# Round Two: Soprano:Ma dall'arrido stelo divulsa. Cigna,Varnay, Farrell



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

All of these ladies are truly spectacular. This is early Varnay and her top notes are glorious.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Of course all 3 were sung beautifully but the last two did not seem to have the same vulnerability in their voices.
Gina Cigna all the way for me. Those chest tones were mesmerizing and her tremolo added a fear in her voice that was compelling.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Varnay seems to have a different technique for each area of her voice - resulting in the top being gingerly approached and white, the bottom sometimes strong, but the low note in _terrible *sta*_ avoided, the middle voice sounds blustery.

Cigna does not sing impeccably, but she knows what the aria is about, and the only singer here that conveys the anguish and terror of Amelia. But _miserrerre_ for _miserere_? (she's French by the by).

I just don't like Farrell in Verdi, though the voice is extraordinary. She gives double value to the single "R" but doesn't observe the other double consonants for instance: "a che ve_gg_io"


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

I kept going back and forth with Farrell, one moment thinking she was really into it and the next, feeling she was doing stuff without the real connection. In the final measure I thought it was beautiful but for me, superficially realized. Varnay's tone wasn't for me in this music. I liked Cigna even more here than in the Turandot, the womanly beauty all there and drama on the musical line. She gets my vote!


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

MAS said:


> Cigna does not sing impeccably, but she knows what the aria is about


.......Bingo!!!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I'm looking for a Flagstad fan who can help me pick between two differing versions of a 5 min piece. Very beautiful. For a future contest.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I can rule out Varnay on strictly vocal grounds. She isn't too bad, and she knows what she's singing about, but in 1953 her voice is already becoming heavy, harsh and uneven, no longer the well-knit instrument we hear in Met transcriptions from the early 1940s. MAS describes its peculiarities well enough. (It's interesting to note, as Seattleoperafan has done, that Varnay was the same age as Nilsson, but hit her stride much earlier and was almost finished as a soprano even before Nilsson emerged as the leading Wagnerian soprano at Bayreuth and elsewhere in the late 1950s. Varnay remained a dramatically effective "character actress" in mezzo roles while Nilsson enjoyed an extended vocal prime through at least the mid-1970s. I don't know whether they ever appeared together in those later years, but I can well imagine Nilsson as Elektra or Salome with Varnay as Klytemnestra or Herodias.)

With Cigna we have a fully idiomatic, committed performance that misses nothing, full of angst and fear, and securely vocalized. I don't find her voice, with its conspicuously tremulous vibrato, extraordinarily beautiful as recorded, but it's up to the musical and dramatic challenges. Farrell, though knowingly expressive, is marginally less intense, but what a voice! Like many dramatic soprano voices, there was a trace of effort at the top that increased as she aged, but the lower part of her range, which gets plenty of employment here, was uniquely warm and wonderful. After her final line I could only whisper, "Beautiful, beautiful!" 

I'm tempted to follow in others' steps and give the prize to Cigna for her dramatic fervor, but I suspect it won't make a difference to the outcome if I give it to Farrell for seducing me with the sheer beauty and warmth of the sound she makes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I'm looking for a Flagstad fan who can help me pick between two differing versions of a 5 min piece. Very beautiful. For a future contest.


Glad to help. .........


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

None of the three sing it as well as those from the previous round, but Cigna manages better than Farrell and Varnay. There is something very peculiar about Varnay’s middle voice here. It sounds weak and nasal. She sings with involvement though. Between the other two, Farrell has better legato and sings the ending phrases more poignantly, but Cigna’s is the more Italianate voice, though more veristic than Verdian, and she has more security in the upper register as well as stronger chest notes. Her reading captures the horror of the scene better as well.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I thought Varnay gave possibly the most interesting performance. There was no doubt she was thoroughly engaged, but I didn't like her vocal production, the way she tends to attack notes in the middle register from slightly below, the white top register and the lack of a full chest register (she dodges the low A on _terribile sta_) so she went out first.

I find it hard to choose between the other two as they have different virtues and faults. Farrell is the most vocally entitled the voice solid and quite beautiful from top to bottom and she sings with a fine legato, but she doesn't seem particularly involved. I hear no fear or terror, which I do get from Cigna, though, as Shaafee points out, stylistically she sounds more like a verismo singer than a Verdi stylist. Forced to make a choice, I'll go for Cigna, whilst noting that I preferred all three sopranos in the previous round.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I voted Cigna. A strong though (as Tsaraslondon says) veristic performance. It's interesting how Cigna worked on her voice over the years. Her earlier recordings have a very prominent, sometimes caprino, vibrato, which goes away in her later recordings, such as _Turandot_.

Like Woodduck, I only really care for early Varnay.

Farrell is very good, as usual, but I found Cigna more characterful.


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