# Round One Soprano: Ombre Legere. Galli- Curci, Clairbert, Yende



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Please read the intro below.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

My prejudice has winnowed out who you are seeing in this contest. People like Sills and Moffo did lovely versions but just did the standard end to the aria. Tetrazinni and Galli- Curci have spoiled me and I expect people who sing this aria to be able to do some nice improvisations at the end of the aria. I have some really spectacular coloratura for you in this contest and at least one of the contestants was totally new to me. Callas will compete against the winners of the first two rounds in a multiple choice finale.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I'm not always happy with mindless coloratura pieces, especially with pipsqueak voices that normally sing this music. Decorations that mean nothing are also not my thing, but that's the nature of these pieces.

Pretty Yende's voice has so many overtones that the decorations don't seem clean and her words are not always clearly understood. Yende also has the more substantial voice of the three contestants. She sings it in the original French, as does Clara Clairbert whose connecting tissue between the fluff, whether _recitative_ or _arioso _helps a bit in the monotony of the decorations. I understand more words with Clairbert than with Yende.

Galli-Curci is hampered by the timings of recordings of her day. So she doesn't include anything but the "meat" in her aria. The other stuff is left off as perhaps her recording company thought was superfluous. Perhaps fortuitously in my case. But she is the only one that clearly gives us the "shadow" echoes, the others make attempts, but don't carry it off.

I ought to say that Galli-Curci and Clairbert some times have trouble hitting the center of some of their high notes. Just slightly.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Yende handles the coloratura creditably, but at high pitch and volume some harshness and heavy vibrato mar her sound. No point in wasting much time or thought on this classic fluffball, so I'll just vote for Galli-Curci. She isn't perfect but, as usual, she sounds lovely and makes singing sound as natural as breathing.


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## Shaafee Shameem (Aug 4, 2021)

Galli-Curci and Clara Clairbert, whom I have never heard before, sing much more accurately than Yende. Between the two, Gali-Curci’s spontaneous and smooth phrasing make the florid parts seem more musical, and in the andantino section, she sings with finer legato, better dynamics, particularly the molto crescendo in “dieu va pour toujours/ die legar l’amor” and stronger low notes, hence, she earns my vote.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I've never much liked this empty piece of fluff and could never understand why Callas wasted her time on it, which she did both in the studio and in concert, though she cut the middle more reflective section, which I am hearing for the first time and which she would no doubt have illuminated. Even here, Clairbert sings a slightly longer version than Galli-Curci and Yende includes even the short _mélodrame_ at the beginning.

That said, I eliminated Yende straight away. Her version lacks charm and, though she gets round the notes well enough, the voice turns a bit hard and piercing up top.

I find it hard to choose between Galli-Curci and Clairbert, but I think I'm going for Galli-Curci, who somehow always manages to charm me even when singing music I don't particularly like.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It isn't really fair for me to even judge this aria being that I so dislike these kinds of arias. To me they are like a study in how to do scales and runs efficiently and fancifully so naturally Galli-Curci gets the palm for that but I truly think that the prettiest voice is Yende's despite the fact that she almost sounds like she is singing a different aria.
Galli-Curci, for what it's worth.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I like this aria. It's fun. Galli-Curci's interpretation was the most fun, so she gets my vote. Clairbert is new to me. It's a strong, clear voice, although sometimes there's kind of an odd pinched sound, especially as she goes into the upper middle. Is it nasality? Yende is a good singer, but she has the same kind of tone as Damrau, etc.: lacking core. At 3:006-3:08 you can really hear the sound that I think of as "hollow". There's no solid center to that sound, and it's ugly. Her voice is generally much nicer than that sound, but that is always there ready to emerge at any moment of tension or stress.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

I'm so far afield in stuff like this. Yende and Clairbert really sounded good to me and Galli-Curci's tone often sounded lifeless and I'm sure some of that was the old recording even though it was a good old recording. I can't really get by the extra oomph of the modern recording and I'm glad to have heard Yende so she gets it.


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## eblackadder (10 mo ago)

Galli-Curci of course. But her earlier acoustic recording is far superior even if it is truncated unlike her electrical recording heard here.


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