# I Rossini's Music For Sopranos Especially Difficult?



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

My sister was a lyric soprano in Germany decades ago. She could sing coloratura as she sang the lead in The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart. I asked her why she never sang any of the Rossini comic operas and she said that it was harder and specialists sang those parts. German operas had trouble casting those operas in the 70's and 80's for lack of people to cast in the parts, according to her. Is Rossini that difficult to sing compared to other composers who wrote similar music? I know Semiramide is a killer but I am thinking of operas like Don Pasquale and Barber


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

Seattleoperafan said:


> My sister was a lyric soprano in Germany decades ago. She could sing coloratura as she sang the lead in The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart. I asked her why she never sang any of the Rossini comic operas and she said that it was harder and specialists sang those parts. German operas had trouble casting those operas in the 70's and 80's for lack of people to cast in the parts, according to her. Is Rossini that difficult to sing compared to other composers who wrote similar music? I know Semiramide is a killer but I am thinking of operas like Don Pasquale and Barber


In an interview here (Link:http://www.bruceduffie.com/sutherland-bonynge.html) Richard Bonynge makes reference to Rossini's writing for the voice, informed by his experience of rehearsals and performance with Joan Sutherland in the repertoire



> Richard Bonynge: I think the 19th century composers were brought up with the traditions of the 18th century where the great school of singing was at its height with the castrati and the very high, stylized form of singing. I think that Rossini, who came out of the 18th century, understood very much how to write for the voice, and you see this right from the earliest of his operas. They're well-written for the voice, and Bellini also came out of that school. As we get later in the century, they seem to have forgotten, or had to re-learn, or change their ideas. Verdi at the very beginning was rather cruel to certain voices.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I don't think it's much more difficult than his bass or contralto roles. Arsace makes my head spin and goes from trills and extreme flexibility near the bottom of the range to soaring up almost as high as the soprano.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

My ears tell me that Rossini's writing for all voice ranges could be ferociously difficult. It accounts in great part for the neglect of his operas in the period before the "HIP" movement, even when Callas and Sutherland were revivng Bellini and Donizetti; singers brought up with verismo just couldn't handle yards and yards of coloratura. There were always a few agile sopranos around, but how many Rossini opera recordings would have been made in the '50s without good old Luigi Alva? Now we have light "Rossini tenors" all over the place - and hardly a dramatic tenor worthy of the name!


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

Rossini wrote music that was difficult for all voice ranges from basso profondo to high coloratura soprano. As has been noted above it is music written by someone who had had an innate and profound knowledge regarding how to write for the voice. Because of that ability and in spite of its difficulty it flows in a logical manner. Therefore, _given a singer with a well trained_ _technique_ the music is actually easier to sing compared to something written by someone such as Beethoven or even early Verdi which is written in a clumsy fashion... think the vocal writing in the _9th Symphony_ (and especially the tenor solo!)_, _Leonora, Abagaile, Lady Macbeth etc.

To make an alalogy, Rossini's vocal writing is similar to that of Mozart's for the piano. As a sometime pianist Mozart looks much more difficult on paper compared to Haydn. However, I find that it is often much easier to master as Mozart was a keyboard virtuoso and understood the medium in a way that Haydn probably did not. Believe me when I say that I have struggled more playing Haydn than Mozart and it seems strange as there are so many more notes to play in Mozart, but those notes are not positioned in a manner that's uncomfortable for the fingers to traverse!

Still the key to Rossini is proper technique! Just like a pianist has to know his scales, the Rossini specialist needs to be trained in a similar fashion. In fact Rossini composed a series of such exercises expressly for that purpose. With Bellini and Donizetti we gradually enter an era when male voices don't need as much flexibility. Eventually the same was true for mezzos and sopranos as well. Also composers began to place more emphasis on the dramatic as opposed to the vocal. That's why roles such as Abagaile in _Nabucco_ and Lady Macbeth probably undid more careers than they fostered! Eventually Verdi got his act together, but by that time coloratura was not in fashion.


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