# SOPRANO TOURNAMENT: (Bonus Match #2): Davidsen vs Jones



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Lise Davidsen, Norway, 1987-






Gwyneth Jones, Wales, 1936-






Who's singing did you prefer and why?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I've been unable to tolerate anything Gwyneth Jones wobbled through after the 1960s. She was evidently a great performer in the theater, but my ears can't see her. Davidsen is at least young and fresh, and we can hope the wobble won't develop too soon, but the strong vibrato has me on alert. I don't hear many consonants either. Being Norwegian, she's been compared to Flagstad, which is silly. Flagstad's technique never let her down; at 61 she was still rock-solid:


----------



## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I've been unable to tolerate anything Gwyneth Jones wobbled through after the 1960s. She was evidently a great performer in the theater, but my ears can't see her.


I saw her Brunnhilde at the Met in 1993. She acted well and looked good, at least from the cheap seats, but the sound she produced was pretty horrifying. After hearing her in Walkure, I had to slip out in the middle of Act 3 of Siegfried to avoid hearing her again.


----------



## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

I easily voted for the Norwegian. Gwyneth's German pronunciation (in this specific aria) is also a problem (not crucial though) . Lise is doing better also with our language. (die Walküre is a VERY difficult opera in every aspect.) I like these games!


----------



## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

This is another "no decision". Davidsen is overhyped. Flagstad? Seriously? As Wodduck said, her vibrato not healthy sounding. You can hear how it often drives her sound sharp, which is quite trying. Goerke has a similar problem. And just listen to the word "verlangte" at the end of the first phrase. That's the essence of her sound in one "vowel". Her voice is fresh so it sometimes manages to smooth out that squally, hollow sound, but unfortunately the basic technique is fundamentally flawed. It's a shame, as she clearly has the raw material for a great voice.


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Both have beautiful voices but again oh so entirely different. Lise has power and strength and emotion where Gwyneth has more of a lyric soprano than a dramatic sound and doesn't seem like a Wagnerian soprano.
I like them both but my vote goes to Lise.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I don't like either (in these excerpts), where's Cheryl Studer when you need her?

N.

(If we are going to have Sieglindes then we also need Brouwenstijn, Rysanek and Janowitz.)


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> I don't like either (in these excerpts), where's Cheryl Studer when you need her?
> 
> N.
> 
> (If we are going to have Sieglindes then we also need Brouwenstijn, Rysanek and Janowitz.)


And Lotte Lehmann.


----------



## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Clearer vowels on a hundred year old scratchy filtered acoustic recording than on Davidsen's recording. Not to mention far greater beauty of tone, ease, legato, style, and truer pitch and intonation.


----------



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

nina foresti said:


> Both have beautiful voices but again oh so entirely different. Lise has power and strength and emotion where Gwyneth has more of a lyric soprano than a dramatic sound and doesn't seem like a Wagnerian soprano.
> I like them both but my vote goes to Lise.


Interesting thing about this is Jones had one of the biggest soprano voices ever! Unwieldy and unpredictable though, as others have stated...

A colleague of mine coached Jones years ago, which means he's heard her in smallish practice rooms as well as in the house. He described her voice as "capable of peeling the paint off the walls", comparable in size to the voices of Nilsson and Marton, the three being the largest soprano voices he has ever heard live.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am always late to the ballgame on these. Well, my two bits: Davidsen is very nice for Sieglinde. Another Flagstad.... well a resounding no. She is no Studer. Still to my ears very lovely and young and attractive, which helps in this role. Jones is in good voice here. She is the more exciting of the two. I think she is better suited for Bruinhilde or Isolde, though. She didn't have a perfect voice, but she could be very exciting. I don't think any Bruinhilde on video has been more exciting or lovely and her confrontation with her mother scene in Elektra is un#****** believable with Rysenek. If you haven't seen it you must. It will give you chills!!!!!!!!!! Godzilla vs. Mothra!!!!!!!!.You can feel white heat coming from her fury from the TV monitor!!!!!


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Another thing about Davidsen I've noticed on previous exposure to her is her habit of swelling individual notes instead of binding them into a shapely legato line, often beginning them without vibrato like a pop singer. In her distinctly premature recording of Strauss's _Four Last Songs_ the effect of all this accordion-like swelling is dreadfully amateurish. Here it's more subtle, but it still prevents real phrasing, and it creates a suspicion that she has to "set" her voice for each note. I'd be tempted to withdraw my vote for her (if that were possible), but then I listen to Jones again... It doesn't matter, really.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Clearer vowels on a hundred year old scratchy filtered acoustic recording than on Davidsen's recording. Not to mention far greater beauty of tone, ease, legato, style, and truer pitch and intonation.


That is the way it should sound! Oh, my!


----------



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I don't much like either version. Davidsen has the nicer sound, but she's not perfect. Woodduck has pointed out her way of swelling the tone on individual notes, thus impeding her legato. It's less in evidence here than in her recording of _Vier letzte Lieder_, which I found very substantard. I know it got raves in some quarters but I just couldn't understand them, especially given how many wonderful recordings there are out there.
Jones, whom I once heard in the theatre as Salome (yes, the voice was enormous), is more involved and I think her performance more musically conceived, but I don't much like the sounds she is coming up with.
Again, like Woodduck, my first thought was, where's Lotte Lehmann when you need her?
That Jeritza performance certainly shows you what's missing.
Sorry, I'm abstaining.


----------



## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

I voted for Davidsen. Even before listening to Jones' take I already knew what I would hear and all the problems she sadly developed in 70s and 80s are already on display here.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> And Lotte Lehmann.




I knew I'd missed at least one! (Marjorie Lawrence would be worth including as well as Varnay (40s not 50s))

N.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> I knew I'd missed at least one! (Marjorie Lawrence would be worth including as well as Varnay (40s not 50s))
> 
> N.


Parenthetically, I don't understand what happened to Varnay's voice between the early '40s and the '50s. When I heard her superb 1941 Sieglinde I was shocked. If you didn't know in advance who you were hearing, you'd be unlikely to guess. She was subbing for Lehmann that night and the audience must have been relieved and delighted. Too much heavy Wagner too soon? Maybe she should have heeded the advice of her older friend Flagstad, who counseled young singers to "leave Wagner alone."


----------



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Dueling vibratos. I can't vote for either. What's will all the singers with unsteady voices?


----------

