# What coloratura aria do you think is the most taxing or most difficult to execute?



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I love coloratura and was wondering which aria you think provides the most challenges to a singer. My sister was an opera singer and I was visiting Germany when she was learning the most difficult aria she ever had to learn... "Marten aller Arten" from Mozart's the Abduction from the Seraglio. I have only heard Callas do the Prach Variations, which are for vocal students and she made it seem easy but it was astounding in what it demanded. "Let the Bright Seraphim" by Handel has a soprano pitting vocal gymnastics while dueting with a trumpet. Finally the big aria from Esclarmond which asks for 2 high D's , coloratura, while singing over a Wagnerian sized orchestra. Let me know what you can come up with.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I love coloratura and was wondering which aria you think provides the most challenges to a singer. My sister was an opera singer and I was visiting Germany when she was learning the most difficult aria she ever had to learn... "Marten aller Arten" from Mozart's the Abduction from the Seraglio. I have only heard Callas do the Prach Variations, which are for vocal students and she made it seem easy but it was astounding in what it demanded. "Let the Bright Seraphim" by Handel has a soprano pitting vocal gymnastics while dueting with a trumpet.


1) O Zittre Nicht (Queen of the Night)
2) In Mia Man (Norma). the coloratura itself isn't really that ornate, it's more the fact that such flexibility is necessary at the bottom of the range while expecting a coloratura soprano to sing with the weight and tessitura of a dramatic mezzo 
3) Dunque Io Son (The Barber of Seville) while it's not terribly taxing for a coloratura mezzo or soprano to sing, expecting that level of agility from a _baritone_ is more than demanding.



> Finally the big aria from Esclarmond which asks for *Joan Sutherland*


I think it's basically what you meant


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sutherland and Callas were the only singers fully qualified to tackle Esclarmond and only Joan took on the part late in her career.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Sutherland and Callas were the only singers fully qualified to tackle Esclarmond and only Joan took on the part late in her career.


Esclarmonde is too high for Callas, and, imo, requires a more bright, ethereal voice. Callas's voice was darker, more Italianate


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Esclarmonde is too high for Callas, and, imo, requires a more bright, ethereal voice. Callas's voice was darker, more Italianate


I can understand the reference to the sound of Callas being wrong for Esclarmond, but it certainly wasn't too high for her before her weight loss, my favorite period for her. Unlike Sutherland, who only recorded it, Maria sang many, many Turandots when she was fat and her D's, Eb's, E's and even F's in her 1952 Armida were not to be believed. As big as Joan's voice was above the staff, to my ears Maria's voice sounds even bigger above C in that short period before she lost 80 pounds.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I can understand the reference to the sound of Callas being wrong for Esclarmond, but it certainly wasn't too high for her before her weight loss, my favorite period for her. Unlike Sutherland, who only recorded it, Maria sang many, many Turandots when she was fat and her D's, Eb's, E's and even F's in her 1952 Armida were not to be believed. As big as Joan's voice was above the staff, to my ears Maria's voice sounds even bigger above C in that short period before she lost 80 pounds.


it seems like the progression of Callas's voice throughout her career was
mezzo-->dramatic coloratura soprano-->spinto/dramatic soprano-->dramatic mezzo


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Along with _Marten Aller Arten_ there are many others. One that comes swiftly to mind is the _Mad scene_ in _Lucia_.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

The arias for "dramatic coloratura soprano" sound to me to be the hardest. Case in point: "Santo di patria" from Verdi's ATTILA:


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

There's also "Ach Ich Liebte" in the same opera as Marten aller arten, and for the same character Constanze, the soprano arias from Lucio Silla, then pretty much every concert aria Mozart wrote for soprano. I know one goes up to G6 twice in the same aria without optional passages/ossia. There was a playlist on youtube of pre-surgery Natalie Dessay performing 8 of them on her Mozart Concert Arias CD which has been re-released 5 times. I guess she was at her peak technically back then.

For "Ah se in ciel," though, I think Sandrine Piau(in 1995) performance sounds better than Natalie Dessay's, just for her lower register which is an important section in that aria.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Not an _aria_ per se, but perhaps the role of Ariel in the opera The Tempest?


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

It depends on what aspects of a voice one wishes to have challenged. I would rate _Un pensiero nemico di pace_ as one of the most difficult from a flexibility / agility standpoint for a coloratura soprano, but something like _Air des clochettes_ poses its own challenges in how it focuses more on vocal control in the production of the voice and subtle but difficult changes in timbre and intensity. And of course something like _O wie will ich triumphieren_ is extraordinarily difficult simply due to the rarity of a basso with any kind of coloratura ability at all.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> The arias for "dramatic coloratura soprano" sound to me to be the hardest. Case in point: "Santo di patria" from Verdi's ATTILA:


Certainly to do it like Joan Sutherland it would be nearly impossible for anyone other than Callas to be in the same league.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> The arias for "dramatic coloratura soprano" sound to me to be the hardest. Case in point: "Santo di patria" from Verdi's ATTILA:


best...aria...ever


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

The role Fiordiligi from Cosi fan tutte seems to be a killer coloratura role. It doesn't have splashy coloratura of the belcanto and baroque, but to sing it as clean and as effective as Schwarzkopf does is very, very hard:


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

silentio said:


> The role Fiordiligi from Cosi fan tutte seems to be a killer coloratura role. It doesn't have splashy coloratura of the belcanto and baroque, but to sing it as clean and as effective as Schwarzkopf does is very, very hard


It is very difficult, many sopranos tend to, what was that term they used, "scoop" some of their notes in the wide leaps found in "come scoglio." I always see Schwarzkopf's name mentioned as the standard to which every other Fiordiligi is compared. Susan Chilcott was also very good in this role as well.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

silentio said:


> The role Fiordiligi from Cosi fan tutte seems to be a killer coloratura role. It doesn't have splashy coloratura of the belcanto and baroque, but to sing it as clean and as effective as Schwarzkopf does is very, very hard


Mozart's coloratura passages seem difficult to me more because they seem like they were meant to be performed by a flute, an oboe or a cello rather than a voice. bel canto coloratura "flows" far better on the voice, imo (Flagstad once described bel canto as "medicine for the voice")


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## perempe (Feb 27, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Along with _Marten Aller Arten_ there are many others. One that comes swiftly to mind is the _Mad scene_ in _Lucia_.


Edita Gruberova sang it here a month ago. the whole audience gave her a standing ovation after that scene. it was fantastic to hear her from the 6th row. our opera singers can definitely sing, but this was the first time I heard a world class singer.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Mozart's coloratura passages seem difficult to me more because they seem like they were meant to be performed by a flute, an oboe or a cello rather than a voice. bel canto coloratura "flows" far better on the voice, imo (Flagstad once described bel canto as "medicine for the voice")


Not always, Mozart was an accomplished tenor himself and was always aware of the expressive capabilities of the voice. Many of his most virtuosic coloratura soprano were written with certain performers in mind: Aloysia Weber, Josepha Hofer, if he wrote very technical arias for them, it's because he knew they could sing it. In The Magic Flute, for instance, Papageno and Tamino's arias will often begin with the strings on the same note that the performer is about to sing, and that was on purpose because the original singers in the first production, Mozart knew, were amateurs and would've needed some help to get their sense of pitch. Hofer, who sang as the Queen of the Night, had been singing professionally for years, and would've needed no such help.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Idomeneo's "_Fuor del mar_" must certainly rank among the most difficult coloratura arias. Jonas Kaufmann performs it here in its entirety -- not the simplified version I've heard a number of other tenors use.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Mozart's coloratura passages seem difficult to me more because they seem like they were meant to be performed by a flute, an oboe or a cello rather than a voice. bel canto coloratura "flows" far better on the voice, imo (Flagstad once described bel canto as "medicine for the voice")


Well, the description of flute/oboe-like vocal writing is more applicable to Bach I think. Don't get me wrong, I love Bach, but I don't think his vocal writings are very suitable for human voices. In contrast, Handel seemed to understand the limits of human voices much better, despite the fact that his coloratura roles are no less taxing.

I read somewhere that Mozart, later in his career, showed great interests in Bach and Handel. Even so, he leaned more towards Handel rather than Bach (for instance, his "improved" version of the Messiah). In the *Great Mass in C minor*, a masterpiece attempts to blend baroque and classical elements together, the phoenix-like, soaring lines of the soprano reminds me more of Handel opera than any of Bach masses or cantata.

P/S: One of my friends, who is on his way to become a professional pianist, told me that the reverse is true. That Mozart piano/violin/horn/flute concerti are indeed very... operatic.


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## BaronScarpia (Apr 2, 2014)

Ah se il crudel periglio - Teodora Gheorghiu sings with agility but her voice manages to retain its earthy richness in coloratura phrases:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

silentio said:


> I read somewhere that Mozart, later in his career, showed great interests in Bach and Handel. Even so, he leaned more towards Handel rather than Bach (for instance, his "improved" version of the Messiah). In the *Great Mass in C minor*, a masterpiece attempts to blend baroque and classical elements together, the phoenix-like, soaring lines of the soprano reminds me more of Handel opera than any of Bach masses or cantata.


I think that's a misconception propagated by 20th-century scholars who excessively focused on Bach and Handel, such as Rosen, who paid no attention to what Aumann (whose influence in terms of 'colored harmony' on Bruckner has been found to be significant), Schweitzer, Pasterwitz, Albrechtsberger, Adlgasser, Richter, Holzbauer, and various other "Classical Contrapuntists" were doing. Seen in an accurate context, there are no "Baroque elements" in that work. The fugue is not more Baroque than the recitative and aria are. Baroque counterpoint isn't built in contrasting structures of phrases or sections of "questions and answers" through gradations of dynamics or mood changes. Such "liturgical works" from the 1780s are not any less different from works of the 1730s than works of the 1730s are from works of the 1680s.

Phoenix-like, soaring lines of the soprano are not Handel's invention or specialty (not any more than "an 18th century opera composer's"), and are not Handelian. Except a few instances, of minor "quotations", the mass doesn't sound Handelian. I'm far more reminded by it of, for instance, the ensembles (and the vocal writing in general) of Haydn's requiem in the same key from 1771 or the Benedictus of Missa sti. Ruperti or that of Missa sti. J. Nepomuceni. Music had moved on too far for Mozart to be inspired solely by Handel's vocal/choral writing. (I don't even think Mozart would have done the "Handel arrangements" had van Swieten not paid him to, btw.)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

This might be comparable to the Mozart arias mentioned here




Più non pavento o curo


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> This might be comparable to the Mozart arias mentioned here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That is some messy coloratura.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> That is some messy coloratura.


Friend, given the choice between such coloraturas and "Italian Buffa-style phrase repetitions", which would you choose?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Friend, given the choice between such coloraturas and "Italian Buffa-style phrase repetitions", which would you choose?


The singer, hammered. The singer. She's awful. _"What coloratura aria do you think is the most taxing or most difficult to execute [for the singer]?" _Apparently all of them, in the case of this poor woman.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> The singer, hammered. The singer. She's awful.


Oh, ok. Unfortunately, there's no other recording of the opera (except for the recording of the German-language version conducted by Reinhard Goebel, the tempo of which I think is just wrong).


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

silentio said:


> Well, the description of flute/oboe-like vocal writing is more applicable to Bach I think. Don't get me wrong, I love Bach, but I don't think his vocal writings are very suitable for human voices. In contrast, Handel seemed to understand the limits of human voices much better, despite the fact that his coloratura roles are no less taxing.
> 
> I read somewhere that Mozart, later in his career, showed great interests in Bach and Handel. Even so, he leaned more towards Handel rather than Bach (for instance, his "improved" version of the Messiah). In the *Great Mass in C minor*, a masterpiece attempts to blend baroque and classical elements together, the phoenix-like, soaring lines of the soprano reminds me more of Handel opera than any of Bach masses or cantata.
> 
> P/S: One of my friends, who is on his way to become a professional pianist, told me that the reverse is true. That Mozart piano/violin/horn/flute concerti are indeed very... operatic.


I've heard many people talk about the absolutely absurd interval leaps in Bach. It doesn't surprise me you'd bring this up.


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## Dogville (Dec 28, 2021)

The most difficult coloratura aria as written is Konstanze's 'Ach ich liebte', imo. I find its difficulty surpasses the more famous 'Martern aller Arten'. However, if we are also counting counting unwritten interpolations, then 'D'amor Al Dolce Impero' from Rossini's Armida as sung by Callas in full Demi-Goddess mode would have to top the list.

Easily the most miraculous piece of singing in history, recorded or otherwise.


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