# Maria Guleghina



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I have heard her a couple of times on Sirius and was impressed. Her Abigaille was pretty riveting. Has anyone heard her live? It sounds like an enormous voice but recordings can be deceptive. My disappointment in her is from what I heard, her high C tends to be flat. Chime in on your opinions. She does sound like she doesn't hold anything in reserve, which might not bode well over the long haul. Thanks.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I have heard her a couple of times on Sirius and was impressed. Her Abigaille was pretty riveting. Has anyone heard her live? It sounds like an enormous voice but recordings can be deceptive. My disappointment in her is from what I heard, her high C tends to be flat. Chime in on your opinions. She does sound like she doesn't hold anything in reserve, which might not bode well over the long haul. Thanks.


Did someone say "Abigaille" and "riveting"?- you've piqued my curiosity, Seattleoperafan.

I'll have to investigate. . .

By the by- who are your battle standards for Abigaille? Who do you really like? (I already know who I like.)


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

She kills it in_ Nabucco_ But then Nabucco also kills her as well.
Yes, she sure has some kind of powerful cords just like Sondra Radvanovsky does. The two women could blow you away with their sounds. Sondra has the added advantage of being able to hit the highs on key -- not so Maria.
I saw her in a Met _Adriana Lecouvreur_ several years ago with Domingo as Maurizio. It was ho hum.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> She kills it in_ Nabucco_ But then Nabucco also kills her as well.
> Yes, she sure has some kind of powerful cords just like Sondra Radvanovsky does. The two women could blow you away with their sounds. Sondra has the added advantage of being able to hit the highs on key -- not so Maria.
> I saw her in a Met _Adriana Lecouvreur_ several years ago with Domingo as Maurizio. It was ho hum.












But Maria 'does' sing in key on her 1949 _Nabucco_.

- and if anything with Divina, she sharps but never flats. _;D_


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> She kills it in_ Nabucco_ But then Nabucco also kills her as well.
> Yes, she sure has some kind of powerful cords just like Sondra Radvanovsky does. The two women could blow you away with their sounds. Sondra has the added advantage of being able to hit the highs on key -- not so Maria.
> I saw her in a Met _Adriana Lecouvreur_ several years ago with Domingo as Maurizio. It was ho hum.


I listened to her singing of _Salgo gia del trono_ on youtube, The voice is large and dark in colour and she sings with great power, but she smudges much of the coloratura, and dodges the trills. I then listened to Guleghina who was better I thought. Even so both yield to Suliotis on the complete Gardelli recording, and she in turn, fabulous though she is, to Callas on the live 1949 recording, who simply knocks spots off the lot of them; gleaming, powerful top Cs, like shards of lightening, dazzlingly accurate coloratura and trills you won't hear from any of the others. Wagnerian power allied to _soprano leggiero_ pyrotechnics. Simply phenomenal.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I listened to her singing of _Salgo gia del trono_ on youtube, The voice is large and dark in colour and she sings with great power, but she smudges much of the coloratura, and dodges the trills. I then listened to Guleghina who was better I thought. Even so both yield to Suliotis on the complete Gardelli recording, and she in turn, fabulous though she is, to Callas on the live 1949 recording, who simply knocks spots off the lot of them; gleaming, powerful top Cs, like shards of lightening, dazzlingly accurate coloratura and trills you won;t hear from any of the others. Wagnerian power allied to _soprano leggiero_ pyrotechnics. Simply phenomenal.


I DON'T 'LIKE' BUT RATHER *'LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE'* THIS POST!!!

_ ". . . gleaming, powerful top Cs, like shards of lightening, dazzlingly accurate coloratura and trills you won;t hear from any of the others. Wagnerian power allied to soprano leggiero pyrotechnics. Simply phenomenal." _

_SPOT

ON._

Truer words never spoken.

Had I the eloquence, I would have said precisely that.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> But Maria 'does' sing in key on her 1949 _Nabucco_.
> 
> - and if anything with Divina, she sharps but never flats. _;D_


True indeed, though I think the Maria Nina was referring to here was Guleghina not Callas. Am I right?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> True indeed, though I think the Maria Nina was referring to here was Guleghina not Callas. Am I right?


I amply apologize to Miss Foresti if that's the case.

It wouldn't be the first time I got something completely backwards and sideways.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I have listened to Ms. Guleghina singing in the theater quite a few times, and several roles. Abigaille was one of them.

No deception here, the voice is enormous, one of the biggest I have ever heard live. Not the best singer for nuances, though, but always willing to give her best, and take risks. She was capable of drowning the voice of her partners, and even of the chorus, too. However, her coloratura was rather approximate, and the top notes sometimes shouted rather than sung.

In my view, a more exciting voice, than singer. Then again, I know some people that adored her, and were willing to follow her to any place she was hired to sing.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> True indeed, though I think the Maria Nina was referring to here was Guleghina not Callas. Am I right?


Absolutely. How did Callas get into my post anyway?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I amply apologize to Miss Foresti if that's the case.
> 
> It wouldn't be the first time I got something completely backwards and sideways.


Hahaha. No problem. It's easy to get things mixed up. I am an expert at it.:lol:


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Did someone say "Abigaille" and "riveting"?- you've piqued my curiosity, Seattleoperafan.
> 
> I'll have to investigate. . .
> 
> By the by- who are your battle standards for Abigaille? Who do you really like? (I already know who I like.)


Callas and Dimitrova


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I DON'T 'LIKE' BUT RATHER *'LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE'* THIS POST!!!
> 
> _ ". . . gleaming, powerful top Cs, like shards of lightening, dazzlingly accurate coloratura and trills you won;t hear from any of the others. Wagnerian power allied to soprano leggiero pyrotechnics. Simply phenomenal." _
> 
> ...


That photo of Callas makes her look like a little girl who is NOT getting her way!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

schigolch said:


> I have listened to Ms. Guleghina singing in the theater quite a few times, and several roles. Abigaille was one of them.
> 
> No deception here, the voice is enormous, one of the biggest I have ever heard live. Not the best singer for nuances, though, but always willing to give her best, and take risks. She was capable of drowning the voice of her partners, and even of the chorus, too. However, her coloratura was rather approximate, and the top notes sometimes shouted rather than sung.
> 
> In my view, a more exciting voice, than singer. Then again, I know some people that adored her, and were willing to follow her to any place she was hired to sing.


I heard her do Norma on Youtube and it didn't work. The size of the voice harkens back to Tebaldi and Milanov, something rarely heard today. I heard her do Tosca on the radio. From my humble perspective I heard a lot of vocal dynamics utilized. Her big fault is she is not a true soprano dramatico d'agilita.... I think that is how you say it. She also is like Eva Marton who thrills to B but lacks a solid C. One other thing worth mentioning... from photos it appears that she is a gorgeous woman with a nice figure. She likely gets the volume from those really large Slavic cheekbones. You don't have to be a battleship to have a large voice, but you have to learn your breath support as a slender person, unlike Callas who's voice went downhill after a dramatic weight loss.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Dear Callas fans:

This thread is about Maria Guleghina. 

There are already three threads on TC filled with enormous and constantly multiplying photographs of Maria Callas. It would seem quite unnecessary and distracting to turn this thread into another photographic shrine to La Divina. I suspect that most people who come here would expect to find photos, if any, of the putative subject. So far we have four images of Callas, and not one of Guleghina.

Appropriateness, taste, respect for Mme. Guleghina, and some acknowledgement of the sensitivities of those who don't share our fanatical obsessions, are all good policy.

Respectfully,

An admirer of Maria Callas

POSTSCRIPT: I'm grateful for the sensitive response of fellow Callas admirer plumblossom in sending a pair of oversized Divina pinups back home to Callasovia.

:tiphat:


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Here is a photo of Maria in her full diva mode. One would be hard pressed to find a prettier diva today with a more stunning figure.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> View attachment 76432
> Here is a photo of Maria in her full diva mode. One would be hard pressed to find a prettier diva today with a more stunning figure.
> View attachment 76433


Hard-pressed indeed. Perhaps one could put up with a few smeary _fioriture_.


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## Green pasture (Aug 11, 2015)

Here are two shots from the 2001 Met production of Nabucco with Mme. Guleghina's Abigaille _;D_:


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I heard her do Norma on Youtube and it didn't work.


I listened to Ms. Guleghina's Norma in Seville, some fifteen years ago. She was singing with Urmana, Margison and Prestia. It was a big success with the audience, she received an standing ovation at the end, and was interrupted with applause several times during the performance.

Personally, I was not really impressed. She was singing Bellini, as if it was mature Verdi... All in all, she sounded a bit like a second-best Gina Cigna to me.

I think there is a bootleg recording of this performance available in the usual places.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

schigolch said:


> I listened to Ms. Guleghina's Norma in Seville, some fifteen years ago. She was singing with Urmana, Margison and Prestia. It was a big success with the audience, she received an standing ovation at the end, and was interrupted with applause several times during the performance.
> 
> Personally, I was not really impressed. She was singing Bellini, as if it was mature Verdi... All in all, she sounded a bit like a second-best Gina Cigna to me.
> 
> I think there is a bootleg recording of this performance available in the usual places.


It seems to me that it's a modern-day problem. People seem to have forgotten that Bellini is not Verdi. *Norma* has become the preserve of big-voiced sopranos without a coloratura technique and *La Sonnambula* has gone back to light-voiced soprano leggieras, when both roles were written for the same singer, Giuditta Pasta. Callas and Sutherland had both roles in their repertoire. Who, these days, does?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> It seems to me that it's a modern-day problem. People seem to have forgotten that Bellini is not Verdi. *Norma* has become the preserve of big-voiced sopranos without a coloratura technique and *La Sonnambula* has gone back to light-voiced soprano leggieras, when both roles were written for the same singer, Giuditta Pasta. Callas and Sutherland had both roles in their repertoire. Who, these days, does?


Could it be that the lack of Sutherland, Callas, Caballe and Verrett has resulted in this Verdi influenced sound for Bellini? I heard Jane Eaglen at the start of her American career in Norma, and was really pleased, but after she started singing Wagner in earnest her Norma suffered. Christine Goerke also did a fine job in Seattle as Norma in a true Bellini fashion. Still, none were in the same league as Callas, Sutherland, Caballe and Verrett.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> That photo of Callas makes her look like a little girl who is NOT getting her way!












Yeah, I know- I love that photo!!

The photo, incidentally, is a still from the Edward Murrow interview with her where he's intent on smearing her as a spoiled and volatile prima donna- which of course, contrary to the lies, legends, and cherished myths of Callas historiography- is completely untrue.

She handles the interview with typical grace and charm- though of course her countenance can't hide the disgust she must feel with being a casualty of one of the worst examples of American yellow journalism.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I heard her do Norma on Youtube and it didn't work. The size of the voice harkens back to Tebaldi and Milanov, something rarely heard today. I heard her do Tosca on the radio. From my humble perspective I heard a lot of vocal dynamics utilized. Her big fault is she is not a true soprano dramatico d'agilita.... I think that is how you say it. She also is like Eva Marton who thrills to B but lacks a solid C. One other thing worth mentioning... from photos it appears that she is a gorgeous woman with a nice figure. She likely gets the volume from those really large Slavic cheekbones. You don't have to be a battleship to have a large voice, but you have to learn your breath support as a slender person, unlike Callas who's voice went downhill after a dramatic weight loss.


I wouldn't say that Callas' voice went "downhill"- which connotes "downmarket"- but I would say that Callas' slim voice decreased in 'volume.'

What Callas lost in volume and size, she more than made up for in artistry and in enterprise.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Dear Callas fans:
> 
> This thread is about Maria Guleghina.
> 
> ...


And for such cultivated tact I'm duly grateful.

<Curtsey.>

When since _Rienzi_ has appropriateness and taste prevented anyone from donning the toga of Guardian of the People?- unless of course its photos of Melchior that are being posted in a Placido Domingo thread.

As ever,

A staunch Victorian for Wagner. . .

So take it away, Madame Guleghina!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> And for such cultivated tact I'm duly grateful.
> 
> <Curtsey.>
> 
> ...


I don't know what your post is saying, but since it has my name at the head of it, thanks for the publicity. (Madame Guleghina asks me to thank you too. She thinks Woodduck is pretty hot.)

:tiphat:


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know what your post is saying, but since it has my name at the head of it, thanks for the publicity. (Madame Guleghina asks me to thank you too. She thinks Woodduck is pretty hot.)
> 
> :tiphat:


I have a crush on Woodduck, myself- but he always resists my advances.

Unbelievable, I know, but true.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I note that according to Wiki Maria Guleghina was born in August of 1959, and began singing opera in 1985, debuting as Tchaikovsky's Iolantha in Minsk (Belarus). That makes her 56 years old, with a career of 30 years. I wonder how she's doing? The Wiki article, rather brief and sketchy, does say that she "opened the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi, singing on top of an Icebreaker that carried her though the Fischt Stadium." Hmmmm..... Something from Rimsky-Korsakov's _The Snow Maiden_, perhaps?


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Ms. Guleghina is supposed to sing Tosca at the MET in a few weeks, and she has been singing there for the last 25 years, more or less.

Arguably, she is no longer at her prime, though, and she is not singing as much as she did just a few years back.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Dear Callas fans:
> 
> This thread is about Maria Guleghina.
> 
> ...


On behalf of us non-obsessives, thank you Mr. Duck, for that encouraging bit of self-awareness.

Miss Guleghina was my first Tosca (Chicago, 1994) and my first Norma (New York, 2007). I realized going into the Norma that she was a controversial choice, but that was back when Family Circle seats at the Met were $15, so not a high risk investment. I've been impressed by her Turandot and Lady MacBeth in the Met HD broadcasts.


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## Braddan (Aug 23, 2015)

I tried to see her Abigaille in Munich but sadly she cancelled. I did see her Turandot in Barcelona about 6 yrs ago and she was pretty good. One nice thing I recall was that the Liu that night was very good and got a huge ovation -when Ms Guleghina took her call she gave the other singer a big hug and brought her forward to join her. So 'un-prima donna' of her.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I DON'T 'LIKE' BUT RATHER *'LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE'* THIS POST!!!
> 
> _ ". . . gleaming, powerful top Cs, like shards of lightening, dazzlingly accurate coloratura and trills you won;t hear from any of the others. Wagnerian power allied to soprano leggiero pyrotechnics. Simply phenomenal." _
> 
> ...


Darn, you got there first!

I've seen Guleghina three times live the most recent in 2009. I saw her Macbeth, which was good, her Tosca, which was ok and in the Queen of Spades, which didn't suit her voice, but was the most convincing of the three roles stylistically.

She's a good dramatic soprano and her being in the cast wouldn't put me off going to see an opera if it had her in.

N.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I attended also one of those performances. The Liù was the Spanish soprano Ainhoa Arteta, that indeed received a big applause, though Ms. Guleghina herself was cheered, too. There is a documentary (in Spanish) of the production:


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## Braddan (Aug 23, 2015)

schigolch said:


> I attended also one of those performances. The Liù was the Spanish soprano Ainhoa Arteta, that indeed received a big applause, though Ms. Guleghina herself was cheered, too. There is a documentary (in Spanish) of the production:


Thank you so much for sharing this. I couldn't remember who sang Liu as I didn't get a programme. I look forward to watching the documentary. It was a great night only spoiled for me by having to rush to get the bus back to Sitges!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I note that according to Wiki Maria Guleghina was born in August of 1959, and began singing opera in 1985, debuting as Tchaikovsky's Iolantha in Minsk (Belarus). That makes her 56 years old, with a career of 30 years. I wonder how she's doing? The Wiki article, rather brief and sketchy, does say that she "opened the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi, singing on top of an Icebreaker that carried her though the Fischt Stadium." Hmmmm..... Something from Rimsky-Korsakov's _The Snow Maiden_, perhaps?


I just saw her in her early 50's doing Lady Macbeth and discovered this old thread I started ages ago. At that age she seems to be hitting the high C's dead on which she often failed at earlier, but the very top is not particularly pretty, but is very solid. Her coloratura is fudged a good bit now. She doesn't seem to have a huge wobble that this type of voice can develop. I suspect she has a big bottom to her voice but she doesn't use it. She is still gorgeous and looks related to Dimitrova, who sang her repertoire. I would have loved to have heard her Turandot in her prime. I like her a lot.


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