# Favorite Middle Register Among Sopranos



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Here is a spin-off to the "five favorite sopranos" thread. Now, by "middle register" I mean not the high notes and not the lowest notes, but the middle or "central" part of the voice -- in other words, the "speaking" register, where the words are usually most intelligible and where most of the singing is actually done. Which soprano, in your opinion, has the most beautiful middle register?

My favorite middle register among sopranos is that of Kiri Te Kanawa. Her middle voice is lucid and warm; I also like that you can sort of hear a bit of her New Zealand accent in there! A recording of hers that really shows her middle voice is the Solti _ Le nozze di Figaro_, in which she sings the Countess.


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## Zabirilog (Mar 10, 2013)

Beautiful middle register? I have to write
Anna Netrebko


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Zabirilog said:


> Beautiful middle register? I have to write
> Anna Netrebko


Yes, hers is certainly memorable -- it's smokey, with a mezzo quality to it.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Several singers come to mind... Let's say Anita Cerquetti:


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

von Stade, naturalmente.

***


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

If you watch this _Otello_ video starting at about 51:03 (I'm referring to the whole sequence with Desdemona pleading with Otello on Cassio's behalf, which leads up to the Act II Quartet), you'll hear a wonderful example of Kiri Te Kanawa's middle register:


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## Hoffmann (Jun 10, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> Here is a spin-off to the "five favorite sopranos" thread. Now, by "middle register" I mean not the high notes and not the lowest notes, but the middle or "central" part of the voice -- in other words, the "speaking" register, where the words are usually most intelligible and where most of the singing is actually done. Which soprano, in your opinion, has the most beautiful middle register?
> 
> My favorite middle register among sopranos is that of Kiri Te Kanawa. Her middle voice is lucid and warm; I also like that you can sort of hear a bit of her New Zealand accent in there! A recording of hers that really shows her middle voice is the Solti _ Le nozze di Figaro_, in which she sings the Countess.


I agree. The Solti also is my favorite _Le Nozze di Figaro _ recording - I never get tired of it. Another favorite Te Kanawha recording is her version of _Vier Letzte Lieder_, which leaves me in a melted heap.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Astrid Varnay, Helen Traubel, Kirsten Flagstad, Joan Sutherland, Rosa Ponselle, Shirley Verrett, and Renata Tebaldi.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Astrid Varnay, Helen Traubel, Kirsten Flagstad, Joan Sutherland, Rosa Ponselle, Shirley Verrett, and Renata Tebaldi.


Interesting. I'd definitely agree with you about Rosa Ponselle (and in turn, many say her middle register sounds just like Marilyn Horne's!). I'd also agree about Joan Sutherland. Many people speak of her as though she was all high notes and no "middle" and "low," but -- especially during the 1970's -- her middle and low registers were actually quite strong and full (as evidenced by recordings). Among her 1960's recordings, Desdemona's Willow Song on the "Art of the Prima Donna" album demonstrates her good middle.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> Interesting. I'd definitely agree with you about Rosa Ponselle (and in turn, many say her middle register sounds just like Marilyn Horne's!). I'd also agree about Joan Sutherland. Many people speak of her as though she was all high notes and no "middle" and "low," but -- especially during the 1970's -- her middle and low registers were actually quite strong and full (as evidenced by recordings). Among her 1960's recordings, Desdemona's Willow Song on the "Art of the Prima Donna" album demonstrates her good middle.


The Willow Song on the Art of the Prima Donna showed off not only a really rich middle voice but even, for Sutherland, a beautiful chest voice. We often forget that she started off training to be a mezzo and one of her early roles at Covent Garden was Aida, which calls on all parts of the voice in totality.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Gundula Janowitz with that wonderful, creamy sound; Katia Ricciarelli, Edith Mathis, and of today's singers, Anja Harteros.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I've recently become fond of Natalie Dessay's middle register through listening to her recorded Zerbinetta in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS. Dessay had a warm and clear middle, which is something you don't always hear in the smaller-voiced coloraturas.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Perhaps I am the wrong person to comment on this thread, as I have no real interest in singers who put beauty of sound before expression. That voices can be beautiful _and_ expressive is absolutely true, and many of the singers mentioned in the posts above have both qualities, but if it comes down to a choice between beauty of sound _or_ expression, then I am firmly of the latter camp. My favourite sopranos all have deeply individual voices, many of them unarguably beautiful, but all recognisable from just a few notes. I number amongst them Callas (of course), whose voice, contrary to what some would have you believe, was often extremely beautiful in the middle register, Schwarzkopf, De Los Angeles, Maggie Teyte, Claudia Muzio and Ponselle, from a past generation and, of sopranos still active today, Gheorghiu and Fleming; all very different, all very individual.

In the final analysis, though, I find it counterproductive to talk about this area or that area of a voice being better than another. It is what the singer does with that voice that makes it interesting. All of the sopranos I mention above I like for different reasons, but they all have one thing in common, a deeply personal and emotional response to the music. This doesn't mean they bend the music to suit them, quite the reverse in fact, but they involve themselves in its deeper meaning. On a purely visceral level I can enjoy, for instance, the _Vier letzte Lieder_ of a Janowitz or a Te Kanawa, but it is Schwarzkopf who reveals their deeper meaning to me, and I actually prefer her final recording with Szell for that very reason.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Well, I'm not for putting one area of the voice above another, either, and actually my favorite type of voice is the type that gives equal "value" throughout its _entire_ range. But you mention expression, GregMitchell, and as a matter of fact that's the very reason I started this thread. The soprano voice is sometimes thought of as not very communicative because it's "all high notes and nothing else." So that's why it's doubly important for a soprano to have a strong and clear middle register, so that meaning can be communicated when the music takes the soprano voice into the "speaking" register.

Edited to add: I'm not saying, of course, that high notes have no meaning. But I am saying that if a soprano has a weak or wobbly middle register then that could be a pretty serious handicap in the "expression" department, IMO.


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Rosa Ponselle hands down.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Anna Moffo, dame Joan Sutherland, Renée Fleming. :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ponselle, Flagstad. Both voices with no "registers" at all, seamless tone from top to bottom.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Pugg said:


> *Anna Moffo,* dame Joan Sutherland, Renée Fleming. :tiphat:


thought I was going to be the first to mention this. you beat me 

gonna jump on the band wagon on a few frequent mentions in this thread
- Verrett (though she was also a dramatic mezzo, and could still sing that rep after she made the switch, so I almost feel like I'm cheating by mentioning this)
- Flagstad
- Fleming

also seconding Tebaldi. if anything....she could have passed for a mezzo! 





Sutherland's middle was hit and miss.

some more (the best are denoted in red)
- Caballe 
- Callas (no one has mentioned her yet? seriously?  )
- Radvanovsky 
- Schwarzkopf 
- Helen Traubel 
- Annick Massis (not super rich or powerful, but extremely pleasant, silky, undemanding, like a fresh cup of white tea)
- Violetta Urmana 
- Martina Arroyo


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