# Round One: Billy Budd- Look Through The Port. Peter Mattei, Nathan Gunn



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)




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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Two of my favorite current baritones, both with voices well suited to Billy. But Mattei's diction is suspect - much of the text is unintelligible.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Nathan Gunn for me.
Much as I love Mattei, to me in this particular aria, his voice sounds more like a Broadway singer than an opera singer.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

As it happens I was at one of the two performances at which the recording with Nathan Gunn was made. They were concert performances, and Gunn was the only singer to perform without a score. He made a totally believable Billy, and I really like him here too.

Mattei makes less of an effect, partly because his diction isn't that great and I wonder how well he understands the language.

This is a wonderful moment in the score and I also remember Christopher Maltman making quite an impression when he sang it as a competitor in the Cardiff Singer of the World.

Are there going to be any other rounds? What about Simon Keenlyside, who sings it on the excellent Hickox recording, Peter Glossop, who is on the original Britten recording and Thomas Allen who was a superb Billy on stage?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> As it happens I was at one of the two performances at which the recording with Nathan Gunn was made. They were concert performances, and Gunn was the only singer to perform without a score. He made a totally believable Billy, and I really like him here too.
> 
> Mattei makes less of an effect, partly because his diction isn't that great and I wonder how well he understands the language.
> 
> ...


One more round. I was going to do Bo Skovus and Thomas Allen, but I can substitute if you highly recommend one. I heard Maltman sing it here early in his career. If two of you want 3 rounds we can do that.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

delete


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> One more round. I was going to do Bo Skovus and Thomas Allen, but I can substitute if you highly recommend one. I heard Maltman sing it here early in his career. If two of you want 3 rounds we can do that.


Personally I'd go for Allen and Keenlyside.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Seattleoperafan said:


> One more round. I was going to do Bo Skovus and Thomas Allen, but I can substitute if you highly recommend one. I heard Maltman sing it here early in his career. If two of you want 3 rounds we can do that.


I'd opt for anyone but Skovhus.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Why not? I heard Maltman live in _Iphigenie en Tauride_, I liked him.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Nathan Gunn for me.
> Much as I love Mattei, to me in this particular aria, his voice sounds more like a Broadway singer than an opera singer.


I like a baritone (or tenor) who looks that good shirtless!


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

MAS said:


> I like a baritone (or tenor) who looks that good shirtless!


Maltman would match this category too. In the production I've seen he suddenly became not only shirtless. 😁


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

The aria seems to quote Siegfried and Lucia at the same time.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

ColdGenius said:


> Maltman would match this category too. In the production I've seen he suddenly became not only shirtless. 😁


He was topless here.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Personally I'd go for Allen and Keenlyside.


Thanks for your help.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Not having heard this opera for decades, I'm in a perfect position to have these gentlemen tell me what's happening in this section of it. I'm sorry to report that after listening to Peter Mattei singing in a language I didn't recognize I was as uninformed as before. Gunn is at least singing in recognizable English, and though I still can't distinguish more than half the words I seem to recall that Billy is musing about life on his last day of it (Britten's music is so eloquent we almost don't need words to tell us that). Mattei sounds introspective and dreamy, but Gunn is sensitive enough. Prize to Gunn for giving me a few words to latch onto.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

*Keenlyside*. You don't give it as an option, for some reason.

I've attended a number of performances of Billy Budd in London down the years, and I rate the ENO 2005 (?) at the Coliseum as the finest I ever witnessed. Simon's singing and athletic stage-craft was mesmerising.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

HenryPenfold said:


> *Keenlyside*. You don't give it as an option, for some reason.
> 
> I've attended a number of performances of Billy Budd in London down the years, and I rate the ENO 2005 (?) at the Coliseum as the finest I ever witnessed. Simon's singing and athletic stage-craft was mesmerising.


I suggested he be included in another round, so it's likely he will be an option.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Not having heard this opera for decades, I'm in a perfect position to have these gentlemen tell me what's happening in this section of it.* I'm sorry to report that after listening to Peter Mattei singing in a language I didn't recognize I was as uninformed as before.* Gunn is at least singing in recognizable English, and though I still can't distinguish more than half the words I seem to recall that Billy is musing about life on his last day of it (Britten's music is so eloquent we almost don't need words to tell us that). Mattei sounds introspective and dreamy, but Gunn is sensitive enough. Prize to Gunn for giving me a few words to latch onto.


He is singing in English. as a native English speaker, you can trust me on this.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Mattei makes less of an effect, partly because his diction isn't that great and I wonder how well he understands the language.


I've heard Mattei interviewed in English, and he undestands and speaks quite well, albeit with an accent. I think that English isn't the easiest language in which to sing, particularly for non-native English speakers. They either over-enunciate and sound silly, or under-enunciate and are unintelligible.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> I've heard Mattei interviewed in English, and he undestands and speaks quite well, albeit with an accent. I think that English isn't the easiest language in which to sing, particularly for non-native English speakers. They either over-enunciate and sound silly, or under-enunciate and are unintelligible.


Well, then if that's the case, it's clearly his diction. I've heard plenty of other non-British singers sing in perfectly intelligible English, some, like Fischer-Dieskau, Gedda and Flagstad with hardly a trace of an accent. Others, like Schwarzkopf or De Los Angeles, do have an accent, but you can still understand the words.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Delete this post


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

[post deleted]


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> I've heard Mattei interviewed in English, and he undestands and speaks quite well, albeit with an accent. I think that English isn't the easiest language in which to sing, particularly for non-native English speakers. They either over-enunciate and sound silly, or under-enunciate and are unintelligible.


I've just listened to Mattei while looking at the words. His English pronunciation sounds careful, studied and peculiar; he alters vowels, no doubt toward Swedish, and understates consonants, the two factors that most determine intelligibility. It's a bit like listening to the radio from the next room when someone with a foreign accent is speaking; the person may be speaking his own brand of English quite well, but from a distance we hear a stream of unfamiliar sounds.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I've just listened to Mattei while looking at the words. His English pronunciation sounds careful, studied and peculiar; he alters vowels, no doubt toward Swedish, and understates consonants, the two factors that most determine intelligibility. It's a bit like listening to the radio from the next room when someone with a foreign accent is speaking; the person may be speaking his own brand of English quite well, but from a distance we hear a stream of unfamiliar sounds.


It's odd, because the Swedes are usually rather good at speaking English, something I know from first hand knowledge and from the singing of Gedda, whom I've already mentioned. Anne Sophie von Otter also sings in pretty faultless English. It's a long time since I've heard it, but I have a vague memory of Nilsson hilariously singing _I could have danced all night _on the second Karajan *Die Fledermaus *(hilarious because of the obvious unsuitabilty of her voice for this ligtweight material). I seem to recall that her English was perfectly intellgible, the most memorable thing about it being that she ended up on a top C at the end


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> I don't think that's likely - Hampson is 67 years old, and Mattei's wife, Rose-Marie Wahlström, is 57.


It was Pisaroni -- that is why I deleted it.
Wikipedia: "It was through his 2002 appearance in Salzburg that Pisaroni met both the American baritone Thomas Hampson (who was singing the Don) and his daughter Cate. Cate and Pisaroni were subsequently married[1] and now make their home in Vienna."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> It's odd, because the Swedes are usually rather good at speaking English, something I know from first hand knowledge and from the singing of Gedda, whom I've already mentioned. Anne Sophie von Otter also sings in pretty faultless English. It's a long time since I've heard it, but I have a vague memory of Nilsson hilariously singing _I could have danced all night _on the second Karajan *Die Fledermaus *(hilarious because of the obvious unsuitabilty of her voice for this ligtweight material). I seem to recall that her English was perfectly intellgible, the most memorable thing about it being that she ended up on a top C at the end


Hahaha. I remember Nilsson's amusing, one-of-a-kind performance in that "gala" _Fledermaus_. Julie Andrews she wasn't, but her accented English was clear, if not equal to that of the incomparable Eliza Doolittle - Mary Poppins - Maria von Trapp - Victor/Victoria, who always made English sound like the most beautiful language on earth.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I watch Young Wallander series on TV for the plot and for his looks and everyone is Swedish and their English is easier to understand than many of the people on the Great British Bake Off.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I watch Young Wallander series on TV for the plot and for his looks and everyone is Swedish and their English is easier to understand than many of the people on the Great British Bake Off.


But they're speaking, not singing, right? Not that Swedes can't sing in good English, of course (Gedda has been mentioned as an example). And there are plenty of native English speakers whose diction in their own language is inferior to that of some foreigners. English, of whatever variety, does present some interesting challenges, as wkasimer points out. For that matter some Americans speak what purports to be my language so sloppily that I'd like to have them arrested for linguicide, or phonicide, or something.

This raises the interesting question of what sort of English to sing in - or, more acccurately, whether to sing in any particular spoken form of English at all. Neither British nor American singers make exactly the same phonetic sounds in singing - classical singing - as they do in speaking, Not only are regional accents eschewed, but there's a bit of internationalization most likely resulting from the Italian-based tradition of clear, open, non-diphthong- inflected vowels. It can be easy to spot native English-speaking singers when dipthongs creep into their pronunciation of other languages, commonly on the short "e" and long "o," and it's similarly easy to spot a foreigner speaking English when he fails to get the diphthongs right. But English-speaking singers singing in English need to make adjustments too: Americans generally need to modify their typically strongly rhotic final "r," and Brits need to open up their often very closed "a" as heard in words such as "wall" and "war." It's sometimes possible to tell whether a singer singing in English is British or American, but not always. Unless you're Enry Iggins, of course.

A singer might choose to retain and emphasize her regional accent for a specific artistic purpose. Sometimes we want to sound distinctly British or American. Moreover, it can be great fun aping the speech sounds from the other side of the pond. I once served as accent coach for a high school production of "Oliver," and even if I wouldn't have fooled a real Cockney we did at least have a blast playing make-believe. Some of the kids were actually pretty good at sounding like 19th-century London street urchins. "Please, sir, I want some more" has not a single vowel that's pronounced as anyone this side of the Atlantic does it (except possibly the schwa in "some"), so if you can say that properly you're well on your way to Eliza Doolittlehood.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Here's an example of very slightly accented, but crystal clear, English. I confess that my eyes well up every time I hear this magnificent voice savoring my language with such love. Could anyone listening to this doubt the importance of diction in singing?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> But they're speaking, not singing, right? Not that Swedes can't sing in good English, of course (Gedda has been mentioned as an example). And there are plenty of native English speakers whose diction in their own language is inferior to that of some foreigners. English, of whatever variety, does present some interesting challenges, as wkasimer points out. For that matter some Americans speak what purports to be my language so sloppily that I'd like to have them arrested for linguicide, or phonicide, or something.
> 
> This raises the interesting question of what sort of English to sing in - or, more acccurately, whether to sing in any particular spoken form of English at all. Neither British nor American singers make exactly the same phonetic sounds in singing - classical singing - as they do in speaking, Not only are regional accents eschewed, but there's a bit of internationalization most likely resulting from the Italian-based tradition of clear, open, non-diphthong- inflected vowels. It can be easy to spot native English-speaking singers when dipthongs creep into their pronunciation of other languages, commonly on the short "e" and long "o," and it's similarly easy to spot a foreigner speaking English when he fails to get the diphthongs right. But English-speaking singers singing in English need to make adjustments too: Americans generally need to modify their typically strongly rhotic final "r," and Brits need to open up their often very closed "a" as heard in words such as "wall" and "war." It's sometimes possible to tell whether a singer singing in English is British or American, but not always. Unless you're Enry Iggins, of course.
> 
> A singer might choose to retain and emphasize her regional accent for a specific artistic purpose. Sometimes we want to sound distinctly British or American. Moreover, it can be great fun aping the speech sounds from the other side of the pond. I once served as accent coach for a high school production of "Oliver," and even if I wouldn't have fooled a real Cockney we did at least have a blast playing make-believe. Some of the kids were actually pretty good at sounding like 19th-century London street urchins. "Please, sir, I want some more" has not a single vowel that's pronounced as anyone this side of the Atlantic does it (except possibly the schwa in "some"), so if you can say that properly you're well on your way to Eliza Doolittlehood.


I always loved that Leontyne Price when she spoke and when she sang in spirituals relished in her deep Southern roots and yet there was never a doubt as to what she was saying despite her heavy Mississippi woman of color accent.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I always loved that Leontyne Price when she spoke and when she sang in spirituals relished in her deep Southern roots and yet there was never a doubt as to what she was saying despite her heavy Mississippi woman of color accent.


I have a sneaking suspicion that the category "woman of color accent" has yet to be recognized by the American Association for Applied Linguistics.


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