# Cross-Over/"Popera" singers who are actually good



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

generally, so called "popera" singers get a bad wrap (which is often deserved). however, there are a few which I believe have some quality work out there.

one of my favorites among such singers is Swedish mezzo soprano Malena Ernman, who can successfully sing music from low mezzo soprano all the way up to coloratura soprano 





....listen to that lower register. I LOVE it! :devil:

unlike most cross-over singers, she also has some respectable recordings of real opera pieces


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Malena Ernman is first an opera singer and not a pop singer. She have recorded pop songs and performed in the Eurovision song contest but that have also Ingvar Wixell I have never heard anyone call him a popera singer.
Malena Ernman is mostly performing in baroque operas.
Her great grandmother was the baritone Sigurd Björlings sister.


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

The answer would be: they don't exist. You cant sing opera based on 'pop-singing' training.

I agree that the example of Melena Ernman is wrong, she is a classically trained singer.

If there are any, they would have been trained classically from the beginning, and decide to stick to the classical style. Diana Damrau made her stage debut in a musical, but that was based on a classically trained voice.


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

However, there may also be classically trained singers that in an early stage decide to go to pop singing, or musical singing.

I don't have any examples.

I do know that American singer Tori Amos started a training as a classical pianist, but got kicked out off the conservatory. Seems to me that was a good career move


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

You've GOT to be joking.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Dongiovanni said:


> The answer would be: they don't exist. You cant sing opera based on 'pop-singing' training.
> 
> I agree that the example of Melena Ernman is wrong, she is a classically trained singer.
> 
> If there are any, they would have been trained classically from the beginning, and decide to stick to the classical style. Diana Damrau made her stage debut in a musical, but that was based on a classically trained voice.


Malena Ernmans career is first based on singing in operas on stage. That why I don´t think she is a good example. A better example would be singers with classical training that have a career mostly based on being a popera singer.
Then there are singers with classical training that are bad singers anyway and have because of that had a career as a popera singer because that is what they can do.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Dongiovanni said:


> However, there may also be classically trained singers that in an early stage decide to go to pop singing, or musical singing.
> 
> I don't have any examples.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

The question to me is whether proper opera fans should give any of these singers and groups the time of day, let alone buy the records. Even if the voices were tolerable, the song selection tell you everything you need to know about the target markets for these discs. 

Thankfully, I think there are also true opera singers (yep, them who perform in operas, in opera houses) bringing out albums with a properly programmed selection of material.

Sorry to sound like such a snob, I actually like good singing in many types of music, but there's something about popera that touches a raw nerve. In some ways I see it as a buffer keeping people away from good classical singing rather than giving an introduction to it.


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## BaronScarpia (Apr 2, 2014)

I happen to like Mirusia Louwerse. Katherine Jenkins _could_ have been a great operatic mezzo, but sadly it's too late for her now!


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

*Cross-Over/"Popera" singers who are actually good?
*
Andrea Bocelli, of course! 

Actually much better as a pop singer, imo.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I think Bocelli is a very good pop singer. Pity he doesn't stay with that particular genre.

Or as Joseph Calleja observed in an interview in the September issue of _Opera Now_, climbing in a Formula One car and driving a few laps does not make one as good as the racers.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

From another epoch in pop history: Tino Rossi singing Je crois entendre encore from Les Pecheurs de Perles. I think this works because, instead of trying to imitate the mannerisms of Italian verismo singers of the day to sound like an ignorant person's idea of an 'operatic' tenor (as Bocelli does now) he sings it as the crooning tenorino he was, a niche he made his own. It was of course easier then, before popular and operatic singing diverged so widely from one another. Rossi, incidentally, was active for longer than I realised: all the records of his I found in the UK were from the 30s and I think I actually assumed he perished in the war, but when I went to France, the brocante shops were full of his LPs, dating from as late as the 70s, I think. I have a treasured 45rpm single of Rossi singing the theme song from the Godfather. Fantastic pop singer!


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## matsoljare (Jul 28, 2008)

Cezar Ouatu, "The Voice" of Romania:






And i'm not sure if this counts:


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

matsoljare said:


> Cezar Ouatu, "The Voice" of Romania:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Neither of these clips seem to be even popera. The first guy is so breathy. The falsettist in the second clip is quite interesting. But it's hard to judge anyone who is relying so much on amplification.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I thought Barbra Streisand's Classical Barbra album was mostly a huge success. She sang the songs in her normal style and never went into operatic notes above the passagio, but all was sung very beautifully. My sister is a voice teacher and felt she could have been a good opera singer with proper training.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I thought Barbra Streisand's Classical Barbra album was mostly a huge success. She sang the songs in her normal style and never went into operatic notes above the passagio, but all was sung very beautifully. My sister is a voice teacher and felt she could have been a good opera singer with proper training.


That disc is one of my guilty pleasures. On it's own terms it works very well. What Streisand did have of course, still does, is a superb legato and amazing breath control, two of the preferred qualities of _all_ good singing, shared also by such singers as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

​My guilty pleasure : Eileen Farrel singing ; I gotta to right to sing the blues.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Pugg said:


> ​My guilty pleasure : Eileen Farrel singing ; I gotta to right to sing the blues.


She was the best pop singing opera singer of all time. Her rendition of Blues in the Night on this album is in my opinion one of the great pop recordings of all time, sung with operatic verve but with pop sensibilities.



 Never has this Harold Arlen gem been topped! I performed in drag with this number 20 years ago and drag queens kept pestering me with statements like " Who the HELL was that! Wow!!!" Farrell, who had one of the most massive Wagnerian sopranos of all time, one critic saying she had a "voice like Niagra Falls!" could scale her voice back for pop, but still they had to put the mike many feet away from her. She could never be close miked like Barbra or Ella. It all came off sounding intimate on record. She had a whole extra octave she used in pop that you never heard in her opera. That whole lower octave was completely integrated with the rest of her soprano voice, not like something tacked on. In Interrupted Melody she was the offscreen voice behind Marjorie Lawrence's biopic and she did a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow for an entertaining the troups scene that held it's own with Garland's.



. She recorded a whole string of pop albums in her senior years that were excellent. Here she is in her late 60's with Bernstein doing Come Rain of Come Shine to great effect:



. In her later years all of her pop was sung in the contralto range.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> She was the best pop singing opera singer of all time. Her rendition of Blues in the Night on this album is in my opinion one of the great pop recordings of all time, sung with operatic verve but with pop sensibilities.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have about 8 discs on R.R recordings, I love them.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Pugg said:


> I have about 8 discs on R.R recordings, I love them.


What is R.R. recording? I must be stoopid.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> What is R.R. recording? I must be stoopid.


Sorry my fault :

*Reference Recordings* for the so called audiophiles .

I found them, in a sale in a equipment store, who stop selling CD'S


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I guess I'm not sure what "popera" means. If it means pop singers without classical technique trying to sing opera, I can't imagine it being much good. I've heard some examples (can't remember names) that confirm that, and only a few that sounded reasonable, albeit in idiosyncratic ways (I like "Classical Barbra" too, but most of it isn't actually opera). But if popera includes opera singers doing popular music or jazz, there's a long history of it; plenty of singers have been effective, and some really good. Good breath control never hurts.

I've always loved Jane Froman, who studied opera before going into popular music in the '30s. Of course pop then wasn't what it is now.






Ahhhhh!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I guess I'm not sure what "popera" means. If it means pop singers without classical technique trying to sing opera, I can't imagine it being much good. I've heard some examples (can't remember names) that confirm that, and only a few that sounded reasonable, albeit in idiosyncratic ways (I like "Classical Barbra" too, but most of it isn't actually opera). But if popera includes opera singers doing popular music or jazz, there's a long history of it; plenty of singers have been effective, and some really good. Good breath control never hurts.
> 
> I've always loved Jane Froman, who studied opera before going into popular music in the '30s. Of course pop then wasn't what it is now.
> 
> ...


What a gorgeous voice. Reminded me a bit of Ferrier. Blue Moon made me howl at the moon.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

What do you think about this? It's Estonia's entry for Eurovision 2018, elected yesterday evening.

I like indie music


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

The problem with the crossover singers is they are promoted as ‘classical’ singers by the record companies but don’t live up to the hype. Many of them such as Katherine Jenkins and the ubiquitous professional Yorkshirewoman Lesley Garrett spend a lot of time on game shows and chat shows, being extremely irritating.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

I don't think it's right to put Lesley Garrett in the same category as Katherine Jenkins. Garrett continues to sing in opera houses as she's done since the 80's, and was a principle soprano at ENO for many years, where she now sits on the board.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Sorry, I must admit my judgment is coloured by her bursting into song unasked on all the reality shows etc. and being generally annoying. I assumed it was because she’s not in demand on stage!


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

A few years ago there was a television programme in the UK called "Popstar to Opera Star". Rolando Villazon, Katharine Jenkins and voice coaches worked with the performers, allthough inevitably, the amount of training they were given was limited. Most of the singers attempts were, to put it kindly, brave, if not very successful. There was one lad however, Joe Mcelderry, that Villazon was almost begging to study opera seriously, so impressed was he by Joe's potential. Joe's nerves show at the beginning of the aria, but as he settles down, by the end I think it's a pretty impressive first attempt. (The actual aria starts at 2.45, but the lead in is quite interesting too.)


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