# First Round: Ah Perfido! Schwarzkopf and Varnay



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

This will be an epic contest of a difficult aria with more big name sopranos than any aria that I know of, and they all are bringing their A Game to the plate.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Schwarzkopf was, among other fine things, a master of recitative. She sprang out of my speakers a fully formed character from some opera that Beethoven forgot to write. I needed only a couple of minutes of each of these - well, less than that, really - to know who to pick. Varnay's heavy voice with its loose vibrato just doesn't do it for me, here or almost anywhere.


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## Francasacchi (7 mo ago)

Now this contest will be heated ... I will say now the best one is you know who. ... who rarely sang this repertoire😉


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I can't believe Varnay's winning. Do people seriously prefer her ill-focused, heavy, steely voice? I couldn't listen to the whole thing. Schwarzkopf is not only more imaginative, she's also much easier on the ear.

The aria itself has a bit of a kinship with Donna Elvira's _Mi tradi_, no doubt another reason it suits Schwarzkopf so well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I can't believe Varnay's winning. Do people seriously prefer her ill-focused, heavy, steely voice? I couldn't listen to the whole thing. Schwarzkopf is not only more imaginative, she's also much easier on the ear.
> 
> The aria itself has a bit of a kinship with Donna Elvira's _Mi tradi_, no doubt another reason it suits Schwarzkopf so well.


I was thinking of Donna Elvira too. I think ES almost owns that role.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Schwartzkopf. 

Varnay sounded like a much older singer, even though she was younger by a few years: kind of tired, difficulty with focusing her voice on the notes, especially higher in her range.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I am not voting. I must first process a realization that this exist. I always regretted Beethoven did not write more operas.

Edit: OK, voting Varnay !


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BBSVK said:


> I am not voting. I must first process a realization that this exist. I always regretted Beethoven did not write more operas.
> 
> Edit: OK, voting Varnay !


I love Fidelio but singers don't LOL It is hard to sing. Glad to introduce this to you.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

In this instance, Schwarzkopf by default. I found Varnay tough to listen to for reasons already mentioned. Schwarzkopf by contrast is, as always, a pleasure to hear.


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Voting for neither even though Schwarzkopf’s is impressive. But impressive from a recording studio angle. I can only imagine the torture she must have put herself through (or her husband) to be able to sing this dramatic work for the microphones. For she had too small a voice to be able to sing it in concert with a full orchestra. Maybe with piano accompaniment and even that is dubious.


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## Francasacchi (7 mo ago)

It these days requires a voice that can sing Leonore in Fidelio ... but, thinking of the sizes of orchestras and what we know about some of the singers in the time of Beethoven, one wonders if Schwarzkopf could be closer to that style and type of voice. It is certainly in the style of of a concert opera seria aria like those Mozart wrote not a Wagnerian immolation scene. Did Janowitz who sang Leonore in Fidelio sing this aria?


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Francasacchi said:


> It these days requires a voice that can sing Leonore in Fidelio ... but, thinking of the sizes of orchestras and what we know about some of the singers in the time of Beethoven, one wonders if Schwarzkopf could be closer to that style and type of voice. It is certainly in the style of of a concert opera seria aria like those Mozart wrote not a Wagnerian immolation scene. Did Janowitz who sang Leonore in Fidelio sing this aria?


Good point. Maybe a voice like Schwarzkopf‘s could have done it in concert with a HIP orchestra, which tend to be drier-sounding and more muted? Certainly lower-pitched. Janowitz did sing it. It’s on Youtube.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

It's a nice Mozartian game, an aria without an opera. And Beethoven succeeded Mozart more than preceded Wagner. Italian stresses this circumstance.
Schwarzkopf's voice may be smaller than Varnay's or other Wagnerian singer's. But she made her carrier not only in the studio and I'm not sure if anyone complained the size of her voice.
I think in Beethoven's time composers and the audience were less concerned in the voice size. First performers of Fidelio, Caroline Unger and Henriette Sonntag asked him to make moderate quantity of difficult high notes, rather than about a big orchestra.
This is Fräulein Sonntag.


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## Francasacchi (7 mo ago)

ALT said:


> Good point. Maybe a voice like Schwarzkopf‘s could have done it in concert with a HIP orchestra, which tend to be drier-sounding and more muted? Certainly lower-pitched. Janowitz did sing it. It’s on Youtube.


Yes. I just found Janowitz singing it on youtube. The interesting thing about Janowitz (and Lemnitz) is they sang what we would say are spinto parts. Though their vocal production was different, they were not light voices that could sing Sophie or Gilda or Marzelline. They sang instead Verdi roles like Desdemona and Elisabetta. Grummer a similar voice type though stayed away from most of the spinto parts.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ALT said:


> Voting for neither even though Schwarzkopf’s is impressive. But impressive from a recording studio angle. I can only imagine the torture she must have put herself through (or her husband) to be able to sing this dramatic work for the microphones. For she had too small a voice to be able to sing it in concert with a full orchestra. Maybe with piano accompaniment and even that is dubious.


Surely you jest...however unamusingly. 

Schwarzkopf, in case you are unaware of it, was an opera singer. She sang in opera houses. Opera houses tend to have sizable auditoriums. Traditionally, there were no microphones in them. She sang, among other things, roles of Strauss and Mozart, one of which was Donna Elvira - a role whose music is quite similar to "Ah, perfido" in its dramatic style. Schwarzkopf sang opera for many years to great acclaim, and I have never seen complaints about her audibility or the suitability of her repertoire choices. Have you? Perhaps you were in attendance at Covent Garden or Salzburg in the 1940s and '50s, where you could assess first hand her capacity to make a proper effect in the roles for which she was famous. Were you present for her performances?

If you weren't, what is the basis of your demeaning remarks?


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> Surely you jest...however unamusingly.
> 
> Schwarzkopf, in case you are unaware of it, was an opera singer. She sang in opera houses. Opera houses tend to have sizable auditoriums. Traditionally, there were no microphones in them. She sang, among other things, roles of Strauss and Mozart, one of which was Donna Elvira - a role whose music is quite similar to "Ah, perfido" in its dramatic style. Schwarzkopf sang opera for many years to great acclaim, and I have never seen complaints about her audibility or the suitability of her repertoire choices. Have you? Perhaps you were in attendance at Covent Garden or Salzburg in the 1940s and '50s, where you could assess first hand her capacity to make a proper effect in the roles for which she was famous. Were you present for her performances?
> 
> If you weren't, what is the basis of your demeaning remarks?


Woodduck, there is nothing derogatory in suggesting that Schwarzkopf’s impressive “Ah! Perfido” is impressive as a product of the recording studio because the dramatic demands of the piece were probably beyond her abilities in the concert hall with full orchestral forces. I am fully aware of her career but she had a small voice and was therefore limited by nature in what she could sing. By the same token, Schwarzkopf is not above it or beyond criticism or opinion just for being Schwarzkopf.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^ You, Mr. ALT, may be the only person here with the chutzpah to misrepresent his own words when they're right in front of us all.

QUOTE:

_I can only imagine the *torture she must have put herself through* (or her husband) to be able to sing this dramatic work *for the microphones*. For *she had too small a voice to be able to sing it in concert with a full orchestra.* *Maybe with piano* accompaniment and _*even that is dubious.*

Three sentences, all fact-free - actually, nonsensical. You know that Schwarzkopf, who sang opera to great acclaim, didn't have to endure "torture" to sing this music, and that her voice was not too small to sing with an orchestra of normal size in a sizable auditorium. "Ah, perfido" is not Wagner - but, in case you don't know it (though I suspect you do), Schwarzkopf sang Wagner too. I have not seen any reports about the inadequacy of her voice in the opera house. The idea that she must have endured torture to record a classical concert aria is bizarre and justified by nothing at all.

Any singer is open to reasonable criticism. The above remarks are not reasonable criticism. They are simple putdowns, efforts to discredit a singer you don't personally care for, and attempts to strike back at anyone who pays insufficient homage to the soprano you adore. It's worse than tiresome.


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Woodduck, you are misconstruing my words. Whether deliberately or not, I don’t know. But if you had stopped to think first before reacting you would have realized that the “torture” I referred to is the more than well-known airtight fixation with über-perfection shared by the Legge-Schwarzkopf team. There is no need to get all bent out of shape just because one of your mini sacred monsters is talked about in terms uncongenial to you or unapproved by you. Schwarzkopf had a small voice that, by nature, limited her options. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is what it was.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A couple of things about the size of voices, provoked by the above remarks about Schwarzkopf.

1. It isn't safe to judge the size of a voice based on recordings, or on the singer's chosen repertoire. Until we hear a singer live our judgment is at least somewhat provisional.

2. A voice's audibility and impact in the house is not a simple matter of decibels. A voice of clear tone and pitch is likely to be more audible and have greater impact than one of foggy tone and pitch obscured by vibrato. This is easily observed in speaking as well as in singing. "Lyric" voices with clearly focused, concentrated tone can often take on dramatic roles associated with larger voices.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ALT said:


> I can only imagine the torture she must have put herself through (or her husband) to be able to sing this dramatic work for the microphones.


No "torture" was required for Schwarzkopf to be able to sing "Ah, Perfido," for the microphone or otherwise. If you "imagine" that it was, your imagination is overactive or acting on faulty assumptions. The aria is well within her normal vocal and interpretive capacity. The idea that "torture" was needed for her to do it is insulting and ridiculous.



> For she had too small a voice to be able to sing it in concert with a full orchestra.


Horse pucky. A singer who can sing Elsa, Eva, the Marschallin, Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira, Liu, Anne Trulove and other roles successfully at large opera houses and on recordings will have no difficulty singing "Ah, Perfido" in the concert hall, much less for the microphone.



> Maybe with piano accompaniment and even that is dubious.


Elephant pucky. No rationalization can make this appear to be an honest remark.

I KNOW you know enough about singers and singing to know that these statements of yours are insupportable, which is undoubtedly why you can't support them no matter what facts are adduced to challenge them. 

My purpose is not to defend Schwarzkopf. She doesn't need it. I am defending a forum in which we need to speak and act, not provocatively, but in good faith. Most of us seem able to do this most of the time.


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## Francasacchi (7 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> A couple of things about the size of voices, provoked by the above remarks about Schwarzkopf.
> 
> 1. It isn't safe to judge the size of a voice based on recordings, or on the singer's chosen repertoire. Until we hear a singer live our judgment is at least somewhat provisional.
> 
> 2. A voice's audibility and impact in the house is not a simple matter of decibels. A voice of clear tone and pitch is likely to be more audible and have greater impact than one of foggy tone and pitch obscured by vibrato. This is easily observed in speaking as well as in singing. "Lyric" voices with clearly focused, concentrated tone can often take on dramatic roles associated with larger voices.


Schwarzkopf started out as a soubrette/coloratura but by the late 40s was moving into full lyric roles. Regarding forays into Wagner, she sang Eva and Elsa successfully at Bayreuth and La Scala respectively and also Melisande which lies very much in the middle of the voice. But as I noted in an earlier post, she started out as a Sophie/Marzelline/
Gilda voice unlike Lemnitz and Janowitz. Schwarzkopf recorded Ariadne which is the province mostly of spintos and dramatics but unlike Janowitz never sang it on stage. She never in Verdi went beyond Gilda and Violetta and later Alice Ford unlike Lemnitz and Janowitz who both sang Elisabetta in Don Carlo.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Francasacchi said:


> Schwarzkopf started out as a soubrette/coloratura but by the late 40s was moving into full lyric roles. Regarding forays into Wagner, she sang Eva and Elsa successfully at Bayreuth and La Scala respectively and also Melisande which lies very much in the middle of the voice. But as I noted in an earlier post, she started out as a Sophie/Marzelline/
> Gilda voice unlike Lemnitz and Janowitz. Schwarzkopf recorded Ariadne which is the province mostly of spintos and dramatics but unlike Janowitz never sang it on stage. She never in Verdi went beyond Gilda and Violetta and later Alice Ford unlike Lemnitz and Janowitz who both sang Elisabetta in Don Carlo.


She used her voice wisely, and it showed.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Small voice...


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Well not being familiar with this aria I have to simply go on my gut feelings about these two singers.
I imagine some would take exception to Schwarzkopf's slight tremolo but I find it appealing and I have decided to go with her.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Becca said:


> Small voice...


Actually Schwarzkopf herself acknowledged that her voice was not large and, in the wonderful book _Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Career on Record _by John Steane and Alan Sanders_, _she talks about ways of vibrating the voice to make sure it carries. This is a good example Incidentally, she hated the interpolated high note at the end, absent from all her other recorded Donna Elviras, and says she only did it because Furtwängler wanted her to try it.

In any case, there appear to be have been no complaints about her voice not being big enough to ride Strauss's heavy orchestration in *Der Rosenkavalier*.

I'd also add that another reason I find it hard to believe that any singer had to provide her top Bb in the Verdi Requiem is that she was still in pretty good voice in the early 1960s and the Marschallin was still in her active repertoire. Though she and Legge may well have done several takes to get the best possible result (after all that was the way they always worked in the studio), the note should still have been well within her capabilities at that time.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Surely you jest...however unamusingly.
> 
> Schwarzkopf, in case you are unaware of it, was an opera singer. She sang in opera houses. Opera houses tend to have sizable auditoriums. Traditionally, there were no microphones in them. She sang, among other things, roles of Strauss and Mozart, one of which was Donna Elvira - a role whose music is quite similar to "Ah, perfido" in its dramatic style. Schwarzkopf sang opera for many years to great acclaim, and I have never seen complaints about her audibility or the suitability of her repertoire choices. Have you? Perhaps you were in attendance at Covent Garden or Salzburg in the 1940s and '50s, where you could assess first hand her capacity to make a proper effect in the roles for which she was famous. Were you present for her performances?
> 
> If you weren't, what is the basis of your demeaning remarks?


I am too young to have heard her live. However, my parents went to several of her performances (I still have signed programmes from them), and I can safely say based on what they told me that there was *nothing* small about Schwarzkopf's voice.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Obituary: Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf


Obituary: Outstanding soprano of the LP era, at home both in opera and the concert hall.




www.theguardian.com





*Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - *Outstanding soprano of the LP era, at home both in opera and the concert hall

"The pristine beauty of her lyric soprano and the charm of her person, combined with hard work and innate intelligence, lent her performances a compelling authority, even though some, not unjustly, considered that artifice sometimes replaced art in her interpretations of both opera and lieder. But in these fields, she gained extraordinary acclaim over two-and-a-half decades.

From the outset of her career she divided her time between the operatic stage and the concert platform, becoming equally adept in both worlds. Her opera repertory latterly concentrated for the most part on Mozart and Richard Strauss.

She was at her very best in choral works. Her Bach, as evinced in her recordings of that composer, was impeccable in voice and style. She floated the soprano solo of Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem with calm loveliness. Only in the Verdi Requiem did she seem a shade out of her element. On stage, Schwarzkopf lent her strong, often affecting personality to very specific roles. She was, in Mozart, a gracious Countess Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro; though she had started out as Susanna, she moved to the Countess at the Salzburg Festival in 1949), a formidable Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), whose vocal histrionics never fazed her, and an emotionally overwrought Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), her characterisations always seconded by her technical skill.

Eventually she confined herself to these parts, but earlier in her career her repertory was far more extensive. At the Berlin Städtische Oper, which she joined in 1938, she was famed for her soubrette roles.

Schwarzkopf virtually gave up her career when Walter Legge (whom she married in 1953) died in 1979. In any case she had probably gone on singing, at his behest, a few years too long. The pair had begun giving master classes. After his death she continued them on her own and in his memory. Several of her pupils on these occasions were distressed that she was so intent on giving them minute instructions on interpretation that they lost confidence in themselves. Undoubtedly she was all too keen to pass on to them all she had learnt in her long years on the recital platform. Similar single-mindedness came into play in her celebrated appearance on Desert Island Discs, in which all eight of her discs were of performances by herself.

Great care over detail, almost to a fault, was always the hallmark of her own performances. They were part and parcel of her concern to communicate her feelings about the piece in hand to her audiences. Any reservation on that account pales before the poise and musicianship of her readings."


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Aerobat said:


> I am too young to have heard her live. However, my parents went to several of her performances (I still have signed programmes from them), and I can safely say based on what they told me that there was *nothing* small about Schwarzkopf's voice.


Well, as I said, she herself knew her voice was not large, but she did know how to project that voice over a large orchestra and into a large theatre or concert hall. I never heard her live but I did hear Janet Baker live several times. Her voice wasn't huge either, but there was never any problem hearing her. Her floated pianissimi were absolutely exquisite and she could somehow float them to the furthest recesses of a large hall.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

SOF, seriously dude, you need to step in here and settle this "large voice" debate once and for all by setting up a contest in which Ethel Merman takes on all challengers until she, and only she, is left standing... Maybe not quite "standing"... more like, sitting in a chair hunched over like Charles Laughton doing his best impression of Quasimodo with her head between her knees desperately trying to catch her breath, but you know what I mean.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Shaughnessy said:


> SOF, seriously dude, you need to step in here and settle this "large voice" debate once and for all by setting up a contest in which Ethel Merman takes on all challengers until she, and only she, is left standing... Maybe not quite "standing"... more like, sitting in a chair hunched over like Charles Laughton doing his best impression of Quasimodo with her head between her knees desperately trying to catch her breath, but you know what I mean.


LOL. I did a great soprano high notes contest, but this crowd is more about the feelings and interpretations than the decibels. It was not a popular contest. I LOVE big voices myself and anecdotes about the size of singer's voices but such things are largely lost on this crowd I think. I love huge voices if they are beautiful as well. Sutherland, Callas, Flagstad, Norman, Corelli, Pinza, Traubel... etc. The best gauge of the size of a voice is from testimonies from audience members. I heard the account of a guy who's voice teacher heard Traubel in Chicago. She reported on one note it was so big she could feel the force of it as it hit her chest and it bounced off the back wall and whooshed against her head as it headed back the other way!!!!!!!! Now THAT is a big sound. Nilsson cracked the jewel in a lady's earring in a concert in Turkey!!!! I wonder if she sued LOL. Farrell's voice was described as having the volume of Niagara Falls.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I like Schwarzkopf and her way with words is felt immediately in the recit. It's not an italianate instrument and I feel that this aria needs that fluency of line and intense legato that other singers have more of than her. However, this is indeed an artist playing their A game.

I couldn't imagine Varnay in this and it will depend in part on when the recording was made. Um, no. I can sometimes tolerate a wobbly voice in romantic rep or verismo where an exciting interpretation can make up for vocal defficiencies, but it just won't wash in classical rep.

(I also find it hard to believe that some of the people voting here for Varnay pooh pooh Souliotis' Lady Macbeth.)

N.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Schwarzkopf is at her place here, I believe. This music fits her much. Varnay is a painful question. If someone reads what is usually written about her at this forum, he or she might put a question how the poor woman ever did find her job. I suppose it's unfair. In this very poll we just see different voices for different repertoire. It's like an interview with Kathy Bates. She said, she was underhired sometimes, and an interviewer answered: But you're not Michelle Pfeiffer! Her answer was excellent, I think: But she's not me too! 
I almost have voted for Varnay. But I remembered two (!) Don Giovannis, when I was going to listen to Shaghimuratova as Anna and she was changed for an average soprano, not to mention the rest of pathologically unmozartean cast.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> LOL. I did a great soprano high notes contest, but this crowd is more about the feelings and interpretations than the decibels. It was not a popular contest. I LOVE big voices myself and anecdotes about the size of singer's voices but such things are largely lost on this crowd I think. I love huge voices if they are beautiful as well. Sutherland, Callas, Flagstad, Norman, Corelli, Pinza, Traubel... etc. The best gauge of the size of a voice is from testimonies from audience members. I heard the account of a guy who's voice teacher heard Traubel in Chicago. She reported on one note it was so big she could feel the force of it as it hit her chest and it bounced off the back wall and whooshed against her head as it headed back the other way!!!!!!!! Now THAT is a big sound. Nilsson cracked the jewel in a lady's earring in a concert in Turkey!!!! I wonder if she sued LOL. Farrell's voice was described as having the volume of Niagara Falls.


And that's .... good ?


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## Francasacchi (7 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Well, as I said, she herself knew her voice was not large, but she did know how to project that voice over a large orchestra and into a large theatre or concert hall. I never heard her live but I did hear Janet Baker live several times. Her voice wasn't huge either, but there was never any problem hearing her. Her floated pianissimi were absolutely exquisite and she could somehow float them to the furthest recesses of a large hall.


Janet Baker also recorded Ah perfido. Not sure if she ever sang it in live performance.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BBSVK said:


> And that's .... good ?


In my book it is fabulous!!! But I don't have earrings to shatter LOL.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Seattleoperafan said:


> *In my book it is fabulous!!!* But I don't have earrings to shatter LOL.


Volume is a greatly underrated vocal quality - Our mam used to tell us about the time she heard American songstress Kate Smith sing in Dublin... which is really far more impressive than it may seem at first as me mam was 200 km away in Galway at the time. -


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Shaughnessy said:


> Volume is a greatly underrated vocal quality - Our mam used to tell us about the time she heard American songstress Kate Smith sing in Dublin... which is really far more impressive than it may seem at first as me mam was 200 km away in Galway at the time. -


Yeah, that was Kate all right. Big girl, big voice. They don't make 'em like that any more.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I really love Varnay's version but it is interesting that almost half voted for her but Schwarzkopf is the only one that is talked about in the comments.. either yay or nay. Perhaps they were anit- Schwartzkopf votes LOL. I am used to being the minority in this forum that likes Varnay. I love her sense of drama, her completely unique sound and the great vocal dynamics she uses in her artistry.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I really love Varnay's version but it is interesting that almost half voted for her but Schwarzkopf is the only one that is talked about in the comments.. either yay or nay. Perhaps they were anit- Schwartzkopf votes LOL. I am used to being the minority in this forum that likes Varnay. I love her sense of drama, her completely unique sound and the great vocal dynamics she uses in her artistry.


Yeah...if only she sang better.


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