive, but I'm not necessarily that impressed in general with these 'freak of nature' feats. I'm far more interested in singers who do much with reduced resources or lesser vocal gifts. For example when it comes to breath control Claudia Muzio famously had smaller reserves due to being ill when she made her last recordings in 1934-35. Yet she used breath to imbue her singing with tragic meaning and turned what was a flaw into an artistic merit. Now, that IS impressive!

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Sutherland had the best doggone muscles and another whose muscles were strong and sang till she was in her 90's without a bit of wobble was Magda Olivero.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Agree with Conte that while extreme examples are impressive, they are really only interesting to the extent that they serve the music. Still, there are some that manage both:

How about 18 seconds with a diminuendo and crescendo (2:35-2:53):





A 21 second trill:





Many, many such examples from Galli-Curci.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Luigi Alva had exceptional breath control. In the role as Don Ottavio, for example, the figurated line on "nar" around 1:59 is pretty tough going and most singers take a breath halfway through the phrase. Alva does the entire thing in one breath, and even then he doesn't seem the least bit fazed.






Here are some examples of Caballé's phenomenal breath control:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Caballé is certainly one of the first to spring to mind, but breath control is not just about being able to hold on to long notes. It is the ability to spin out a long phrase without taking a breath. Callas had amazing breath control and sometimes appears not to breath at all. I often remark how she is one of the few singers to sing what Saint-Saëns wrote in Dalila's _Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix_, which is that the line _Ah, réponds a ma tendresse_ shoud be sung in one breath. It's a very long phrase and most singers add another _réponds_ which enables them to snatch a breath in the middle of the line. Callas manages it all in one breath. Another example would be the cadenza in Amina's _Ah non giunge_ where she goes up to an Eb _in alt_ which she hits fortissimo, effects a diminuendo on this stratospheric note, before cascading down a perfect "string of pearls" scale before phrasing on and into the repeat of the cabaletta. This was in 1957 in the studio recording, but she repeats the effect when she sings it live in Cologne the same year (though live she does snatch a quick breath at the bottom of the scale).

Another unshowy example that always has amazed me is Janet Baker's singing of the rising scalic phrase that occurs in Schubert's _Du bist die Ruh_. It's a very long phrase that occurs twice and she sings it in one breath, once with a diminuendo and once with a crescendo. It really shows the perfection of her technique.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Luigi Alva had exceptional breath control. In the role as Don Ottavio, for example, the figurated line on "nar" around 1:59 is pretty tough going and most singers take a breath halfway through the phrase. Alva does the entire thing in one breath, and even then he doesn't seem the least bit fazed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The second example by Caballe from Don Carlo is WOW!!!!!!!!!! Thanks!!! In her biography she describes at the beginning of her vocal training doing a whole year of nothing but essentially yogic breathing without even singing.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Another unshowy example that always has amazed me is Janet Baker's singing of the rising scalic phrase that occurs in Schubert's _Du bist die Ruh_. It's a very long phrase that occurs twice and she sings it in one breath, once with a diminuendo and once with a crescendo. It really shows the perfection of her technique.


I've just listened to this song and I timed the phrase. It was 21 seconds the first time round and slightly shorter at just under 20 seconds (the one with a crescendo) the second time. That's pretty amazing! But what's more amazing is that it is not a feat that draws attention to itself. Technique is put at the service of the song, not the singer.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

Circular breathing is much more impressive it is a technique mastered by Flute players such as the great James Galway for playing long extended passages with out pausing for breath.


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## perdido34 (Mar 11, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> The second example by Caballe from Don Carlo is WOW!!!!!!!!!! Thanks!!! In her biography she describes at the beginning of her vocal training doing a whole year of nothing but essentially yogic breathing without even singing.


There are some Caballe masterclasses on YouTube. She spends most of her time working on the singers' breathing.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Breath control, you say?

Try Anna Moffo singing Vocalise on this CD:


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Cappuccilli seemed to have infinite lung capacity. His legato lines just go on forever. Tézier is also pretty damn good at it.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Sieglinde said:


> Cappuccilli seemed to have infinite lung capacity. His legato lines just go on forever. Tézier is also pretty damn good at it.


Yes, Cappuccilli, it's crazy to watch how long he manages to go without breathing.


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## perdido34 (Mar 11, 2015)

This performance of Strauss 4 Last Songs with Jessye Norman and Wolfgang Sawallisch is amazing in many ways, not the least for her breath control:


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

perdido34 said:


> This performance of Strauss 4 Last Songs with Jessye Norman and Wolfgang Sawallisch is amazing in many ways, not the least for her breath control:


Perfect example. When she was large she could go forever without breathing it seemed. A stunning performance!!!


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

annaw said:


> Yes, Cappuccilli, it's crazy to watch how long he manages to go without breathing.


And he was rather small and fragile, I'm always like, WHERE did he keep all that air?

Verdi, writing his operas: Baritones don't need to breathe, right?
Baritones: Maestro, respectfully, what the ****
Cappuccilli: Git gud noobs


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Corelli could draw out phrases for a long time: between that and the timbre of his voice the results could be mesmerising


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Sieglinde said:


> And he was rather small and fragile, I'm always like, WHERE did he keep all that air?
> 
> Verdi, writing his operas: Baritones don't need to breathe, right?
> Baritones: Maestro, respectfully, what the ****
> Cappuccilli: Git gud noobs


Yes, it wasn't even breath control, he was just not breathing :lol:. "How many phrases can I manage with one breath this time?" - Cappuccilli


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

On a related subject, am I the only person bothered with the very noisy intake of air that you find with for example Renata Scotto and Angela Ghiorgiu? Very fine artist these ladies are, I find myself becoming so focused on the intakes of air that I forget to listen. Perhaps close miking has got something to do with it but as a result I don’t have recordings of either lady in my collection.


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Callas' "il sol m'arride come del primo amo~~~~~~~..." she goes on for like 15 seconds without breathing


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Caballé too


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

At about 1:40
Maria Callas, "Ah!, Non giunge uman pensiero," from *La Sonnambula*
Cologne 1957


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## SanyiKocka (May 6, 2020)

Breath control is for proper legato not an ocean diving without an oxygen tank. 
For example, when singing Posa's death scene, Cappuccilli sang it beautifully so that you even cannot notice when and where he took a breath. In contrast, many young baritones hold back on to their breath when singing this scene and what I get from them is "Oh he is about to show his lung capacity!"


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

1:38 
Juan Diego Flores, "Cucurrucucu Paloma 2019, La Scala encore

For those who don't know, cucurrucucu is the sound that doves make
Ay ay ay ay ay, the sound we make.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Probably as the result of his experience as a horn player, Fritz Wunderlich had incredible breath control. All of Belmonte's arias from _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_ are difficult, but "Ich baue ganz" is the most demanding. In addition to Mozart's typical long vocal lines and a tessitura that sits in the passaggio, Mozart composed some very challenging coloratura. He includes chromatic runs, awkward intervallic leaps, incredibly long sustained notes, and a difficult triplet pattern near the end of the aria that covers a range of one and a half octaves from low E-flat to high B-flat. Wunderlich throws it all off effortlessly.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Probably as the result of his experience as a horn player, Fritz Wunderlich had incredible breath control. All of Belmonte's arias from _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_ are difficult, but "Ich baue ganz" is the most demanding. In addition to Mozart's typical long vocal lines and a tessitura that sits in the passaggio, Mozart composed some very challenging coloratura. He includes chromatic runs, awkward intervallic leaps, incredibly long sustained notes, and a difficult triplet pattern near the end of the aria that covers a range of one and a half octaves from low E-flat to high B-flat. Wunderlich throws it all off effortlessly.


An all-around great singer!


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## maac (May 4, 2020)

Mr. Fiato Blake. Amazing, infinite breathing.


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## maac (May 4, 2020)

Perhaps more aristocratic, less spectacular than Blake, Kraus and a historical encore in La Scala, 1972.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Going back to the very start of this thread, it is interesting that I don't see many examples of singers holding notes much longer than Barbra Streisand, who went 20 seconds in the example listed and possibly more at the end of Yentl. She apparently had no training but did it by force of will. She is one of the very few pop singers who can carry a phrase to it's logical conclusion and not just breathing when you have to. I am not counting the very long phrases in arias posted in the thread as that would be labor intensive to time out in an aria.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I have another thread about Dimash but I thought I'd mention here that in addition to his truly stratospheric singing up to D8 and E6 in full head voice, his absolutely incredible technique carries over to breath control. There is a Youtube video devoted to his standout instances. He holds both a solid note and also a wide ranging cascade of notes 23 seconds, which bests Streisand and I don't know if any other instances in this thread can top that. He also seems to do this very regularly. He studied voice for 20 years so his technique must be amazing. He was invited to join an opera company but there is more money and fulfillment for him in pop/opera.


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