# Round Two: In Questa Reggia: Jones, Cigna, Turner



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Gwyneth Jones is in excellent voice here with ringing high notes free of any wobble. Gina Cigna likely sang Turandot more than any other singer in history. I think she is incredible. Dame Eva Turner was Gwyneth Jones' teacher. Many people consider her the definitive Turandot. She could have had the biggest voice of all time but what was interesting was she looked huge in photos but was a tiny lady with no neck. In fact all three of our Turandots today were slender ladies who could shake the rafters. I wanted to include the gargantuan voiced Gertrude Grob- Prandl, but she doesn't have many fans here.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In classical singing, if you can count the pulsations in a singer's vibrato, it's a wobble. Gwyneth Jones wobbles all the way through this. She also screams. This Turandot deserves to lose her head to her own executioners (of course all Turandots do, even if they sing well :angel.

The sound quality of Cigna's recording, somehow muffled and metallic at once, doesn't flatter her - I doubt that her high notes had quite the edge they seem to here - but it can't conceal a solidly sung and expressive performance. I like the slow tempo of the opening section; it allows her to bring some thoughtful shading to her phrasing in relating her story. And who is that brilliant tenor? Is it Francesco Merli?

Eva Turner has a Nilsson-like ease and brilliance on high. I've never been quite able to decide what I think of the actual sound of her voice; it sounds huge and girlish at once, even on later recordings with better sound than this one. In any case, the music holds no terrors for her.

Cigna has a sexier sound than Turner, and brings more expressive subtleties to the music. She's my gal.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Must say you say mostly what I think, Woodduck, but all in all, this bunch is not surprising. High notes are not all. I don’t like Turner much either.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Posted twice for some reason.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I became a big fan of Gina Cigna ( l love her name) as she had maybe the most fabulous interview in The Last Prima Donnas. I had a photo of her as Turandot in an Art Deco costume in my bathroom for years. I do agree with the girlish/ sexless take on Turner, but she was a between the war British singer and sex was just for reproduction, don't you know.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Oh dear, oh dear, Gwyneth. Callas never in all her life had such a wobble and certainly not on the middle of her voice. This was really painful to listen to. It wasn't just the wobble, but the way she often hits notes from below and slides up to them.

Of the other two, I much preferred Cigna, and in fact I might even prefer Cigna to Nilsson. Like Woodduck, I liked the thoughtful reading and vocal shading she employed in the opening section. She rises to the challenge of the final measures impressively too, if without Nilsson's cutting edge ease.

Turner is impressive too, and of course she was a famous Turandot, but it's always annoyed me how she doesn't even attempt to sing the words on the final ascent to top C. What we get is _Gli'en ah ah ah ah tre _, which doesn't really make much sense.

Cigna for me.


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

Cigna impressed me. She sings with more involvement than usual, and she attempts more dynamics in this aria than the other contenders, the previous round included. Turner is also fine, perhaps even more impressive in the upper reaches than Cigna, but she doesn’t interpret much, and sacrifices the consonants.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

This an example of picking the best from the worst. They are all secondary to the first bunch.
I see Cigna getting most of the votes which kind of puts me off because one cannot even hear her low tones well.
As for Jones, it is a mediocre and uninteresting aria as done by her. I cannot find one thing to praise the aria.
Turner by default has to get my vote but not happily -- because she is simply no match for Nilsson. Her voice of the 3 however, has that steely quality needed for an ice princess.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Jones - Unlistenable
Cigna - Very good for most of the recording, high notes are a little bit of a problem
Turner - Strong, very good, high notes sounded slightly sharp to me

Overall, I will go with Cigna out of this group.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am sentimental about Jones because I LOVE LOVE her Ring from Bayreuth early in her career. I think she is the best Brunhilde on video. All of her Turandot videos are from her late 50's.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I am sentimental about Jones because I LOVE LOVE her Ring from Bayreuth early in her career. I think she is the best Brunhilde on video. All of her Turandot videos are from her late 50's.


That's the thing about Jones; she's the best ON VIDEO. Only early in her career did she provide competitive audio, and some of her early recordings are beautiful indeed. She might have been the great Verdi soprano of her generation. I don't know what happened to her voice, although it must be said that she had the strength to go on wobbling for many more years than any singer has a right to. Those who saw her in the theater put up with a lot of awful singing, but her power as an actor apparently made it worthwhile.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> That's the thing about Jones; she's the best ON VIDEO. Only early in her career did she provide competitive audio, and some of her early recordings are beautiful indeed. She might have been the great Verdi soprano of her generation. I don't know what happened to her voice, although it must be said that she had the strength to go on wobbling for many more years than any singer has a right to. Those who saw her in the theater put up with a lot of awful singing, but her power as an actor apparently made it worthwhile.


I think you are on to the pulse of the issue. She is so gorgeous onstage and is like a later generation Callas onstage and then you add that powerful voice. The difference is you could appreciate Maria's gifts in recordings even when she was not in her best voice.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Jones' wobble makes it a really uncomfortable listen.
Turner is great but really not quite my cup of tea, there's no flow to the lines but maybe it's just my thing - Cigna sounds impressive and even sexy - the only performer here that got me thinking Kalaf wasn't completely out of his mind, after all.



Seattleoperafan said:


> I am sentimental about Jones because I LOVE LOVE her Ring from Bayreuth early in her career. I think she is the best Brunhilde on video. All of her Turandot videos are from her late 50's.


I wouldn't say it was that early in her career... she was in her 40s, I believe and as for 1980 Ring all her vocal problems were already on display (although her acting was always spot-on).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Azol said:


> Cigna sounds impressive and even sexy - the only performer here that got me thinking Kalaf wasn't completely out of his mind, after all.


Turandot is certainly a problem, isn't she? The problem of who and what she is is a problem posed by the opera as a whole. The idea of a love that seems to consist entirely of an irrational obsession with a creature who happily beheads anyone that loses a riddle game sounds like great fairy tale material to scare the children with. But how do you dramatize it plausibly onstage? What's a soprano to do, especially when she has to bellow at the top of her range and the top of her lungs?

Congratulations to Cigna for getting even a hint of sexiness into this, even if nothing in the music or story requires it.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I think you are on to the pulse of the issue. She is so gorgeous onstage and is like a later generation Callas onstage and then you add that powerful voice. The difference is you could appreciate Maria's gifts in recordings even when she was not in her best voice.


La Gwyneth could be very variable, transcendent in a *Fidelio *performance (in San Francisco), where the wobble was non-existent; or as the Marschallin in a video of Carlos Kleiber's *Der Rosenkavalier* where voice and looks were at their best ("extravagantly beautiful" was one critic's assertion); or as Brunhilde (again in San Francisco) when I swore I could see the waves of her wobble highs come from the stage and peel some paint on the right side of the house, it was so loud. And pre-wobble, George Jellinek wondered why she was cast in some of her recordings just to "compromise them with her inferior contribution."

Perhaps the best way is to adopt the French attitude, they loved her _plastique_ on stage and ignored the vocal failings.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Eva Turner gave me goosebumps!! I still have them!
Part may have had to do with the completely unexpected thrill....how hard it is to relace the "unexpected" in the arts once we are familiar.....of her singing the tenors line but it was way more than that.

Jones, on this day, was not in the competition. Cigna was wonderful. It was great to hear the non-mega-voice approach that she and Turner brought. I think I was more drawn to Turandot this way and less "blown away" by the singers voice. I'm not blaming Nilsson and Dimitrova, I don't think they were indulgent at all and I guess we don't have to spend any time worrying over the hand they've been dealt. But Cigna immediately had me thinking more of the woman beneath the exterior and Turner took that to the max! Maybe someone would want more ice than she had but I fell in love with her rendition right up to the glorious finish!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

ScottK said:


> Eva Turner gave me goosebumps!! I still have them!
> Part may have had to do with the completely unexpected thrill....how hard it is to relace the "unexpected" in the arts once we are familiar.....of her singing the tenors line but it was way more than that.
> 
> Jones, on this day, was not in the competition. Cigna was wonderful. It was great to hear the non-mega-voice approach that she and Turner brought. I think I was more drawn to Turandot this way and less "blown away" by the singers voice. I'm not blaming Nilsson and Dimitrova, I don't think they were indulgent at all and I guess we don't have to spend any time worrying over the hand they've been dealt. But Cigna immediately had me thinking more of the woman beneath the exterior and Turner took that to the max! Maybe someone would want more ice than she had but I fell in love with her rendition right up to the glorious finish!


I love your thoughtful response. I felt the same way first time I heard Turner!
In regard to Nilsson, we only have recordings now but people who heard her live as Turandot never forgot the experience. I don't think she recorded well at all. PLUS, Nilsson had a HUGE presence in the role. The role made her fabulously wealthy. To hear her with Corelli must have been a peak experience.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> Those who saw her in the theater put up with a lot of awful singing, but her power as an actor apparently made it worthwhile.


On the nose!

Rosenkavalier lover that I am, I love different Marschallin's in different ways. And growing up an hour and a half from the Met I've been blessed with a wonderful bunch of names to hear in that role. I'd probably say that every single one of them was superior vocally to where Jones was when I heard her in the early 70's. But I will go to my grave remembering her acting of the end of Act 1. As they say, a stone would have wept.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I think in this contest there really is no point in a final pick the winner round as Nilsson will sweep everyone else away. Unless there is a protest I will proceed to the next contest.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I think in this contest there really is no point in a final pick the winner round as Nilsson will sweep everyone else away. Unless there is a protest I will proceed to the next contest.


I don't know, I think Cigna has garnered a lot of support. Wouldn't it be fun to see if she, or whoever, is close?


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