# Big singers small roles



## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

I don't remember anymore the tenor or the opera house. But once I read that a tenor who had sung Otello the previous night participated on the next days production of La Boheme as a waiter in the second act. If I remember correctly both the audience and other singers where quite surprised. Quite funny story 

Do you remember any big stars that have done smaller roles either live or in recordings when they where all ready big stars?


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Some have at the end of their careers. The "classic" cameo parts that a well known singer might take on are the old Countess in Pique Dame and Monsieur what's-his-name in Eugene Onegin, there are others as well.

Robert Lloyd who sang major roles at Covent Garden now occasionally turns up in the small parts.

N.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I remember seeing Joseph Calleja singing Nemorino (_L'elisir d'amore_) in Munich and the following night he sang The Italian Singer in _Der Rosenkavalier_.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Pavarotti has been known to do the Italian Singer too in Der Rosen....


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

_Kiri te Kanawa_ recorded the role of La Contessa di Ceprano on the 1971 recording of Rigoletto.
Sutherland/ Pavarotti/ Milnes .


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Pavarotti has been known to do the Italian Singer too in Der Rosen....


So did Carreras on Philips


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Karajan is well known for using well-known singers in small roles for his recordings, for instance Katia Ricciarelli as the Priestess in *Aida* and Barbara Hendricks as The Voice from Heaven in *Don Carlo*.

Also in Karajan's first recording of *Der Rosenkavalier*, Ljuba Welitsch sings the Duenna Marianne.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Joan Sutherland as the Woodbird in Solt's Ring.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Or Joan Sutherland as Clotilde in Callas's Covent Garden debut as Norma. She also sang the Priestess in the *Aida* Callas sang the following year.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Diminuendo said:


> I don't remember anymore the tenor or the opera house. But once I read that a tenor who had sung Otello the previous night participated on the next days production of La Boheme as a waiter in the second act. If I remember correctly both the audience and other singers where quite surprised. Quite funny story


It must happen quite often when the singers are steady singers at an opera company.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf doing the high notes for Kirsten Flagstad in the early 50's Tristan


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Not a dramatically insignificant role, but a surprise was Montserrat Caballé's entertaining turn as the Duchess of Crackentorp in the 2007 Vienna production of _La fille du régiment_ with Natalie Dessay. Caballé was 74 at the time.

They greatly expanded her speaking role (adding a fair bit of German and a Swiss song, no less).

She looks like she was having a riot!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Faustian said:


> Joan Sutherland as the Woodbird in Solt's Ring.


The irony. Siegfried has just tasted dragon's blood so that he can understand what the bird is saying...


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Balthazar said:


> Not a dramatically insignificant role, but a surprise was Montserrat Caballé's entertaining turn as the Duchess of Crackentorp in the 2007 Vienna production of _La fille du régiment_ with Natalie Dessay. Caballé was 74 at the time.
> 
> They greatly expanded her speaking role (adding a fair bit of German and a Swiss song, no less).
> 
> She looks like she was having a riot!


Kiri Te Kanawa recently did the same role at Covent Garden


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Balthazar said:


> Not a dramatically insignificant role, but a surprise was Montserrat Caballé's entertaining turn as the Duchess of Crackentorp in the 2007 Vienna production of _La fille du régiment_ with Natalie Dessay. Caballé was 74 at the time.
> 
> They greatly expanded her speaking role (adding a fair bit of German and a Swiss song, no less).
> 
> She looks like she was having a riot!


Believe me, she did she shows it all the way .


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Balthazar said:


> Not a dramatically insignificant role, but a surprise was Montserrat Caballé's entertaining turn as the Duchess of Crackentorp in the 2007 Vienna production of _La fille du régiment_ with Natalie Dessay. Caballé was 74 at the time.
> 
> They greatly expanded her speaking role (adding a fair bit of German and a Swiss song, no less).
> 
> She looks like she was having a riot!


Brilliant. She looks like Mrs Slocombe.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

In the late 2000's, I attended a _Don Giovanni_ at the Metropolitan Opera with a typically young-ish Mozart cast aside from the Leporello, who was none other than a late-career Samuel Ramey. As odd as it felt to witness it in the audience, I expect it was an even stranger sensation for the rest of the cast. To this day, I still don't know what the point was.

I also saw the noted Wotan, James Morris, exchange his spear for a samurai sword as the Mikado in Chicago. Also among the lighter G&S voices in that cast was the Katisha of the equally formidable Stephanie Blythe.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

sospiro said:


> I remember seeing Joseph Calleja singing Nemorino (_L'elisir d'amore_) in Munich and the following night he sang The Italian Singer in _Der Rosenkavalier_.


I wouldn't call it a minor role, I don't think, even though it's only one aria. It's a big moment in the sun for the singer.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

Perhaps that doesn't count as a small role...

But there was that Götterdämmerung in Bayreuth 1956 when Astrid Varnay sang the Third Norn *and* Brünnhilde in the same performance.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang the role of Don Fernando in Bernstein's 1978 recording of _Fidelio_ (DG). As Don Fernando only appears towards the end of Act II and that it's actually a bass role I'm assuming it was either a play by DG to add further lustre to an already impressive cast (on the back cover D-FD's name is first on the list above those of Popp, Kollo, Janowitz etc. despite the role being no more than a cameo) or a pat on the back to mark DF-D's retirement from the operatic stage that same year.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Definitely not a small role and I know that she sang it early in her career but the time that Birgit Nilsson sang Sieglinde at the Met to Rita Hunter's Brunnhilde


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Faustian said:


> Joan Sutherland as the Woodbird in Solt's Ring.


Sutherland had a big voice, but it's not quite the same thing because she had a bright, lyrical timbre and the voice moved more like a lyric voice.


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