# The Met's Music Director, Vocal "Expert"



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I found this revelatory, darkly hilarious, horrifying, and sad. See what you think:


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I don't know who did this, nor am I any expert on the topic, but my reaction is that whoever made the video has an agenda that overrides understanding of the intent of YN-S etc. There is probably a lot of truth in the basic arguments but that doesn't excuse how he went about this presentation.

Incidentally if there is any one currently active operatic conductor who came up the traditional way as an assistant, coaching etc., it is Pappano.


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

He obviously has an agenda. He loves opera and wants to see it returning to the great level of the golden era. This agenda everebody should share.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Some of his examples are not great. As Becca has pointed out, Pappano is a conductor who came up the traditional way and appreciates the great singers of the past. BUt he has to work with what he's got. He's definitely one of the best opera conductors around today.

But I take his point.


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Agreed that the presentation is bad, they always make their point in the most polemical way possible.

The clips of Nezet Seguin spoke for themselves really, and I have to confess laughing at the repeated "in the WEAK register of Fiordiligi..." contrasted with those old-school chesty sound bites. If I'm being charitable I _might _understand what he's saying from a stylistic perspective, since I personally don't always want to hear that hooty chesty sound, which can risk sounding a bit masculine if it differs strongly from the upper register (in my opinion, anyway). Plus it depends on who the singer is too, since Nezet Seguin was clearly giving a masterclass using someone's specific voice. But overall I think it's a bad thing _if _he's discouraging a hearty lower range generally, and _if_ this is part of a pattern of conductors' thinking then we ought to be worried. The author's point about breathiness didn't seem as compelling to me though, as I personally quite appreciate the effect if it adds to the interpretation, even at the expense of volume. And overall I found it very informative to hear what singers coached by the old composers sounded like.

But again, as with many other videos of theirs, they're drawing a general conclusion from insufficient evidence. In this video we saw, what, three different clips of modern conductors influencing a singer's performance? Plus a few isolated clips of good and bad singing, and a quote from Tebaldi? It's not exactly watertight. Though to their credit, the hypothesis that the supposed decline in singing standards is partly caused by the increasing influence of conductors is an interesting one, but we can't conclude much from the evidence they've provided. That hypothesis might have some legs on it, unlike, say, the idea that vocal teachers have spontaneously stopped teaching chest voice for no apparent reason.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Load of rubbish if you ask me. Of course, if you take excerpts like this out of context you can prove anything you like. Then when they play the real 'oldies' who are supposed to have such marvellous voices they always sound really thin to me but whether that is due to the ancient recording or the voice I don't know. But we are supposed to say they are marvellous. The guy obviously has an axe to grind and has chosen his out-of-context excerpts to try and illustrate his own prejudices. No doubt we could prove the same points if we listened in to suitably doctored excerpts from Tebaldi's or Callas' rehearsals. I can remember critics going on about them when they were alive. Of course, now they are dead, they are like the angels! I was talking to a voice coach the other week and am sure he would take an exception to this sort of thing. Bit of an insult on the intelligence I call it.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Several people have referred to this critic as a he but according to their website they are a group of musicians/critics advocating for the old school. And they choose to remain anonymous due to their harsh criticism of famous classical artists. The whole thing comes across as pretty cheesy and a bit cowardly. I don't know much about this young Canadian conductor or why he got the job so I'll have to do some reading up on the subject.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

starthrower said:


> Several people have referred to this critic as a he but according to their website they are a group of musicians/critics advocating for the old school. And they choose to remain anonymous due to their harsh criticism of famous classical artists. The whole thing comes across as pretty cheesy and a bit cowardly.


Exactly right. I rarely trust anything written anonymously.

I only sampled a bit of it, but it strikes me as one of those "everything old is good, everything new is bad" screeds. It reminded me of a dreadful book that I read a number of years ago, "The Twilight of Bel Canto".

And while the bloggers on this website may call themselves "musicians and critics", I am skeptical of those claims as well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Thanks for these remarks. It's interesting to see the way "This is Opera" generates extreme views, pro and con. My view, basically, is that the extreme views are wrong, that we should naturally expect some bias in all "expert" opinion, and that if we're discriminating and critical of what's presented we'll recognize some truths.

There's great value in listening to singers spanning over a century of recording, but we have to learn how to listen through the distortions of vocal timbre created by the limitations of older recording technologies. The timbres of voices suffered to a greater or lesser extent - the higher the voice, in general, the greater the loss - but even in the oldest acoustical recordings we can hear the _way_ people sang, their style and technique, and make useful comparisons with singers of our era.

We may disagree in what we prefer to hear in these respects; "This is Opera" - whoever or whatever he, she, they or it may be - obviously has an obsession with the female chest voice and with the size of voices, but given the obvious dearth of both in the present world of singing it seems to me fairly important to have examples from earlier periods showing that things haven't always been this way.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

I skipped around, saw his many examples of dramatic sopranos who couldn't possibly have sung Fiordiligi trotted out as examples of how wrong Nezet-Seguin was for saying that Fiordiligis generally don't have great chest voices. 

My collection of Cosis on CD include the following Fiordiligis: Schwarzkopf, Della Casa, Janowitz, Margaret Price, Leontyne Price, Te Kanawa. Seems like saying that Fiordiligis generally have weaker chest registers is a totally accurate comment to me, and as usual, I question the expertise of the folks behind this youtube channel.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

I'm wondering if it is a bit unusual to have conductors like Nézet-Séguin and Pappano host singers' masterclasses?

I'd have thought the most credible sources would be the repetiteurs and vocal coaches, followed perhaps by mature singers who have anecdotal experience. 

Even with historic conductors I really admire - such as Tullio Serafin - I would not expect Serafin to run the singer's masterclass. Tito Gobbi's autobiography emphasised that in preparing a role it was delegated to the repetiteurs and vocal coaches to toil so the singers knew their words and music ready for the short final rehearsals to get the stage business arranged.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> I skipped around, saw his many examples of dramatic sopranos who couldn't possibly have sung Fiordiligi trotted out as examples of how wrong Nezet-Seguin was for saying that Fiordiligis generally don't have great chest voices.
> 
> My collection of Cosis on CD include the following Fiordiligis: Schwarzkopf, Della Casa, Janowitz, Margaret Price, Leontyne Price, Te Kanawa. Seems like saying that Fiordiligis generally have weaker chest registers is a totally accurate comment to me, and as usual, I question the expertise of the folks behind this youtube channel.


I not sure what you're contending here. Are you saying that the proper voice for Fiordiligi is weak at the bottom? "Come Scoglio" is a dramatic, even a melodramatic, aria with huge melodic leaps in which the character expresses her resolve with bravado:

"Like a rock, unmoving in wind and storm,
my soul remains strong
in its faith and love.
Within us burns a fire
that strengthens and consoles.
Death alone will change
the feelings in our hearts.
Respect my constancy,
you ignoble souls.
Never again let vile expectations
make you so bold."

Carol Vaness, for one, has the right idea: 




I suspect that this soprano too was singing the aria in a perfectly natural, traditional way, responding to the text and music. Nothing Nezet-Seguin said to her makes any sense to me, not the part about equal strength of the vocal registers being a recent idea, nor the part about Fiordiligi having a "weak register," nor the idea that if Mozart wanted to "talk like a rock" he would have written "scoglio" on a high note, nor the idea that the character should sound "scared" on her low C#.

Nezet-Seguin sounds to me like a typical "intellectual" of the sort that dominates modern opera production, imposes "innovative" ideas on classic operas, vitiates their inherent emotional power, and makes them unrecognizable. I think it's perfectly reasonable to make a connection between such notions as he seems to be propagating and the loss of vital traditions, including artistic traditions and traditions of vocal pedagogy.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I not sure what you're contending here. Are you saying that the proper voice for Fiordiligi is weak at the bottom? "Come Scoglio" is a dramatic, even a melodramatic, aria with huge melodic leaps in which the character expresses her resolve with bravado:
> 
> "Like a rock, unmoving in wind and storm,
> my soul remains strong
> ...


I'm saying one of the less important features of a good Fiordiligi is a vast and powerful chest voice--I think my collection of those who have taken the role include most of the most highly esteemed performers in the role, and not a one of them has a great chest voice, and despite that lack, are still amongst the most highly esteemed performers in that role.

Nezet-Seguin has put out some very good Mozart opera recordings. I'm not sure what his process is, but the results can't really be argued with. Of course, my favorite recordings are those from specific singers that aren't available to him, but I think tarring him with these odd claims that appear to have little to do with his actual professional life seems pretty unfair.

edited to add--I think you misapprehend the point of "Come Scoglio". The libretto speaks of faithfulness and unmovability of a rock, but the music paints a very different, more accurate picture--leaps and runs up and down the range, as little stability as there is faithfulness in the true heart of Fiordiligi, who of course comically promptly tries to run off with her Albanian suitor immediately after this aria. It's actually thematically much more accurate to have a weaker and more irresolute sounding Schwarzkopf or Della Casa with a lighter voice than a stentorian battleaxe.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

There are some people like the so-called 'expert' who insist that there is one way and one way only (ie their way) of singing a certain role. This is of course nonsense as it takes variety out of performance. Usually to these people it is a way of a past tradition with singers who have long gone. Hate to tell you, mister, but they can't sing the role from their graves! Certainly with Mozart I think we tend to sing his music better (or perhaps more appropriately) now than we have done in the past. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy the great singers of the past - I am one of those seemingly extraordinary people who can enjoy singers past and present - but we must realise that, like it or not, times change.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> I'm saying *one of the less important features of a good Fiordiligi is a vast and powerful chest voice--I think my collection of those who have taken the role include most of the most highly esteemed performers in the role, and not a one of them has a great chest voice*, and despite that lack, are still amongst the most highly esteemed performers in that role.
> 
> Nezet-Seguin has put out some very good Mozart opera recordings. I'm not sure what his process is, but the results can't really be argued with. Of course, my favorite recordings are those from specific singers that aren't available to him, but I think *tarring him with these odd claims that appear to have little to do with his actual professional life seems pretty unfair.*
> 
> edited to add--I think you misapprehend the point of "Come Scoglio". The libretto speaks of faithfulness and unmovability of a rock, but the music paints a very different, more accurate picture--leaps and runs up and down the range, as little stability as there is faithfulness in the true heart of Fiordiligi, who of course comically promptly tries to run off with her Albanian suitor immediately after this aria. It's actually *thematically* much more accurate to have a weaker and more irresolute sounding Schwarzkopf or Della Casa with a lighter voice than a stentorian battleaxe.


You're fudging with your "vast and powerful chest voice" and "stentorian battle-axe" characterizations. We're not talking about Azucena here. We're talking about what Mozart clearly wrote in "Come scoglio," where good, solid (not "vast") chest tones are clearly suggested by the character of the music. Singers with weak chest voices are acclaimed in all sorts of things. That's hardly an argument for anything, is it?

I don't presume to assess Nezet-Seguin's career and don't care about it, and I don't think anyone is "tarring him with odd claims." The question is whether, in his present remarks about singing, he seems to know what he's talking about. I agree with This is Opera that he doesn't, and that he is the one making odd claims. One of the things noted by singers who were active in the decades spanning WW II is that opera conductors of an earlier generation understood singers and singing. Maybe N-S understands singing better than he appears to here, where he's plainly rationalizing in a way that, to me, sounds typical of the contemporary "cerebralization" of the art form, in which direct, intuitive expression often gives way to "concepts." At the very least it sounds like the voice of inexperience.

(BTW, how would a performance by a soprano with a firm chest register sound inappropriate, in your interpretation of that aria? Do you think that performance by Carol Vaness misses the point of it? your statement, "It's actually _thematically_ [emphasis mine] much more accurate to have a weaker and more irresolute sounding Schwarzkopf or Della Casa with a lighter voice than a stentorian battleaxe," illustrates my point about "cerebralization." Fiordiligi may not be as strong as she's pretending to be, but in this aria she is very decidedly pretending. Listen to the music! It's wildly exaggerated, even comically so, and that's certainly a key to interpreting it musically.)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> I skipped around, saw his many examples of dramatic sopranos who couldn't possibly have sung Fiordiligi trotted out as examples of how wrong Nezet-Seguin was for saying that Fiordiligis generally don't have great chest voices.
> 
> My collection of Cosis on CD include the following Fiordiligis: Schwarzkopf, Della Casa, Janowitz, Margaret Price, Leontyne Price, Te Kanawa. Seems like saying that Fiordiligis generally have weaker chest registers is a totally accurate comment to me, and as usual, I question the expertise of the folks behind this youtube channel.


Well I listened in quick succession to Schwarzkopf, Della Casa, Janowitz and Te Kanawa sing the openng phrases of _Come scoglio_ and I'd have said that none of those estimable ladies had weak lower registers, quite the reverse, with Schwarzkopf actually having quite a strong chest voice. I think the point these guys are trying to make (and I felt that some of their examples rather over-egged the pudding) is that even light voiced singers used to have strong lower registers. How much chest will probably depend on the music being sung, Mozart requiring less than Verdi or Ponchielli. When Callas sings Constanze's _Martern aller Arten_, she does not use the same chest placement for the lower regions of the aria that she does as Gioconda, for instance, but the lower notes still sound and are still strong. Presumably this is what they were talking about. Those lower notes should still be audible.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> You're fudging with your "vast and powerful chest voice" characterization. We're not talking about Azucena here. We're talking about what Mozart clearly wrote in "Come scoglio," where good, solid (not "vast") chest tones are clearly suggested by the character of the music. Singers with weak chest voices are acclaimed in all sorts of things. That's hardly an argument for anything, is it?


Ok, so who do you think is better than Schwarzkopf, Della Casa, the Prices, Te Kanawa or Janowitz in that role? I found the Vaness clip you linked to quite a bit worse compared to the versions I've listed to by the ladies above.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Well I listened in quick succession to Schwarzkopf, Della Casa, Janowitz and Te Kanawa sing the openng phrases of _Come scoglio_ and I'd have said that none of those estimable ladies had weak lower registers, quite the reverse, with Schwarzkopf actually having quite a strong chest voice.


You may think that these ladies (who I obviously also like quite a lot in this role) have fine bottoms, but it's pretty incontestable that their bottoms are weaker than any other part of their voices, no? And isn't that what Nezet Seguin literally was saying?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> You may think that these ladies (who I obviously also like quite a lot in this role) have fine bottoms, but it's pretty incontestable that their bottoms are weaker than any other part of their voices, no? And isn't that what Nezet Seguin literally was saying?


I thought they all had pretty strong bottoms, to be honest, and, as I said, this is Mozart not Verdi. Schwarzkopf's used more chest in the Verdi Requiem, as did Margaret Price in *Un Ballo in Maschera* and indeed when I heard her sing the Verdi Requiem in the concert hall.

As for their bottoms not being as strong as their tops, well surely that applies to all sopranos, even Renata Tebaldi, though maybe not Rosa Ponselle.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I thought they all had pretty strong bottoms, to be honest, and, as I said, this is Mozart not Verdi. Schwarzkopf's used more chest in the Verdi Requiem, as did Margaret Price in *Un Ballo in Maschera* and indeed when I heard her sing the Verdi Requiem in the concert hall.
> 
> As for their bottoms not being as strong as their tops, well surely that applies to all sopranos, even Renata Tebaldi, though maybe not Rosa Ponselle.


So then why is what N-S was saying at all controversial?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> You may think that these ladies (who I obviously also like quite a lot in this role) have fine bottoms, but it's pretty incontestable that their bottoms are weaker than any other part of their voices, no? And isn't that what Nezet Seguin literally was saying?


No, he was saying a good deal more. What he was doing was rationalizing, saying that because the "equal development of registers" was a recent concept in singing (which it isn't), and because Fiordiligi's low notes are weak (which they aren't) and because Mozart would have set "scoglio" on a high note if he'd wanted it to sound strong (which is just silly), THEREFORE the soprano standing before him should make the low notes sound "fearful" and not use the strength of her chest register in the phrase in question.

If I were her, I'd be thinking, "You're the bandleader, fella. I'm the singer."


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> So then why is what N-S was saying at all controversial?


Because he is advising them not to use chest at all and it is quite evident that alll the sopranos in your list do so to some extent, probably because they realise they wouldn't be heard if they didn't and because the music seems to ask for it. I can't believe Mozart would have wrtten those wide leaps if he hadn't meant them to be sung strongly.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I've now listened to Leontyne Price and Margaret Price as well. Both ladies use chest voice on the low notes. Margaret, the more regular Mozartian, was live under Sawallisch, and, if anything, her low notes were stronger than Leontyne's.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

YNS said (not out of context, not distorted) that sopranos have weak chest voice. Furthermore, he seems to be implying that because of this natural fact that sopranos have weak lower registers, Mozart wrote arias with a weak sound in mind for low notes. Then he went further, and said that strong low notes are a recent aberration, and implies that Verdi also would have known that sopranos have weak lower registers, and so the low note in Tu che le vanita is supposed to be sung weakly in order to accord with Verdi's intentions.

This is all pretty obviously wrong, and TIO does an excellent job proving it. The dramatic and spinto sopranos are not at all irrelevant because YNS is not jsut talking about Come scoglio, he's talking about Tu che le vanita and using Come scoglio as an analogy. There's no other argument he could be making. The examples show that a) gret sopranos of the past didn't sing tu che le vanita specifically with weak low notes as a matter of course; b) that sopranos who knew the composers of the period, were coached by them, and were acclaimed by them universally had strong lower registers and used them as a matter of course for singing low notes across eras, styles, and interpretations. If you watch the other TIO videos, there's heaps more evidence.

The accusations of cherry picking ring false. If you watch only this video, you might be able to make that case. But TIO opera has made hundreds of videos with dozens of great, good, and just standard opera singers from the past singing in a consistent style (two registers) at consistently higher quality than current signers. Taken as a whole, it's undeniable.

The argument that there are good singers and bad singers in any era misses the point. First, think about it: in 1910, you had Emmy Destinn, Claudia Muzio, Nellie Melba, Luisa Tetrazzini, Enrico Caruso, Titta Ruffo, Riccardo Stracciari, Jose Mardones, Rosa Ponselle, Clara Butt, Louise Kirkby-Lunn, Florence Easton and many, many more active and singing. If singing has not declined, where is the singer equivalent to any one of these singers? The question is not are there ok singers in any era, it's, Are there great singers? In the past, there were many of them. Now, there are none. There are some ok singers. But especially in heavier roles, although i think across all voice types, there are no truly great singers out there right now. Look at the Met's recent _Turandot_: 




If that's not appallingly bad singing (wobble, out of tune, shrill/strident tone, no interpretation possible because of vocal faults, obvious straining) I don't know what is. Those are the best singers the MET can find to sing these roles? In the past, they could have called on to sing Turandot:
Eva Turner, Gertrude Grob-Prandl, Bianca Scacciati, Anne Roselle, and a host of Wagner singers who could have learned the role if they had wanted to. 
For Calaf they could have had:
Martinelli, Cortis, Fleta, Thill, Ansseau, Lauri-Volpi, and so on, and again a host of Wagnerian tenors who could have done it (some did). 
The next issue is, was the average singer better in the past or the present. Again, by comparison (and I've done a lot on my own for many years as well as watching TIO), I don't think it can be argued. Celestina Boninsegna was considered provincial by some critics for heaven's sake! Umberto Urbano didn't have a huge career! Today he would be a miracle.

Finally, I think their larger point about opera conductors and interpretation is that they seem to only go in the direction of _smaller_ when they talk about characterization. But opera, like all classical theater, is big. It's is about earth shattering events and emotions, and we need to feel all of that for it to work. As Woodduck says, even an ultimately unfounded protestation of determination should be big, not small. Why can't big things be subtleties of _interpretation_? Take for example, the way the magificent Clara Petrella sings this example from _Il tabarro_:




At 31:58 Petrella uses her ringing chest voice to declaim "La volutta e' piu intensa" To add such visceral characterization to her part is a wonderful nuance. Subtlety doesn't mean small it means meaningful detail. That "big", chesty vocal production is an exceedly meaningful and appropriate detail. It's great singing. Following YNS, however, since it's not a high note, it should be a soft, breathy tone, which shows how Giorgetta is trying to hide her real feelings or whatever.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Frankly as Pappano leads an opera house and is one of the words leading conductors, I’d be more likely to listen to him than some anonymous self proclaimed ‘expert’ on the internet who is harking after the past.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> *The accusations of cherry picking ring false. *If you watch only this video, you might be able to make that case. But TIO opera has made hundreds of videos with dozens of great, good, and just standard opera singers from the past singing in a consistent style (two registers) at consistently higher quality than current signers. Taken as a whole, it's undeniable.
> 
> The argument that there are good singers and bad singers in any era misses the point. First, think about it: in 1910, you had *Emmy Destinn, Claudia Muzio, Nellie Melba, Luisa Tetrazzini, Enrico Caruso, Titta Ruffo, Riccardo Stracciari, Jose Mardones, Rosa Ponselle, Clara Butt, Louise Kirkby-Lunn, Florence Easton* and many, many more active and singing. If singing has not declined, where is the singer equivalent to any one of these singers? The question is not are there ok singers in any era, it's, Are there great singers? In the past, there were many of them. Now, there are none. There are some ok singers.


Of course there is cherry picking. That's what these guys are about. Cherry picking to prove their point that the past is better than the present. It's a favourite topic of old timers. I know as I happen to be one! :lol:
I also can't quite see the point about some of the great singers of the past because whenever I hear their recordings they are so poor that I just cannot get a real idea of what they actually sounded like in reality. They might have been brilliant but whose to know apart from those who insist that the past is always better than the present? Like those who insist that Mike Tyson wouldn't have gone more than a couple of rounds with John L: Sullivan I suppose? With singers like Callas and Tebaldi you can actually hear what they sounded like but with some of the real celebrated oldies you simply have to imagine.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I've actually just listened to another of these videos by these guys. I get it now. You get them in every walk of life - people who have never made it themselves but want to make a name for themselves by criticising others who have made it. That's the only way they can get attention. Bit sad really.


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

With any amount of noise on old recordings you can clearly hear the difference between Destinn or Tetrazzini and Netrebko or Bartoli. And you can actually "cherry pick" any other modern start and the results of the comparision will be the same.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

IgorS said:


> With any amount of noise on old recordings you can clearly hear the difference between Destinn or Tetrazzini and Netrebko or Bartoli. And you can actually "cherry pick" any other modern start and the results of the comparision will be the same.


Frankly I think it owes a lot to the imagination! Take the name away and I wonder whether your analysis would be the same!


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

"Make a name for themselves" anonymously. Interesting idea )))


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Frankly I think it owes a lot to the imagination! Take the name away and I wonder whether your analysis would be the same!


Maybe it is just my taste. I like old recordings.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Of course there is cherry picking. That's what these guys are about. Cherry picking to prove their point that the past is better than the present. It's a favourite topic of old timers. I know as I happen to be one! :lol:


Me too! But they don't even need to cherry pick, because it's already been done for them. During the first quarter of the 20th century, mediocre singers didn't make recordings, and many of the less-than-stellar recordings have been lost to history. In 2019, virtually every performance of every singer is recorded and widely available via broadcast or telecast.

And of course, there are many things that we don't know, and can't know about singers of the acoustic era. I listen to many such recordings, and it's impossible to tell anything about vocal size.

That isn't to say that operatic vocal standards haven't declined over the past century. I think that they have done so, for any number of reasons - just to name a few, lack of exposure to and input from the composers of works being sung, the rise of the phonograph and the ubiquity of recordings, which has tended to urge all singers to sound alike, the ease of jet travel and the internationalization of opera, and the shortage of decent coaching.

And it's worth noting that there is some music that modern singers perform far better than those of a century ago.

I don't object when critics and other listeners praise the singers of the past - as long as that praise is not used as a club to condemn an entire generation of singers. There are a few active and recently active singers - not many, I will admit - who would be welcome in any so-called "Golden Age".


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

Again, "cherry pick" one name of modern singer that you think is on level with singers of "Golden Age".


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

IgorS said:


> Again, "cherry pick" one name of modern singer that you think is on level with singers of "Golden Age".


Sticking to singers both living and active, Peter Mattei.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

IgorS said:


> "Make a name for themselves" anonymously. Interesting idea )))


They just like to think their voice is being heard.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> They just like to think their voice is being heard.


It presumably makes them feel smug and superior.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> It presumably makes them feel smug and superior.


As has been said: "Anyone can criticise. That's why there are so many critics!" :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> As has been said: "Anyone can criticise. That's why there are so many critics!" :lol:


Anyone can criticize, but some critics know what they're talking about and some don't. Before YOU criticize others for criticizing singers, you'd best say something - anything at all - that gives evidence of your understanding of singing, its technique and its history. Failing to do that, you're only describing yourself when you say



> You get them in every walk of life - people who have never made it themselves but want to make a name for themselves by criticising others who have made it. That's the only way they can get attention. Bit sad really.


In their modest and flawed way, the "This is Opera" people have "made it" by offering something of interest and value. We have a right to take exception to what they say and to their somewhat amateurish presentation, but the sorts of personal accusations you level against them are presumptuous and mean. Have a little humility and pay attention, and you may actually learn something from their "cherry-picking." You may come to realize, as I and many others have known for years, that in an era when opera was more vital and essential to the culture there were many, many more delicious "cherries" to pick than there are now, and that our artists have a lot to learn from the generation of singers who worked with the likes of Verdi and Puccini, as well as those of later generations who grew up in a still vital tradition.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

> Originally Posted by IgorS
> With any amount of noise on old recordings you can clearly hear the difference between Destinn or Tetrazzini and Netrebko or Bartoli. And you can actually "cherry pick" any other modern start and the results of the comparision will be the same.





DavidA said:


> Frankly I think it owes a lot to the imagination! Take the name away and I wonder whether your analysis would be the same!


I don't think that a singer's reputation explains why people are still listening in 2019: it comes down to competence.

Maybe Tetrazzini's reputation (for instance) somehow lives on, but I'm not sure that even her name carries any currency today? It's not just a case of her being dead, but so are her audience, and her biographers and even the generation who reissued and reviewed her recordings on LP.

All that's left are her records, often indifferently transferred via internet videos with next to no biographical info and hardly ever by the big record companies.

And yet, people are still listening and enjoying her work after a century. Her competence still tells despite the technological limitations, despite being from a distant past. If anything the YouTube and Spotify formats prove her value even when robbed of context.

I don't believe that fans are only enjoying the recordings _because_ they are old: they enjoy the performances _despite_ all the manifest reasons for listening to better-recorded but inferior performances which are readily available.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I don't think that a singer's reputation explains why people are still listening in 2019: it comes down to competence.
> 
> Maybe Tetrazzini's reputation (for instance) somehow lives on, but I'm not sure that even her name carries any currency today? It's not just a case of her being dead, but so are her audience, and her biographers and even the generation who reissued and reviewed her recordings on LP.
> 
> ...


As I say, given the recording quality, the enjoyment owes a lot to the imagination. Frankly the sound as recorded is so thin and reedy that one doesn't know what she actually sounded like. It's just that we cannot say for definite that these singers were better because on the basis of these recordings we simply don't know. I myself can't get any enjoyment from listening to this sort of thing when there are more modern recordings which actually let us hear all the singer's tones.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> As I say, given the recording quality, the enjoyment owes a lot to the imagination. Frankly the sound as recorded is so thin and reedy that one doesn't know what she actually sounded like. *It's just that we cannot say for definite that these singers were better because on the ba well people sasis of these recordings we simply don't know.* I myself can't get any enjoyment from listening to this sort of thing when there are more modern recordings which actually let us hear all the singer's tones.


You're right that we can't hear the actual timbre of voices on acoustic recordings. In general, the higher the voice, the less true the reproduction, since it's mainly the high frequencies that were lost. Basses, baritones and deeper tenor voices lost some brilliance but otherwise recorded rather well, especially as acoustic technology improved; sopranos fared worst, and many singers with voices that were distinctive in life ended up sounding similar on recordings. However, we can learn to deduce some things from the audible evidence; listening to singers who recorded both before and after the advent of electric recording can teach us in what particular ways the sounds of voices were affected (Ponselle is a good example; we can hear her on 1918 acoustics, on radio broadcasts, and as recorded at home in the 1950s).

Timbre aside, we can hear, even on early acoustic recordings, almost everything else about how people sang: the smoothness of the register shifts, the strength of the chest tones, the messa di voce, the vibrato, the trill, the flexibility, the accuracy of pitch, the articulation of legato and staccato, the style, musicality, phrasing, expression... Once we've learned HOW to listen to early recordings, there are real revelations in store for us.


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## Jermaine (Apr 23, 2016)

Quite a silly video in my mark.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> As I say, given the recording quality, the enjoyment owes a lot to the imagination. Frankly the sound as recorded is so thin and reedy that one doesn't know what she actually sounded like. It's just that we cannot say for definite that these singers were better because on the basis of these recordings we simply don't know. I myself can't get any enjoyment from listening to this sort of thing when there are more modern recordings which actually let us hear all the singer's tones.


I'll can only agree up to a point.

Acoustical recordings did have their many technical limitations - including but not limited to frequency response, the singer's proximity to the horn, the real problems with capturing instrument detail etc. So they are in a sense compromised. It also depends on the transfers.

While acknowledging that, I anecdotally cannot recall a time when going from an acoustic recording to an electric recording the difference was revelatory...

For instance, Melba's 1926 electrics are nice and clear but her timbre and phrasing are entirely recognisable back in 1921. Ditto for Schipa, Gigli, Muzio, Galli-Curci (her voice declined but that was medical), Ponselle, Bonci, Ruffo, Pertile etc.

By extension, I can't think of an example where it turned out a singer was _flattered_ by the acoustic recording process either.

This all becomes more approximate the further back in time towards cylinders but many don't sound too bad to me and capture the essentials.

I do believe that we hear enough that we can express a preference. As to being "definite" about preferences, I'm not sure even modern recordings allow that - they are by necessity just an approximation of what it sounded like in the hall.

[I see that Woodduck submitted a similar response while I typed mine...apologies!]


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I'll can only agree up to a point.
> 
> Acoustical recordings did have their many technical limitations - including but not limited to frequency response, the singer's proximity to the horn, the real problems with capturing instrument detail etc. So they are in a sense compromised. It also depends on the transfers.
> 
> ...


Sorry but you are filling in an awful lot in your own imagination in these primitive recordings. It just isn't there. I'm not saying it wasn't there historically - it's just not there in the recording.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Sorry but you are filling in an awful lot in your own imagination in these primitive recordings. It just isn't there. I'm not saying it wasn't there historically - it's just not there in the recording.


In many cases enough remains that you can tell it was a marvellous performance. I didn't _need_ the electrical version to hear that Schipa and Galli-Curci were wonderful, but it was nice to have the confirmation.

Tito Schipa and Amelita Galli-Curci singing like angels in Lucia Di Lammermoor 1924 in front of a horn





Tito Schipa and Amelita Galli-Curci still singing like angels in Lucia Di Lammermoor 1928 in front of a microphone





Its possible to make it fairer - play a modern recording on old equipment and see if they sound half as good


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Its possible to make it fairer - play a modern recording on old equipment and see if they sound half as good


I have no intention of doing so. What is the point? The objective is to make a recording sound as good as possible not to make it sound as bad as possible. What strange idea! I have a recording of Callas' Lady Macbeth in lousy sound and I just wish the sound was better not worse. We're not talking about a competition old vs new. We're just questioning how these guys really sounded which is sadly impossible to tell on primitive recordings.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

IgorS said:


> Again, "cherry pick" one name of modern singer that you think is on level with singers of "Golden Age".


Just listening to Freddy von Stade as Cherubino. Put her against any golden age singer


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Load of rubbish if you ask me. Of course, if you take excerpts like this out of context you can prove anything you like. Then when they play the real 'oldies' who are supposed to have such marvellous voices they always sound really thin to me but whether that is due to the ancient recording or the voice I don't know. But we are supposed to say they are marvellous. The guy obviously has an axe to grind and has chosen his out-of-context excerpts to try and illustrate his own prejudices. No doubt we could prove the same points if we listened in to suitably doctored excerpts from Tebaldi's or Callas' rehearsals. I can remember critics going on about them when they were alive. Of course, now they are dead, they are like the angels! I was talking to a voice coach the other week and am sure he would take an exception to this sort of thing. Bit of an insult on the intelligence I call it.


you don't have to take examples out of context to see his point. listen to the chest register of any of the examples he uses. they are consistently powerful and on point in a way I almost never see today.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

> I have no intention of doing so. What is the point? The objective is to make a recording sound as good as possible not to make it sound as bad as possible. What strange idea! I have a recording of Callas' Lady Macbeth in lousy sound and I just wish the sound was better not worse. We're not talking about a competition old vs new. We're just questioning how these guys really sounded which is sadly impossible to tell on primitive recordings.





> Originally Posted by IgorS
> Again, "cherry pick" one name of modern singer that you think is on level with singers of "Golden Age"





DavidA said:


> Just listening to Freddy von Stade as Cherubino. Put her against any golden age singer


Frederica von Stade made her first recording of Cherubino in 1972 and her last in 1981...

Just checking that 38 to 47 years is "modern"?

Shame that the thirty-eight-year-old-recording is too primitive to tell "how these guys _really_ sounded", no?


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> Sticking to singers both living and active, Peter Mattei.


he has a nice voice. it's smooth, elegant, capable of expressing a great deal of playfulness and mischief. I would pay to here him life and believe I would come away feeling it was worth the money...but he has nothing of the mighty, patriarchal gravitas of a MacNeil, Warren or Merrill. For top tier baritones, I need more masculinity.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Broadly speaking I agree with 'This is opera'. He can be polemical and often deals in exaggeration. However, the general points he makes are sound.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Frederica von Stade made her first recording of Cherubino in 1972 and her last in 1981...
> 
> Just checking that 38 to 47 years is "modern"?
> 
> Shame that the thirty-eight-year-old-recording is too primitive to tell "how these guys _really_ sounded", no?


It is interesting, isn't it, that when people compare "modern" singers with "golden age" singers they often take anyone who recorded on vinyl LPs as "modern," as if sound reproduction defined the category. It's certain that the WW II period initiated the fading away of some older traditions in singing (along with the fading away of much else in the culture), but the career of "modern" Leontyne Price (b1927) is closer in time to the career of "golden age" Rosa Ponselle (b1897) than it is to that of "contemporary" Anna Netrebko (b1971). It's also worth noting that most people's favorite recordings of the standard operatic repertoire still tend to come from the approximate period 1950-1980, a period often regarded (at least by old-timers) as a final "golden age" of great voices and traditional values in operatic performance. Perhaps some of us are so desperate to claim distinction for the singers of today that we half-unconsciously need to smuggle in singers from a generation or two ago.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> It is interesting, isn't it, that when people compare "modern" singers with "golden age" singers they often take anyone who recorded on vinyl LPs as "modern," as if sound reproduction defined the category. It's certain that the WW II period initiated the fading away of some older traditions in singing (along with the fading away of much else in the culture), but the career of "modern" Leontyne Price (b1927) is closer in time to the career of "golden age" Rosa Ponselle (b1897) than it is to that of "contemporary" Anna Netrebko (b1971). It's also worth noting that most people's favorite recordings of the standard operatic repertoire still tend to come from the approximate period 1950-1980, a period often regarded (at least by old-timers) as a final "golden age" of great voices and traditional values in operatic performance. Perhaps some of us are so desperate to claim distinction for the singers of today that we half-unconsciously need to smuggle in singers from a generation or two ago.


This does happen a lot! I saw a review for Aida recordings in 'modern sound' which suggested the 60-year-old Karajan set 

I think one of the reasons that 'This is opera!' has traction is the growing frustration that we've been fobbed off with second-best for quite so long.

The constant reissuing and remastering of old recordings has obscured this decline a little. Another (sociological) factor I've thought about is that for the first time in history a lot of singers have lived well into old age and this can mean that they feel current even though their best years were ages away.

Happily, singers like Giuseppe Taddei, Carlo Bergonzi, Madga Olivero, Giulietta Simionato, Licia Albanese were with us until the 2010s and others like Rolando Panerai, Fiorenza Cossotto, Leontyne Price and Mirella Freni are still with us.

However, if we start scrutinising the discographies it starts to raise concerns.

If we pick out one of the youngest - Freni - her first records of Elisabetta in Don Carlo start in 1975 … making it 44 years ago.
If we want a soprano with the requisite weight of voice you might try Tebaldi … in the studio 54 years ago.
For a soprano with the right weight of voice and who sang it on stage try … Cerquetti 63 years ago.
If you want a singer of the verismo school perhaps Caniglia … just 68 years ago. aka 50 years after the death of the composer.

Despite accusations that critics - and channels like 'This is opera!' - advocate that there is only one way of singing and that there actually needs to be a variety of approaches, I think we can all agree that a few more barnstorming performances in those 68 years would not be out of order.

Even when I think of more recent candidates, I thought Alessandra Marc (1992) and (less successfully) Galina Gorchakova (1996). Is 23 years 'modern'?

I remember reading record guides from the 1950s and they talked about 15-year-old 'elderly' recordings sounding dim and 'ancient' sets from the late 1930s. The thought of making do with antique recordings would not have crossed their minds - except for curiosity value


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Conte said:


> Broadly speaking I agree with 'This is opera'. He can be polemical and often deals in exaggeration. However, the general points he makes are sound.
> 
> N.


The problem is they just deal in negatives. Why I have a feeling they are 'has beens' or 'never was' people who are just trying to get their voice heard having never made it themselves. I'd sooner they identified themselves as actual practitioners. Else they are pseuds in my book. Like certain of the the lecturers at teacher training college - claiming to tell everyone else how to teach yet not being able in the life of them to hold the attention of a class of students themselves.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Frederica von Stade made her first recording of Cherubino in 1972 and her last in 1981...
> 
> Just checking that 38 to 47 years is "modern"?
> 
> Shame that the thirty-eight-year-old-recording is too primitive to tell "how these guys _really_ sounded", no?


I just assumed she was after your so-called 'golden age'? I can't see why on earth you are banging on about the recording which is a modern Decca recording either under Karajan or Solti.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> The problem is they just deal in negatives. Why I have a feeling they are 'has beens' or 'never was' people who are just trying to get their voice heard having never made it themselves. I'd sooner they identified themselves as actual practitioners. Else they are pseuds in my book. Like certain of the the lecturers at teacher training college - claiming to tell everyone else how to teach yet not being able in the life of them to hold the attention of a class of students themselves.


This all sounds suspiciously like Michael Gove's "Britain's had enough of experts." I see where you're coming from now.

PS That is not the same as saying I agree with you.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> The problem is they just deal in negatives. Why I have a feeling they are 'has beens' or 'never was' people who are just trying to get their voice heard having never made it themselves. I'd sooner they identified themselves as actual practitioners. Else they are pseuds in my book. Like certain of the the lecturers at teacher training college - claiming to tell everyone else how to teach yet not being able in the life of them to hold the attention of a class of students themselves.


It's not like they don't cite positive examples...

In the video, they dislike the performances of
Westbrock
Monastyrska
(Santuzza?)
Blue
Opolais

+ the advice of
Pappano
Nezet-Seguin
Fleming + Thielemann

The video celebrates and promotes as role models (sometimes multiple times)
Boninsegna
Bruna Rasa
Caballe
Callas
Caniglia
di Giulio
de Hidalgo
Melba
Muzio
Raisa
Tebaldi
Zeani

+ endorses the advice of
Tebaldi's comments and class
Callas' masterclass
Mancini
Zacconi
Caccini

I like that they provide positive examples and I notice that they did not criticise the actual students at all.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> This all sounds suspiciously like Michael Gove's "Britain's had enough of experts." I see where you're coming from now.
> 
> PS That is not the same as saying I agree with you.


Frankly I couldn't care less whether you agree with me or not. 
Just I never trust the motive of self-proclaimed 'experts'. Be good to know what experience they have had apart from sitting in an armchair making value judgments. I don't trust people who glory in the 'good old days' because having experienced some of them I know they weren't always so good. I mean, these 'experts' - what qualifications do they have? Are they chorus masters? Voice teachers? Whatever? I do tend to ask how someone is qualified to talk about the subject before giving them a hearing else we are gullible.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> It's not like they don't cite positive examples...
> 
> In the video, they dislike the performances of
> Westbrock
> ...


Exactly! The old rhyme:

"If it's old it's gold
If it's new, it can't be true!"

Just like the guys who reckon Rinaldo would never get into the third team in 1935


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Frankly I couldn't care less whether you agree with me or not.
> Just I never trust the motive of self-proclaimed 'experts'. Be good to know what experience they have had apart from sitting in an armchair making value judgments. I don't trust people who glory in the 'good old days' because having experienced some of them I know they weren't always so good. I mean, these 'experts' - what qualifications do they have? Are they chorus masters? Voice teachers? Whatever? I do tend to ask how someone is qualified to talk about the subject before giving them a hearing else we are gullible.


You don't trust people who glory in the "good old days", but you do it yourself. Or do the "Good old days" only refer to pre Second World War? I mean that's 80 years ago now. Almost all the recordings you, and I admit I, enjoy were made in the 1950s through to the around the 1980s at most. How many that were made in the last 10 years improve on them? If you were to pick your favourite recording of any of the core works by Verdi, Mozart, Puccini and Wagner, how many of them would actually have been recorded in this century? Probably none.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Revitalized Classics said:


> It's not like they don't cite positive examples...
> 
> In the video, they dislike the performances of
> Westbrock
> ...


Talk about cherry-picking...here they've chosen four singers who are mostly hype (particularly Opolais) from the current scene. I don't think that anyone with competent ears and any knowledge of singing really considers any of these to be excellent, or even good singers. Angel Blue may develop into a real talent, but it's pretty early to tell, as she's only 35, and at the beginning of her international career.



> The video celebrates and promotes as role models (sometimes multiple times)
> Boninsegna
> Bruna Rasa
> Caballe
> ...


And for comparison, rather than look at a single point in time, they choose singers covering an enormous time span. Melba debuted in 1888. Caballe, who was born two years after Melba died, debuted in 1956, gave her final Met performance in 1985, and was still singing as recently as 2007.

As I've written previously - I think that in many respects, and in certain segments of the repertoire, vocal standards have certainly declined, and I have no objection to making comparisons that illustrate this. But dishonest comparisons like the one above cast serious doubt upon the motives and qualifications of those who make them.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> You don't trust people who glory in the "good old days", but you do it yourself. Or do the "Good old days" only refer to pre Second World War? I mean that's 80 years ago now. Almost all the recordings you, and I admit I, enjoy were made in the 1950s through to the around the 1980s at most. How many that were made in the last 10 years improve on them? If you were to pick your favourite recording of any of the core works by Verdi, Mozart, Puccini and Wagner, how many of them would actually have been recorded in this century? Probably none.


I don't glory in the good old days at all. The fact is there are very few opera recordings made these days for commercial reasons. I happen to collect CDs second hand when they are cheap and hardly buy new recordings due to financial reasons. I have, however, got some new recordings by people like Jacobs of period performance which contain fine singing - as good if not better actually than that of the older recordings. You seem to have an amazing ability to know not only what is inside another person's mind but also what is inside their CD collection. You work for MI5?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> Talk about cherry-picking...here they've chosen four singers who are mostly hype (particularly Opolais and Blue) from the current scene. I don't think that anyone with competent ears and any knowledge of singing really considers any of these to be excellent, or even good singers.
> 
> And for comparison, rather than look at a single point in time, they choose singers covering an enormous time span. Melba debuted in 1888. Caballe, who was born two years after Melba died, debuted in 1956, gave her final Met performance in 1985, and was still singing as recently as 2007.
> 
> As I've written previously - I think that in many respects, and in certain segments of the repertoire, vocal standards have certainly declined, and I have no objection to making comparisons that illustrate this. *But dishonest comparisons like the one above cast serious doubt upon the motives and qualifications of those who make them*.


Agreed! It is the sheer dishonesty and pretentiousness of it that gets to me. Especially as they hide behind a cloak of anonymity.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> he has a nice voice. it's smooth, elegant, capable of expressing a great deal of playfulness and mischief. I would pay to here him life and believe I would come away feeling it was worth the money...but he has nothing of the mighty, patriarchal gravitas of a MacNeil, Warren or Merrill. For top tier baritones, I need more masculinity.


I believe that you mean that he doesn't sing as loudly. Mattei also sings in tune, doesn't wobble, doesn't resort to bluster, and is able to sing in a wide range of repertoire and genres with intelliigence and style. Yeah, I'd probably prefer to hear Merrill or a young MacNeil in the Paliacci Prologo or as Rigoletto. I'd prefer Mattei in virtually everything else.

If the only things that matter to you are big, beefy, barely controlled voices singing Verdi and verismo, well, suit yourself.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I don't glory in the good old days at all. The fact is there are very few opera recordings made these days for commercial reasons. I happen to collect CDs second hand when they are cheap and hardly buy new recordings due to financial reasons. I have, however, got some new recordings by people like Jacobs of period performance which contain fine singing - as good if not better actually than that of the older recordings. You seem to have an amazing ability to know not only what is inside another person's mind but also what is inside their CD collection. You work for MI5?


Come now, what a ridiculous thing to say. You don't need to work in MI5 to get an idea of the recordings and music people on this site enjoy. All you have to do is read their posts.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Come now, what a ridiculous thing to say. You don't need to work in MI5 to get an idea of the recordings and music people on this site enjoy. All you have to do is read their posts.


Just your preposterous comment that I somehow 'glory in the good old days'. I don't! Listening to recordings from the 60s onwards in good, stereophonic sound is hardly glorying in the good old days! Btw I don't glory in music - I just enjoy it! :lol:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Just your preposterous comment that I somehow 'glory in the good old days'. I don't! Listening to recordings from the 60s onwards in good, stereophonic sound is hardly glorying in the good old days! Btw I don't glory in music - I just enjoy it! :lol:


It might not be your interpretation of the "good old days", but it's all relative. I've come across some younger listeners who refuse to listen to anything in mono sound, or even early stereo, because it doesn't have the clarity of "good digital sound". You're the one making preposterous comments.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Come now, what a ridiculous thing to say. You don't need to work in MI5 to get an idea of the recordings and music people on this site enjoy. All you have to do is read their posts.


Quite and sometimes it's quite clear that some people on this site don't read others posts.

N.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

What is actually cherry picking is to take this single video, or a tiny handful of their hundreds of videos, and say they only selected a few of the worst singers of today. They have made hundreds of videos discusssing dozens of artists, not just from today, but from the 50s onward, including Schwarzkopf, Gedda, Sutherland, Horne, Scotto, Domingo, and Kabaivanska, as well as recent stars from Netrebko, Eyvasov, Kaufmann, Opolais, Blue, Stemme, Meade, Goerke, Florez, Camarena, Guleghina, Hvorostovsky, Oropesa, Florian Vogt, Calleja, Garanca, Yende, DiDonato, Yoncheva, Dessay, Thompson, Fleming and on and on. It's false that nobody seriously thinks these are great signers: the biggest and most prestigious opera houses in the world regularly hire them, they get big recording contracts, and they are positively reviewed in major publications by critics. And somehow, in every video, someone comments this exact thing: you've only cherry picked the worst singers of today. Well, they've talked about virtually everyone of any real prominence in opera today over the course of their videos. So if they're only discussed the bad singers, it pretty much proves their point.

Furthermore, they don't just bash. They celebrate recent singers like Saioa Hernandez for her use of an actually developed chest voice. Sometimes they say a singer has good qualities and bad qualities: they praise early Alagna for his tongue retraction and beautiful sound, but lament his decline. They think Bergonzi was better than tenors today, but that he didn't cover correctly and blunted the effect of his high notes, which is totally true. The criticize great singers for their flaws: Callas' constricted pianissimi, Tebaldi adopting placement, Bruna Rasa's early caprino, etc.. They discuss their theory of technique, and if you read what they say at length, it makes a lot of sense. To say that they are mere whiners who are stuck in the past is a caricature of their real argument, at it's pretty ironic that the people criticizing them for their supposed fallacies are themselves committing such fallacies as: "they're not famous, so why believe them?"; "because they may not sing perfectly, their criticisms must be false" (do you accept that any criticism of, say, a world leader must be false because the person making it isn't morally perfect?); "they're anonymous, and therefore untustworthy" (again, you don't know for sure who created the Pythagorean theorem, since it probably wasn't Pythagoras, so it's false, right?); and "they're cherry picking" (based on a sampling of one or a handful ov videos, despite their literally hundreds of videos with hundreds of examples, combined with detailed analysis).


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

wkasimer said:


> Talk about cherry-picking...here they've chosen four singers who are mostly hype (particularly Opolais) from the current scene. I don't think that anyone with competent ears and any knowledge of singing really considers any of these to be excellent, or even good singers. Angel Blue may develop into a real talent, but it's pretty early to tell, as she's only 35, and at the beginning of her international career.
> 
> And for comparison, rather than look at a single point in time, they choose singers covering an enormous time span. Melba debuted in 1888. Caballe, who was born two years after Melba died, debuted in 1956, gave her final Met performance in 1985, and was still singing as recently as 2007.
> 
> As I've written previously - I think that in many respects, and in certain segments of the repertoire, vocal standards have certainly declined, and I have no objection to making comparisons that illustrate this. But dishonest comparisons like the one above cast serious doubt upon the motives and qualifications of those who make them.


Well substitute whoever you think is the absolute best today and see if the conclusions are any different?

Choosing a "single point of time" would itself be cherry-picking. You'd just say "well maybe that period was a fluke". I can't prove, for instance, that there were more great nights in some single seasons, say 1955/1956, than since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But I have a hunch 

I'd suggest that reporting a tradition which as you pointed out was alive and kicking from Melba to Caballe was useful context.

Say you choose the best recent Aidas you might have
Netrebko
Radvanovsky
Monastyrska
Pirozzi
Harteros
... Perhaps it is fairer to compare similarly representative groups for any of the other single decades of recordings. 1910s, 1920s, 1930s etc.

Would any be inferior to what we have today? The overview was damning but going decade by decade or season by season doesn't suddenly work in favour of today's group


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Would any be inferior to what we have today? The overview was damning but going decade by decade or season by season doesn't suddenly work in favour of today's group


If all you care about is Wagner, Verdi, and verismo, that's demonstrably true. But I care a lot more about the vocal works of Bach, Handel, Mozart, et al, and the Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, et al.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> I believe that you mean that he doesn't sing as loudly. Mattei also sings in tune, doesn't wobble, doesn't resort to bluster, and is able to sing in a wide range of repertoire and genres with intelliigence and style. Yeah, I'd probably prefer to hear Merrill or a young MacNeil in the Paliacci Prologo or as Rigoletto. I'd prefer Mattei in virtually everything else.
> 
> If the only things that matter to you are big, beefy, barely controlled voices singing Verdi and verismo, well, suit yourself.


gravitas is a lot more than these things. it's necessary, but it isn't sufficient.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

wkasimer said:


> If all you care about is Wagner, Verdi, and verismo, that's demonstrably true. But I care a lot more about the vocal works of Bach, Handel, Mozart, et al, and the Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, et al.


In that case you'll be happy...

Since my operatic tastes didn't die with Lois XVI it's a bit of a bummer.



> If all you care about is Wagner, Verdi, and verismo


Well I suppose I am a bit contrary in valuing these young radical upstarts like Beethoven, Cherubini, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Berlioz, Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> It might not be your interpretation of the "good old days", but it's all relative. I've come across some younger listeners who refuse to listen to anything in mono sound, or even early stereo, because it doesn't have the clarity of "good digital sound". You're the one making preposterous comments.


Sao what preposterous comments am I making pray? I haven't said anything like you're implying.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Conte said:


> Quite and sometimes it's quite clear that some people on this site don't read others posts.
> 
> N.


Exactly! :lol:................


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I must confess I'm amazed that people are actually defending these guys who make these videos anonymously without giving their names or any reference to their credentials. Sorry but this is not the way criticism should work. I just feel the whole series is flawed by a basic dishonesty.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I think the most basic point to make about this topic is that...just because someone is kind of a CUNextTuesday doesn't mean they don't have a point.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> The problem is they just deal in negatives. Why I have a feeling they are 'has beens' or 'never was' people who are just trying to get their voice heard having never made it themselves. I'd sooner they identified themselves as actual practitioners. Else they are pseuds in my book. Like certain of the the lecturers at teacher training college - claiming to tell everyone else how to teach yet not being able in the life of them to hold the attention of a class of students themselves.


You're hardly the one to complain about anyone "dealing in negatives." One of your favorite activities on this forum is to sneer at things other people respect and enjoy and tell us all what we should and shouldn't take "seriously."

Anyone can criticize aspects of the substance and presentation of the video at hand, but It seems pretty obvious that the main assignment for anyone wanting to advance an opinion about the accomplishments of singers of the past and present is to give us a reasonable number of examples of artists they consider representative of various time periods. The limitations of early recording technologies have to be taken into account, but if we're aware of that and careful in our choices we ought to be able to reach some conclusions. "This is Opera" tries to do this, and they have a great many videos featuring a great many singers, including, it seems to me (though I haven't seen all their videos to tally this up) a large percentage of the biggest operatic names from the past 120 years, enough to clear them of any charge of "cherry-picking."

The objection that we shouldn't listen to what the "This is Opera" people say because they haven't shown us their "credentials" is ridiculous. Would you be capable of judging their expertise if they trotted out a string of university degrees? If they claimed to be voice teachers? If they had written books on vocal pedagogy? Could you judge their competence based on those claims? Are you unaware that there are incompetents, cranks and frauds in every field? Are you expert enough to know who is an expert in what?

Whether or not we agree with everything they SAY, what "This is Opera" SHOWS us is the singing itself - a lot of it - and it's our privilege to judge it using our own ears. But this is obviously not good enough for you. You admit that you can't appreciate recordings from earlier eras and that your ears fail to convey to you the evidence of what made, for example, "golden age" baritones Giuseppe Kaschmann, Antonio Magini-Coletti, Giuseppe Pacini, Giuseppe Campanari, Mattia Battistini, Pasquale Amato, Mario Ancona, Giuseppe Bellantoni, Mario Sammarco, Titta Ruffo, Riccardo Stracciari, and Lawrence Tibbett extraordinary, every one of them possibly better than any baritone now alive. So it's legitimate for us to ask: what are YOUR qualifications for holding in contempt the statements of people who DO give evidence of understanding what they're hearing in the singing of such people as these? What do YOU know about the technique of singing? I've seen no evidence, ever, from anything that you've said, that you know anything about it at all.

Coming here merely to announce (repeatedly) your chronic skepticism about something you admit to having no substantial knowledge of seems pretty pointless, and the very essence of "dealing in negatives."


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## JoeSaunders (Jan 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The objection that we shouldn't listen to what the "This is Opera" people say because they haven't shown us their "credentials" is ridiculous. Would you be capable of judging their expertise if they trotted out a string of university degrees? If they claimed to be voice teachers? If they had written books on vocal pedagogy? Could you judge their competence based on those claims? Are you unaware that there are incompetents, cranks and frauds in every field? Are you expert enough to know who is an expert in what?


I agree with much of what you've said in your post, but I think credentials definitely are relevant for the sorts of videos the channel makes. They frequently make technical claims about singing and technique to explain the differences observed in the clips they discuss. As someone who does not have much technical knowledge of my own, it's hard for me to discern whether their statements are correct. Whilst your right to say that quacks exists in all fields, it's nonetheless true that the fact of some purported expert being a vocal coach should _raise our credence _in the claims they make. We'll not get to 100% reliability, but knowing that these people have some track record in the field is definitely relevant. Even better if they have pupils who follow their advice and can demonstrate the value of their claims. Furthermore, anonymity, in this context, means we can't figure out if the reverse is true, i.e. that they're _not _noted quacks who've destroyed singing students' careers with shoddy advice.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JoeSaunders said:


> I agree with much of what you've said in your post, but I think credentials definitely are relevant for the sorts of videos the channel makes. They frequently make technical claims about singing and technique to explain the differences observed in the clips they discuss. As someone who does not have much technical knowledge of my own, it's hard for me to discern whether their statements are correct. Whilst your right to say that quacks exists in all fields, it's nonetheless true that the fact of some purported expert being a vocal coach should _raise our credence _in the claims they make. We'll not get to 100% reliability, but knowing that these people have some track record in the field is definitely relevant. Even better if they have pupils who follow their advice and can demonstrate the value of their claims. Furthermore, anonymity, in this context, means we can't figure out if the reverse is true, i.e. that they're _not _noted quacks who've destroyed singing students' careers with shoddy advice.


I agree that it's always nice, and often useful, to know something about the backgrounds and experience of people who offer opinions, but in a field as rife with controversy and incompetence as vocal pedagogy statements of credentials rarely tell us much. Any number of famous singers have stories to tell about this or that reputable vocal instructor who started them off on the wrong track and gave them destructive advice which they had to overcome, either by following their own instincts or by finding a better teacher. This very video shows a person whose credentials we might assume to be impeccable giving a singer some pretty ill-founded advice.

I think it's safe to assume that the "This is Opera" people are not vocal teachers or coaches of long experience and dazzling reputations; if they were, they would undoubtedly tell us as much. But they do illustrate everything they say with copious examples of singing - good, bad, and average. Ultimately we have to decide for ourselves whether their assertions make sense, and there simply isn't any way of doing that except to listen long and hard to singers of every type and era, and perhaps do a little independent research by reading and talking with singers themselves.

No one has to take these videos as gospel, and if people want to make videos expressing alternative views they're free to do so.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

*'The objection that we shouldn't listen to what the "This is Opera" people say because they haven't shown us their "credentials" is ridiculous.'*

Of course we should see people's credentials if they are claiming some expertise in a field. If I go to the doctor I want to make sure he is qualified. If I go on board an airliner I want to know the pilot is qualified. When I practiced as a teacher I had to be qualified and show my credentials. Same in the other professions I practiced. Of course there are cranks in every field and these folks may be some of them, which is why there is an alarming lack of credentials. Why I would sooner listen to what Pappano says about things than these guys as he has some credentials as director of a major opera house to show for it. If these guys are acting in good faith what are they afraid of? If these guys are professing to be 'experts' then show us their credentials and prove it. Else who is to say they are not charlatans?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Of course we should see people's credentials if they are claiming some expertise in a field. *If I go to the doctor I want to make sure he is qualified. If I go on board an airliner I want to know the pilot is qualified. *When I practiced as a teacher I had to be qualified and show my credentials. Same in the other professions I practiced. Of course there are cranks in every field and these folks may be some of them, which is why there is an alarming lack of credentials. If they are acting in good faith what are they afraid of? If these guys are professing to be 'experts' then show its their credentials.


The "This is Opera" folks aren't flying you to Japan or performing brain surgery on you, for Chrissakes! They're showing you singers and explaining some of the technical reasons why those singers sound the way they do. If you don't want to listen, think about what you hear, and form any basis for judging the substance of what's being offered, why rattle on endlessly about how much you disapprove? What a ****ing waste of everyone's time.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

One point I'd make is that, having seen other videos with Pappano, not least his Classical Voices - four programmes given over to soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone and bass - he understands singing and great singers very well. I felt that in the excerpt we were shown, he was working with what he had. In other words, having noticed that the singer didn't have a powerful lower voice, he suggests another way she might portray the scene. He is a conductor, but he is not a voice teacher and rather than get the singer to force her voice, he suggests a possible alternative.

I didn't get the same feeling from Yannick Nézet-Séguin. What he was saying about _Come scogio_ seemed like a load of twaddle to me.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

The argument that TIO haven't given us any of their credentials is another example of how the people criticizing them so virulently haven't taken the time to actually study what they say. They are extremely up front about who they are: they are singers and voice students of a man named Jeremy Silver, who was a student of Thomas Lo Monaco, whose most famous student was Jerry Hadley. Silver and Hadley apparently knew each other. The TIO content creators are therefore are not voice teachers, but they are learning how to sing according to Mr. Silver's methods adopted from Lo Monaco. Only their specific identities are withheld. If you want to see how Silver's students sound, he has a YouTube page. SilverSingingMethod, where he posts before/after clips of his students. Particularly impressive is his student Bror Magnus Todenes, who was taught to lighten his voice before coming to Silver:





Second, the notion that someone's credentials are related to the truth of their argument is false. Having a math PhD doesn't make your answer to a problem correct, the math does. A fourth grader who remembers to carry over is right and the PhD who forgets is wrong, full stop. One should judge what TIO says on the merits: does it make sense? Is it fair? etc. not on _who_ is saying it. That is irrelevant.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> One point I'd make is that, having seen other videos with Pappano, not least his Classical Voices - four programmes given over to soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone and bass - he understands singing and great singers very well. I felt that in the excerpt we were shown, he was working with what he had. In other words, having noticed that the singer didn't have a powerful lower voice, he suggests another way she might portray the scene. He is a conductor, but he is not a voice teacher and rather than get the singer to force her voice, he suggests a possible alternative.


Indeed. I think their point with that example was that this kind of advice on a regular basis will keep singers' lower registers weak. In addition, they think, and I agree, that teh trend towards making things small and saying that it's increasing subtlety simply sucks the drama out of opera live in the theater.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^Thanks for the info about "This is Opera"'s credentials. It should allow a certain someone to sleep better.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Indeed. I think their point with that example was that this kind of advice on a regular basis will keep singers' lower registers weak. In addition, they think, and I agree, that teh trend towards making things small and saying that it's increasing subtlety simply sucks the drama out of opera live in the theater.


True, but it is not the job of the conductor to teach technique. If the singer they are working with doesn't have the necessary technique to carry out their wishes they have two options. a) Sack him/her and find someone who has or b) find a way round the problem. My father was a conductor, albeit of amateur operatic societies and he frequently had to work with singers with technical failings. He considered it his job to make them sound as good as he could which sometimes involved making compromises.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> True, but it is not the job of the conductor to teach technique. If the singer they are working with doesn't have the necessary technique to carry out their wishes they have two options. a) Sack him/her and find someone who has or b) find a way round the problem. My father was a conductor, albeit of amateur operatic societies and he frequently had to work with singers with technical failings. He considered it his job to make them sound as good as he could which sometimes involved making compromises.


This is true - by the time the conductor is involved we are talking the last stages of rehearsal and by then it's too late.

What should have kicked in much (much!) earlier are-

The singer's awareness of their own voice.
Whoever they are working with privately including their teacher(s) who provide advice and instruction.
Whoever is casting the performance.
The repetiteurs and vocal coaches rehearsing the performance.
...ages before it gets to the conductor and actual performance.

Which does feed back into the question - are conductors the right people to host vocal masterclasses?


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

vivalagentenuova said:


> The argument that TIO haven't given us any of their credentials is another example of how the people criticizing them so virulently haven't taken the time to actually study what they say. They are extremely up front about who they are: they are singers and voice students of a man named Jeremy Silver, who was a student of Thomas Lo Monaco, whose most famous student was Jerry Hadley. Silver and Hadley apparently knew each other. The TIO content creators are therefore are not voice teachers, but they are learning how to sing according to Mr. Silver's methods adopted from Lo Monaco. Only their specific identities are withheld. If you want to see how Silver's students sound, he has a YouTube page. SilverSingingMethod, where he posts before/after clips of his students. Particularly impressive is his student Bror Magnus Todenes, who was taught to lighten his voice before coming to Silver:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Lovely performance - thanks for sharing!


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Second, the notion that someone's credentials are related to the truth of their argument is false. Having a math PhD doesn't make your answer to a problem correct, the math does. A fourth grader who remembers to carry over is right and the PhD who forgets is wrong, full stop. One should judge what TIO says on the merits: does it make sense? Is it fair? etc. not on _who_ is saying it. That is irrelevant.


This is exactly right. What I've found over the years, though, is that people who feel the need to invoke their "credentials" usually have weak arguments. People who are *real* experts feel no need to do so, because their arguments are sufficient by themselves, and they are able to express them convincingly.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> *The argument that TIO haven't given us any of their credentials is another example of how the people criticizing them so virulently haven't taken the time to actually study what they say. *They are extremely up front about who they are: they are singers and voice students of a man named Jeremy Silver, who was a student of Thomas Lo Monaco, whose most famous student was Jerry Hadley. Silver and Hadley apparently knew each other. The TIO content creators are therefore are not voice teachers, but they are learning how to sing according to Mr. Silver's methods adopted from Lo Monaco. Only their specific identities are withheld. If you want to see how Silver's students sound, he has a YouTube page. SilverSingingMethod, where he posts before/after clips of his students. Particularly impressive is his student Bror Magnus Todenes, who was taught to lighten his voice before coming to Silver:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry I don't dig this argument. So if a guy is pontificating about physics it's OK for people who know little or nothing about the subject just to believe him? But if they know the guy is at least qualified in the subject we can assume he at least knows what he is talking about. My wife taught music for many years and had music diplomas from two leading London music schools which affirmed her qualifications and expertise. How many students do you think she would have had if she was not qualified? I find the only people who poo poo qualifications are those who haven't got them themselves. Of course, academic qualifications aren't the only ones. Experience in the field concerned is sometimes an even better qualification. So these guys in TIO are 'not voice teachers, but they are learning how to sing'. Well pity they don't wait till they've leant and got international careers themselves before they start criticising those who do! I don't want to know from a theoretician - I want to know from someone who can do it. Pappano is actually the head of an opera house - are these guys hiding behind the cloak of anonymity? Sorry I've known too many students who know everything and know nothing. Pathetic!
As to your second point, having a PhD does guarantee someone is right but it does give you an idea they might know what they are talking about. Which is more thanking a student of a student might do.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> This is exactly right. What I've found over the years, though, is that people who feel the need to invoke their "credentials" usually have weak arguments. People who are *real* experts feel no need to do so, because their arguments are sufficient by themselves, and they are able to express them convincingly.


Over the years I have found that the people who poo poo qualifications tend to be those who haven't got them. Of course, as I have said, qualifications are not only academic. There is the qualification of practical experience too. I don't think some of our great opera stars were gifted with as great brain-gear as they were voices! But they had experience a-plenty. But my objection to the guys in the video is that they seem to have neither. When someone sets the self up as an 'expert' I want to know on what grounds they make that claim. Seems quite reasonable to me. I apply it across the board in life.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Sorry I don't dig this argument. So if a guy is pontificating about physics it's OK for people who know little or nothing about the subject just to believe him?


It's arrogant of you to assume anything about what anyone here knows about a subject, or what they should or should not "just believe." It's unlikely that anyone here "just believes" anything.



> I find the only people who poo poo qualifications are those who haven't got them themselves.


I find that the only people obsessed with "qualifications" are those who haven't the knowledge, the independence of mind, or the concern to evaluate information on their own.



> Of course, academic qualifications aren't the only ones.


Academic qualifications are practically meaningless in the field of vocal pedagogy. They don't prove that anyone is qualified to do anything.



> Experience in the field concerned is sometimes an even better qualification. So these guys in TIO are 'not voice teachers, but they are learning how to sing'.


You don't know the extent of their experience as singers or of their knowledge of singing, and you wouldn't know it regardless of their "credentials." Like the rest of us, you have to use your judgment in evaluating their statements. If you aren't interested in acquiring the knowledge that would enable you to do this, you have no basis for criticizing them or for talking about this matter at all. Your obsessive attempts here to mock and discredit these people with no knowledge to back you up are disgraceful.



> Well pity they don't wait till they've learnt and got international careers themselves before they start criticising those who do!


Pity you haven't studied singing before you start criticizing those who have.



> I don't want to know from a theoretician - I want to know from someone who can do it.


You don't want to KNOW at all. You want to be spoon fed pre-digested, "certified" information on a subject about which you are deeply uninformed and which you have no intention of exploring in depth.

By the way, they "do it." They sing, and they work with a teacher who taught one of the distinguished tenors of our time.



> Pappano is actually the head of an opera house - are these guys hiding behind the cloak of anonymity?


A nasty accusation hiding behind the cloak of a question is still a nasty accusation.



> Sorry I've known too many students who know everything and know nothing. Pathetic!


You haven't shown us that YOU know anything, have you? When I know nothing about a subject, I say nothing about it, and I don't insult those who've given it more thought than I have. I simply listen respectfully and use my judgment as to whether they have anything to offer me.

Is it too much to ask you to show a similar humility here and quit making pronouncements on others' qualifications to speak and our qualifications to judge what they say?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It's arrogant of you to assume anything about what anyone here knows about a subject, or what they should or should not "just believe." It's unlikely that anyone here "just believes" anything.
> 
> I find that the only people obsessed with "qualifications" are those who haven't the knowledge, the independence of mind, or the concern to evaluate information on their own.
> 
> ...


Thank you. You've saved me a lot of bother.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Believe it or not, I think This is Opera is pretty balanced in their judgment. You can tell that Ponselle, Tebaldi, Milanov, Callas are among their favorites and frequently chosen as examples of good singing, but in certain videos they did point out their flaws (Ponselle/Milanov/Tebaldi sound more constricted in their later years, Callas with squeezed pianissimo and nasality during her vocal crisis).

Also, one important thing to keep in mind is that their main concern so far has been the methods to produce the correct *sounds*, not much about interpretation or style. For example, Milanov may not be an exciting singer for everyone, but none can't deny that she has gorgeous pianissimo and strong chest voice. In this aspect, I think they know what they are doing well and I mostly agree with them.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Thank you. You've saved me a lot of bother.


Interesting so when you visit a doctor you don't bother to check their qualifications? When you send your child to a teacher you don't check their qualifications because, as Wooduck says, such a thing is arrogance on your part? Really? I thought that was just common sense. Why do people bang on as if I only meant academic qualifications? I have made it quite clear that academics are not the only qualification. Why the defensiveness? If I wanted to send my child to a vocal coach I would want to make sure they were properly qualified. I have not studied singing so that is the very reason I want to make sure that anyone who advises me on singing his properly qualified. If that person tried to tell me it didn't matter I'd laugh in his face. Of course it matters - whether the qualifications are academic or whether they are experienced in actual singing. For goodness sake when I had my car into a mechanic for a service I want to know that that mechanic he's probably qualified . In any field where we entrust our children or ourselves we want to make sure people have the qualifications . I have known instances recently where music teachers have set up a claim to be A concert pianist and then they were found out to be a fraud so don't say it can't happen . To ask people for their qualifications in a field is not a nasty accusation. When I applied for a teaching job when the board asked for my qualifications I did not accuse them of a nasty accusation. It is quite a ridiculous thing to say. If somebody claims to be an expert it is not a nasty accusation to ask them for their qualifications in their field of expertise. I would've thought it was simple common sense . 
To be a vocal coach you actually probably need both training and practice in the field in that proper coaching needs to be taught as well as experienced as anyone involved in teaching will tell you. I'm not saying these guys are right or wrong but I am asking if they claim to be 'experts' what qualifies them as 'experts' in that they are qualified to criticise two of the world's most distinguished conductors. How are earth is that unreasonable?


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I can see both sides on this. 

on one hand, it's important to have some verification of someone's competence before taking them at their word. a healthy skepticism of claims is usually a good thing, as is the skepticism over the anonymity of the people who post on that channel


on the other
1) as Woodduck pointed out, degrees in vocal pedagogy mean very little. there's a huge discrepancy in just how much a degree correlates with real competence. vocal pedagogy is on the lower end of that spectrum as it often contradicts the teachings of voice instructors turning out the best singers, be they past or present
2) "This is Opera" is actually a collection of students who study under someone named Jeremy Silver, and they have posted before/after clips which, imo, showed considerable improvement. proof of results is a form of credentials
3) just because they doesn't have official credentials doesn't mean that they don't source information from those with greater technical authority. for example, they cite many passages from renowned vocal pedagogues and teachers
4) the hundreds upon hundreds of vocal comparisons they give speak for themselves.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Interesting so when you visit a doctor you don't bother to check their qualifications? When you send your child to a teacher you don't check their qualifications because, as Wooduck says, such a thing is arrogance on your part? Really? I thought that was just common sense. Why do people bang on as if I only meant academic qualifications? I have made it quite clear that academics are not the only qualification. Why the defensiveness? If I wanted to send my child to a vocal coach I would want to make sure they were properly qualified. I have not studied singing so that is the very reason I want to make sure that anyone who advises me on singing his properly qualified. If that person tried to tell me it didn't matter I'd laugh in his face. Of course it matters - whether the qualifications are academic or whether they are experienced in actual singing. For goodness sake when I had my car into a mechanic for a service I want to know that that mechanic he's probably qualified . In any field where we entrust our children or ourselves we want to make sure people have the qualifications . I have known instances recently where music teachers have set up a claim to be A concert pianist and then they were found out to be a fraud so don't say it can't happen . To ask people for their qualifications in a field is not a nasty accusation. When I applied for a teaching job when the board asked for my qualifications I did not accuse them of a nasty accusation. It is quite a ridiculous thing to say. If somebody claims to be an expert it is not a nasty accusation to ask them for their qualifications in their field of expertise. I would've thought it was simple common sense .
> To be a vocal coach you actually probably need both training and practice in the field in that proper coaching needs to be taught as well as experienced as anyone involved in teaching will tell you. I'm not saying these guys are right or wrong but I am asking if they claim to be 'experts' what qualifies them as 'experts' in that they are qualified to criticise two of the world's most distinguished conductors. How are earth is that unreasonable?


Sorry, but I'm really getting very bored with all this burbage now. Wasted, I'm afraid.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Sorry, but I'm really getting very bored with all this burbage now. Wasted, I'm afraid.


Me too. I find it beyond belief that people object to someone asking if and how people are qualified when they claim to be an expert in a field.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Interesting so when you visit a doctor you don't bother to check their qualifications? When you send your child to a teacher you don't check their qualifications because, as Wooduck says, such a thing is arrogance on your part? Really? I thought that was just common sense. Why do people bang on as if I only meant academic qualifications? I have made it quite clear that academics are not the only qualification. Why the defensiveness? If I wanted to send my child to a vocal coach I would want to make sure they were properly qualified. I have not studied singing so that is the very reason I want to make sure that anyone who advises me on singing his properly qualified. If that person tried to tell me it didn't matter I'd laugh in his face. Of course it matters - whether the qualifications are academic or whether they are experienced in actual singing. For goodness sake when I had my car into a mechanic for a service I want to know that that mechanic he's probably qualified . In any field where we entrust our children or ourselves we want to make sure people have the qualifications . I have known instances recently where music teachers have set up a claim to be A concert pianist and then they were found out to be a fraud so don't say it can't happen . To ask people for their qualifications in a field is not a nasty accusation. When I applied for a teaching job when the board asked for my qualifications I did not accuse them of a nasty accusation. It is quite a ridiculous thing to say. If somebody claims to be an expert it is not a nasty accusation to ask them for their qualifications in their field of expertise. I would've thought it was simple common sense .
> To be a vocal coach you actually probably need both training and practice in the field in that proper coaching needs to be taught as well as experienced as anyone involved in teaching will tell you. I'm not saying these guys are right or wrong but I am asking if they claim to be 'experts' what qualifies them as 'experts' in that they are qualified to criticise two of the world's most distinguished conductors. How are earth is that unreasonable?


Am I missing something? What actual 'service' do you think they are providing?

They just post videos on YouTube...

Do they give classes, train students, charge fees, link to stores or sell bespoke products? Doesn't look like it.

Do their videos constitute a recognisable curriculum, accredited anywhere? Doesn't look like it.

As you've noticed they happen to be ANONYMOUS.

What promises do you think are they making? What guarantees are they making with their glib videos?

Think about it - the most any viewer can ever do with this information is try it out with the help of their vocal coach. It'll either work or they'll go hoarse and try something else... and what liability can there possibly be?

"What professional advice did you receive?"
"Well, an anonymous person? group? I'm not sure, said it would be a good idea in their YouTube video which also compared a soprano to a cow mooing and a foghorn..."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Am I missing something? What actual 'service' do you think they are providing?
> 
> They just post videos on YouTube...
> 
> ...


I don't think they're making any promises or making any guarantees. It's just that some people here seem to be taking them seriously in their criticism of singers and conductors - so I think it's quite reasonable to ask, as they set themselves up as 'experts' what qualifications they have as experts. The only question I'm asking is what qualifies them to criticise to top conductors who are employed it to the major opera houses in the world? Is that an unreasonable question to ask of an expert?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Me too. I find it beyond belief that people object to someone asking if and how people are qualified when they claim to be an expert in a field.


"Qualified" and "expert" are two very different things.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> I don't think they're making any promises or making any guarantees. It's just that some people here seem to be taking them seriously in their criticism of singers and conductors - so I think it's quite reasonable to ask, as they set themselves up as 'experts' what qualifications they have as experts. The only question I'm asking is what qualifies them to criticise to top conductors who are employed it to the major opera houses in the world? Is that an unreasonable question to ask of an expert?


Yes, I think it actually is unreasonable in that formulation. Let me explain,

*Question: "what qualifies them to criticise to top conductors who are employed it to the major opera houses in the world?"*

Firstly, calling them "top conductors" / "major opera houses" is intimidating but tells us their reputation only. This only _presumes_ but does not _guarantee_ excellence. Everyone can have an off night/ make a mistake.

Secondly, by invoking these titles it might infer the only people in a position to criticise are the _other_ half dozen "top conductors"/music directors of the "major opera houses". I don't subscribe to this at all.

A lot of people, professional and amateur, are expert, extremely knowledgeable and are in a position to criticise. Remember, some experts have spent their lives studying what is just a part of Pappano etc's repertoire.

Thirdly, I don't actually think that his being a "top conductor" etc is necessarily even relevant and what is up for debate. They question what Pappano et al. know about being _vocal coaches_. It isn't their main job as a conductor and I personally wouldn't expect them to know it all - they need to delegate.

Would you be surprised if the vocal coaches/repetiteurs in the opera house know a lot more than both the famous conductors or the This is Opera! crowd about vocal technique? I wouldn't - it's 100% of their job day-in-day-out.

Finally, Pappano etc are not singers themselves. You've talked about _theory_ - he has, I believe, never sung so much as an aria on stage. So if any of the This is Opera! crowd have then _they_ suddenly have more credibility.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Interesting so when you visit a doctor you don't bother to check their qualifications?


No, I trust in the systems we have in place when I go to my local surgery and it would be rude to doubt that the doctors have somehow infiltrated the place without the necessary qualifications. I follow their advice and see if it works. Whilst all the doctors at my surgery are qualified, I've had varying advice over the years, but the proof is in the pudding.

On a cloudless, summer day if someone points up and says, "Look, the sky is blue." Do you reply, "how can I be sure? Do you have a degree in meteorology?"

Of course you want somebody who has the right qualifications in certain situations (doctors, lawyers, accountants amongst others), however in some cases you only have to look and see for yourself. TIO's claims can be checked by listening to their videos and other recordings of singers and reflecting on how well their views match what you hear.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> *I find it beyond belief that people object to someone asking* if and how people are qualified when they claim to be an expert in a field.


If all you were doing were ASKING what credentials "This Is Opera" have, no one would object. You would find that the answer is available and that it's been given above, and you would then decide for yourself what to think (a privilege no one would deny you), would respect the decision of others to do the same, and would stop this onslaught of insult toward TIO and abuse of everyone's patience.

NO ONE CARES whether you, DavidA, wish to respect TIO's ideas on opera or their right to offer them to the public. We MIGHT care, if you had any alternative ideas of your own to share, but clearly you don't. You just want to sniff and sneer, look down on people whose resumes don't meet your exalted standards, and prove how much smarter you are than all of us gullible fools who are willing to consider seriously the concepts presented in these videos. It's hard not to conclude from your repetitive ranting that all you really want here is attention and vindication: you want to make a noise and be recognized for your superior wisdom, despite not being able or willing to make ONE SINGLE GENUINE CONTRIBUTION on the subject of singing or vocal pedagogy. And since you have nothing positive to contribute, you pose as an iconoclast, a naysayer, a self-righteous voice of "common sense" preaching to the ignorant masses.

We love opera here, David. We love singing. We love trying to understand these things better, and so we take TIO, and anyone who is making a sincere effort to add to our knowledge and understanding, seriously. Taking things seriously doesn't mean accepting everything we're told without question. We question all the time. We disagree among ourselves. We don't automatically accept anyone's views. But neither do we accuse each other of NOT BEING QUALIFIED TO OFFER ANY VIEWS. The people who are This Is Opera are quite possibly as qualified to talk about singing as any of us here, and we should accord their views the same respect and serious consideration we accord each other's. To tell another person that we don't respect what they say - regardless of its merits or our unwillingness even to listen - because they haven't presented the proper "credentials," is both offensive and foolish. Isn't it better to listen respectfully, open to the possibility that we might learn something?

Do you want to learn something - or just kvetch?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

howlingfantods said:


> I think you misapprehend the point of "Come Scoglio". The libretto speaks of faithfulness and unmovability of a rock, but the music paints a very different, more accurate picture--leaps and runs up and down the range, as little stability as there is faithfulness in the true heart of Fiordiligi, who of course comically promptly tries to run off with her Albanian suitor immediately after this aria. It's actually thematically much more accurate to have a weaker and more irresolute sounding Schwarzkopf or Della Casa with a lighter voice than a stentorian battleaxe.


I actually think you're misapprehending the point. I do think Mozart is ironizing the aria, not because of the "leaps and runs down the range," but because she's singing in the style of opera seria in a work we know to be opera buffa. That is, she views herself as steadfast and resolute as the gods and heroes typically presented in the former genre, while we know she's as foolish and (self)-deluded as the humans typically presented in the latter.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Conte said:


> No, I trust in the systems we have in place when I go to my local surgery and it would be rude to doubt that the doctors have somehow infiltrated the place without the necessary qualifications. I follow their advice and see if it works. Whilst all the doctors at my surgery are qualified, I've had varying advice over the years, but the proof is in the pudding.
> 
> On a cloudless, summer day if someone points up and says, "Look, the sky is blue." Do you reply, "how can I be sure? Do you have a degree in meteorology?"
> 
> ...


of course we know that when we tend a doctor's surgery someone else has checked the qualifications. But when you take your kid to a music teacher, don't you think it's not reasonable to ask for qualifications. I remember enquiring when my kids were young about some music lessons for them and found the guy had hardly any qualifications at all. I do feel music coaching is requires more expertise than asking someone the weather. 
I might be somewhat cynical but there are so many so-called 'experts' holding forth on the internet that when I see someone - whether music, science, history, etc - holding forth, I want to check out who he is and how he is qualified to say what he is saying. When someone posts anonymously it raises my suspicions especially when they are claiming some expertise. But I see some of you happen to be more trusting than me, however. Good luck to you!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Yes, I think it actually is unreasonable in that formulation. Let me explain,
> 
> *Question: "what qualifies them to criticise to top conductors who are employed it to the major opera houses in the world?"*
> 
> ...


First they ARE top conductors whether you find that intimidating or not. Surely that tells of a certain expertise. That doesn't mean they are beyond criticism but it does mean the people who criticise had better know what they are talking about. The simple question I am asking is just what qualifies the This is Opera crowd to criticise both the leading conductors and singers of today? Have they made it? Have they sung on stage? Conducted major operas? Had major careers? Are the This Is Opera crowd vocal coaches and repetiteurs in major opera houses? Surely if I were to criticise a leading scientist's theory people would ask me what gave me the right to do so. That's all I'm asking. Yet when I ask it everyone gets defensive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> The simple question I am asking is just what qualifies the This is Opera crowd to criticise both the leading conductors and singers of today?


OK, smarty. What qualifies YOU to criticize ANYTHING AT ALL on this music forum? You spend a good bit of time here criticizing things, including other members. Can anyone certify that what you have to say is worthwhile?

The TIO people are, at a minimum, singers and students of singing, devoted to opera, who are familiar with the great singers of past and present and able to talk the language of singing and illustrate what they're talking about. That is much more than most people can do. But tell us now: what are YOUR musical achievements? Why should anyone listen to anything YOU have to say about music? Why are you on this forum, day after day, talking, talking, talking? Can you tell us why your opinions should carry any weight with anyone? And while we're asking: what are your qualifications in ANY area of life? How can we trust that anything you have to say about ANYTHING is worth considering?

Before demanding that TIO prove their value to you, how about proving your value to us?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I make no bones about my own expertise or lack of it which is why am asking about these guys. I am a musical layman (who can play the piano and read music btw) even though I’m qualified up to Masters level in other subjects. My work has taken me all over the world which has given me the privilege to hear music of many different cultures . Music is my hobby, although I have lectured on aspects of the history of music and I have produced and stage lit operetta (but never sung on the grounds that would be bad for ticket sales!) and other musical events. 
But I have wide experience of listening to music and commonsense tells me that we ought to be suspicious of people who anonymously criticise major conductors and singers and ask just what qualifies them have to do so. I have never heard of any of these guys . And they appear anonymously. So that would seem to be a fair question. Who am I supposed to believe? Pappano or them?
I am on this forum for the same reason as you are presumably because I enjoy talking about music.I enjoy sharing ideas with others who love and learning from them and discussing differences of opinion. That is what this is all about isn't it? 
Why are you on this forum? Why should your opinions carry more weight than anybody else’s? What are your qualifications in any area of life? You asked me so I ask you. 
As you have asked me, can I bounce the question back to you? Can I ask you, Wooduck, what are your musical qualifications? What gives you the right to hold forth on TC the way you do? You have asked me and I have answered honestly. Now please give me your musical (and other) qualifications.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> First they ARE top conductors whether you find that intimidating or not. Surely that tells of a certain expertise. That doesn't mean they are beyond criticism but it does mean the people who criticise had better know what they are talking about. The simple question I am asking is just what qualifies the This is Opera crowd to criticise both the leading conductors and singers of today? Have they made it? Have they sung on stage? Conducted major operas? Had major careers? Are the This Is Opera crowd vocal coaches and repetiteurs in major opera houses? Surely if I were to criticise a leading scientist's theory people would ask me what gave me the right to do so. That's all I'm asking. Yet when I ask it everyone gets defensive.


Because it has never just been about THEM.

If they only said "We think XYZ..." NOBODY would listen to them.

So they cite over a DOZEN recordings of the best singers in the last century to promote their hypothesis and prove it isn't just their wild idea. These examples are contrasted with what Pappano said in the video.

It's just that you don't believe the dozen who they CITE either.

Given you don't believe the examples, the authors credentials are purely academic:

If a GERBIL provided the same examples or 
If CALLAS emailed the video herself from heaven

It doesn't matter, the examples are either good and persuasive to you or they're not.

I hope that you're not suggesting that if the author had certain credentials that you'd suddenly 'believe' the historical recordings you've been so keen to dismiss as unreliable?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Because it has never just been about THEM.
> 
> If they only said "We think XYZ..." NOBODY would listen to them.
> 
> ...


Sorry but I do not listen to gerbils.Never have and never will as I cannot speak gerbil. Nor have I recently had the privilege of receiving any communication from the late Mm Callas. 
I believe the authors credentials are not purely academic as I am not gullible enough just to accept someone on face value. If someone comes on the internet postulating science or history or archeology I want to know who he is and how he is qualified to say what he says. How is that unreasonable? Why when these people present themselves (or are presented) as 'experts'? I want to know what qualifies them as 'experts'. I am just asking a simple question yet all I get is a mass of vituperative comments from certain people. 
I haven't anywhere said historical recordings are unreliable - I wish you would read what I said. I said that often they are so poorly recorded that it is very difficult to tell just how good the singers actually are. There is a difference in language. Please stop misquoting.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> of course we know that when we tend a doctor's surgery someone else has checked the qualifications.


All one needs to practice medicine is an MD degree, preferably with completion of an accredited residency, with or without board certification. And as someone in the medical profession, I can tell you that those are not very high bars. I have known superb doctors with those qualifications. And I have known pretty dreadful ones with the same qualifications, some of whom have graduated from very prestigious programs. When I choose a doctor, particularly a surgeon, I assume those minimal qualifications, and all I really care about is their experience - because experience is what breeds expertise and excellence.



> But when you take your kid to a music teacher, don't you think it's not reasonable to ask for qualifications.


When I chose a piano teacher for my children, I didn't ask about his "qualifications". Actually, all I knew about him was that he was Russian, so I assumed that he'd studied there. I still don't know anything about his "qualifications". Instead, I listened to him play (he was the rehearsal pianist for a local ballet company) and more important, I attended a recital of his students, so I could see for myself what they played, how they played it, what aspects of playing and performance he emphasized, and whether the kids seemed to enjoy what they were doing. He turned out to be the right teacher for my kids (and for my wife, who also studied with him). I know other kids who have been less fortunate in their choices of teachers, some of whom bear pretty impressive "credentials".



> I remember enquiring when my kids were young about some music lessons for them and found the guy had hardly any qualifications at all.


But could he teach effectively?



> I do feel music coaching is requires more expertise than asking someone the weather.


To repeat - expertise comes from experience, not "qualifications".



> I might be somewhat cynical but there are so many so-called 'experts' holding forth on the internet that when I see someone - whether music, science, history, etc - holding forth, I want to check out who he is and how he is qualified to say what he is saying.


There are plenty of people with impressive credentials who spout crap.



> When someone posts anonymously it raises my suspicions especially when they are claiming some expertise.


When someone invokes credentials to support a weak argument, I begin to suspect that they're full of ****, and so is their argument.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> All one needs to practice medicine is an MD degree, preferably with completion of an accredited residency, with or without board certification. And as someone in the medical profession, I can tell you that those are not very high bars. I have known superb doctors with those qualifications. And I have known pretty dreadful ones with the same qualifications, some of whom have graduated from very prestigious programs. When I choose a doctor, particularly a surgeon, I assume those minimal qualifications, and all I really care about is their experience - because experience is what breeds expertise and excellence.
> 
> When I chose a piano teacher for my children, I didn't ask about his "qualifications". Actually, all I knew about him was that he was Russian, so I assumed that he'd studied there. I still don't know anything about his "qualifications". Instead, I listened to him play (he was the rehearsal pianist for a local ballet company) and more important, I attended a recital of his students, so I could see for myself what they played, how they played it, what aspects of playing and performance he emphasized, and whether the kids seemed to enjoy what they were doing. He turned out to be the right teacher for my kids (and for my wife, who also studied with him). I know other kids who have been less fortunate in their choices of teachers, some of whom bear pretty impressive "credentials".
> 
> ...


Actually when someone is suspicious of credentials I suspect they themselves have a weak argument and I suspect they might just be full of what you say! I don't know about the guy I mentioned because I never followed it up as I do not believe that someone with only grade 3 piano has advanced themselves enough to teach my kids. Indeed I know plenty of people with impressive credentials who spout crap and plenty more without them who spout even more crap! :lol: 
Formal qualifications are just the beginning and, as I have said, they don't just lie in pieces of paper. I'm glad you had the confidence in your teacher for your children but let me point out you did check the credentials in his playing, experience and students. Great! That is more impressive than pieces of paper. They are just the beginning but they do give an indication of a certain expertise. My wife had similar experiences as a teacher with many satisfied students. 
I personally had the unfortunate experience in my youth of going to study under a woman who was a brilliant pianist but who had as much idea of teaching kids as a sledge hammer. Thankfully my father (himself a pianist) saw my love of music would be ruined if he kept me under her tender care! So I do get your point about being less than fortunate in teachers with apparently 'impressive credentials'. Sometimes those who are the most brilliant in their own playing are not necessarily the best at teaching it! They are just not patient enough with kids who (like me) are not as gifted as they are.
I am 100% with you when you say expertise comes from experience which is why I questioned the experience of those on the video. What is their experience? Unfortunately some people have taken the question the wrong way and said I shouldn't even ask that question.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I make no bones about my own expertise or lack of it which is why am asking about these guys.


It doesn't matter what you claim about your "expertise or lack of it." It proves nothing about the value of anything you say or do. Your words and actions here have to be, and are, judged on their merits.



> I am a musical layman (who can play the piano and read music btw) even though I'm qualified up to Masters level in other subjects.


Nobody is "qualified" up to Masters or any other level. A degree is not a "qualification," it's merely a certification that some institution has given you a passing grade in a bunch of courses.



> My work has taken me all over the world which has given me the privilege to hear music of many different cultures . Music is my hobby, although I have lectured on aspects of the history of music and I have produced and stage lit operetta (but never sung on the grounds that would be bad for ticket sales!) and other musical events. But I have wide experience of listening to music...


None of this means that your opinions on music have any merit.



> ...and *commonsense tells me that we ought to be suspicious* of people who anonymously criticise major conductors and singers and ask just what qualifies them have to do so. I have never heard of any of these guys . And they appear anonymously. So that would seem to be a fair question. *Who am I supposed to believe?* Pappano or them?


"Common sense" generally affirms people's biases and predispositions. If common sense tells you to be suspicious, it's because you're suspicious. If it tells you to trust people or give them the benefit of the doubt, it's because you're trusting and benevolent. I'm generally neither suspicious nor trusting; common sense tells me to reserve judgment until I see what people say and do. I'm mildly interested in who publishes a web site or YouTube channel, but knowing that won't tell me what to think about the content. I find this to be simple common sense.

"Who am I supposed to believe" is the question at the heart of this, and it's your fundamental mistake. How about believing your own eyes and ears? Is that an option for you? Can you handle the responsibility? That's what anyone truly interested in any subject does, that's what intellectually responsible people do every day, and nobody, including TIO, is asking you to do anything else.



> I am on this forum for the same reason as you are presumably because I enjoy talking about music.


Don't make assumptions about why I'm on this forum.



> Why are you on this forum?


Why do you ask?



> Why should your opinions carry more weight than anybody else's?


They shouldn't. I don't need to pull rank, here or anywhere. My words have to earn respect on their own, and I respect others enough to assume they're capable of evaluating what I say.



> What are your qualifications in any area of life? You asked me so I ask you.


I asked you because you think it's critically important that people prove their "qualifications." What you require of others, you should provide yourself. Of course, I was joking. But humor seems not to be your forte. Maybe if told you I had a Doctorate in comedy you'd know that you're "supposed" to laugh?

TIO offers discussion, historical documentation, and abundant audible examples to make their points. If you can't evaluate what you see and hear, a list of "qualifications" will not teach you anything. You'll believe what you want to believe, regardless of the evidence, like all true believers - or skeptics - everywhere.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> It doesn't matter what you claim about your "expertise or lack of it." It proves nothing about the value of anything you say or do. Your words and actions here have to be, and are, judged on their merits.
> 
> Nobody is "qualified" up to Masters or any other level. A degree is not a "qualification," it's merely a certification that some institution has given you a passing grade in a bunch of courses.
> 
> ...


I gave you the courtesy of a straight answer to a straight question. You have confirmed my opinion by not giving me a straight answer to a straight question - only words. Thanks! I don't think any more discussion is necessary. 
Your assumption that: 'Nobody is "qualified" up to Masters or any other level. A degree is not a "qualification," it's merely a certification that some institution has given you a passing grade in a bunch of courses.' is frankly laughable and smacks of contempt for learning. A Masters degree means you have submitted your thesis to an external assessment by fellow academics. Why don't you do the same?
Just to add to everyone that I didn't view my Masters degree as a piece of paper but found doing it a real help in my own development in that it gave me some tools which have been very useful in my later career. Please don't think of it just as a qualification. I found it valuable training and would recommend it, although I realise that many of you will probably have gone beyond that stage to higher learning anyway!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I gave you the courtesy of a straight answer to a straight question. You have confirmed my opinion by not giving me a straight answer to a straight question - only words. Thanks! I don't think any more discussion is necessary.


Is that a promise?


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I think you have a lot more faith in our social and cultural institutions than I do, David. If the system is corrupt, an endorsement from the system is less than worthless. I think the operatic culture is corrupt, and hence for someone to rise to prominence inside it makes me suspicious of them, not trusting.

I would add as further backstory to TIO, that the technique of their teacher Jeremy Silver and his teacher Thomas Lo Monaco (and his brother, the excellent tenor Jermoe Lo Monaco), is a refinement of the reasearch of a man named Douglas Stanley, who had an M.S. and a Mus.D., and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Acoustical Association. Stanley wrote several books, and conducted reasearch on all aspects of singing and the voice. You can read his book here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031040572&view=1up&seq=7. Furthermore, Stanley heard all the great singers of the early decades live: Melba, Ponselle, Caruso, Destinn, etc.. He also heard the top singers of the Silver Age of the 1950s. He considered them far inferior. Does that satisfy your desire to know the provenance of their information? They have not concealed this, but practically shouted it from the rafters. They are extremely transparent about their "pedigree."

If you want more institutional confirmation, here's a Princeton study which is based on interviews with top opera critics, singers, conductors etc.. Surprisingly (or not), they almost unanimously feel that there has been a significant decline in the quality of Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini singing for the last several decades.

Again, howerver, the fact that Stanley had fellowships and degrees doesn't make what he said true. He made mistakes. Aristotle studied at the Academy with the highly prestigious Plato, and in addition to having qualifications, was in fact a genius. But he was just plain wrong about some things, and if someone with no degrees but the audacity to look claims he's wrong about the number of teeth women have, we don't ask what his tooth-counting qualifications are compared with the star pupil of the founder of the Academy, we look to see who's right! It's the same thing here.



> A degree is not a "qualification," it's merely a certification that some institution has given you a passing grade in a bunch of courses.' is frankly laughable and smacks of contempt for learning


It doesn't smack of contempt for learning, it smacks of contempt for the institutions. Not the same thing. If the institution is flawed, their approval means nothing. Having contempt for corrupt intellectual institutions isn't contempt for learning, defending corrupt institutions out of sheer deference to authority and in the face of empirical evidence and argument is contempt for learning. I think Pappano and Nezet Seguin hire bad singing, and say disprovable and ignorant things about singing based on evidence, thoughtful reflection, and consideration of a variety of sources and points of view. The fact that businesspeople in charge of culturally prestigious institutions hired them awes me not.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I think you have a lot more faith in our social and cultural institutions than I do, David. If the system is corrupt, an endorsement from the system is less than worthless. I think the operatic culture is corrupt, and hence for someone to rise to prominence inside it makes me suspicious of them, not trusting.
> 
> I would add as further backstory to TIO, that the technique of their teacher Jeremy Silver and his teacher Thomas Lo Monaco (and his brother, the excellent tenor Jermoe Lo Monaco), is a refinement of the reasearch of a man named Douglas Stanley, who had an M.S. and a Mus.D., and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Acoustical Association. Stanley wrote several books, and conducted reasearch on all aspects of singing and the voice. You can read his book here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031040572&view=1up&seq=7. Does that satisfy your desire to know the provenance of their information?
> 
> ...


So what evidence do you have that the institution I was talking about - ie the Masters degree process which provided me with valuable learning - was flawed? Please provide me with the evidence you are so keen on! I assume you are well acquainted with the academic process and can judge such things.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

You misread my comment. I made a conditional statement about a hypothetical institution, not a declarative statement, and it had nothing to do with your degree. The only institutions I specifically claimed are corrupt are opera houses and voice schools.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> You misread my comment. I made a conditional statement about a hypothetical institution, not a declarative statement, and it had nothing to do with your degree. The only institutions I specifically claimed are corrupt are opera houses and voice schools.


'Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.' 
(Lady Bracknell in 'Importance of Being Ernest' - Oscar Wilde)


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

DavidA said:


> 'Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.'
> (Lady Bracknell in 'Importance of Being Ernest' - Oscar Wilde)


I've forgotten, so remind me how many La Scala opening nights did Oscar Wilde sing in?

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

For those who are impressed by such things, much of what TIO demonstrate about vocal technique in their videos were in expressed in the writings of the great vocal pedagogue Cornelius Reid who studied at New York College of Music:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_L._Reid

N.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Conte said:


> For those who are impressed by such things, much of what TIO demonstrate about vocal technique in their videos were in expressed in the writings of the great vocal pedagogue Cornelius Reid who studied at New York College of Music:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_L._Reid
> 
> N.


But could he sing himself? I note 'he was forced to abandon a career in singing' so he became a pedagogue. I don't know how widely his methods are practiced. Did any of the great singers of the past use his pedagogy?


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> 'Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.'
> (Lady Bracknell in 'Importance of Being Ernest' - Oscar Wilde)


As an anarchist-socialist, Wilde had a few "disrespectful" things to say about society.

Also, you didn't respond to any of the substance of what I said.



> But could he sing himself? I note 'he was forced to abandon a career in singing' so he became a pedagogue. I don't know how widely his methods are practiced. Did any of the great singers of the past use his pedagogy?


Can Yanis Nezet Seguin sing? Can Antonio Pappano? What are your credentials to question such a highly respected pedagogue? Surely the fact that he reached the status of being an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University means he knows what he's talking about. Academic institutions shouldn't be questioned. You are, after all, an anonymous critic on the internet. Why should we listen to your questions, no matter how valid they might be?


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

The Conte said:


> For those who are impressed by such things, much of what TIO demonstrate about vocal technique in their videos were in expressed in the writings of the great vocal pedagogue Cornelius Reid who studied at New York College of Music:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_L._Reid
> 
> N.


Thanks very much for this info.

One of Cornelius Reid's students was George Shirley, just about the best Mozart tenor of his time!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> But could he sing himself? I note 'he was forced to abandon a career in singing' so he became a pedagogue. I don't know how widely his methods are practiced. Did any of the great singers of the past use his pedagogy?


Asking for the "qualifications" of everyone who practices a profession or makes a statement about anything is juvenile, rude, and obnoxious. That appears to be your only purpose here. You are not capable of evaluating the qualifications of a vocal pedagogue regardless of his credentials, you have no legitimate purpose in insisting repeatedly on being given such information, you've succeeded in wrecking a potentially interesting thread with this foolish game, and in case you haven't noticed, everyone else here considers you a pest. If you keep up this pointless trolling I will take the matter up with the moderators.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> As an anarchist-socialist, Wilde had a few "disrespectful" things to say about society.
> 
> Also, *you didn't respond to any of the substance of what I said.*
> 
> Can Yanis Nezet Seguin sing? Can Antonio Pappano? What are your credentials to question such a highly respected pedagogue? Surely the fact that he reached the status of being an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University means he knows what he's talking about. Academic institutions shouldn't be questioned. You are, after all, an anonymous critic on the internet. Why should we listen to your questions, no matter how valid they might be?


That is my response. Have you any clue about academia? I'm not asking anyone to listen to me. There is someone on the internet asking me to listen to him and I'm asking who he is. You have just said yourself that all academia is bogus and flawed and then you start quoting someone's academic credentials. Aren't you being a little inconsistent?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Thanks very much for this info.
> 
> One of Cornelius Reid's students was *George Shirley,* just about the best Mozart tenor of his time!


Pardon? No disrespect to the gentleman but 'the best' of his time?


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Pardon? No disrespect to the gentleman but 'the best' of his time?


Duh


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> That is my response.


Insulting me is not responding to my arguments. What's more, Oscar Wilde was a radical, not a defender of Victorian institutions. So unless you are trying to support my iconoclasm by quoting lines from a caricature of "society" ladies by a radical who believed that society was so corrupt he called for the abolition of all government and private property (what would Bracknell say to that!?), your non-response made no sense.



> You have just said yourself that all academia is bogus and flawed and then you start quoting someone's academic credentials. Aren't you being a little inconsistent?


As above, you have completely misread my comments. I was adopting your arguments to show that your own position disqualifies you from questioning Cornelius Reid. Furthermore, I did not in any way say "all academia is bogus and flawed." You are arguing against a straw man.

Anyway, to discuss the actual topic of this thread, I couldn't find too many old recordings of Come scoglio, but I did look up coloratura sopranos of the past singing Mozart. Here are three coloraturas of the past singing "Voi che sapete":
Nellie Melba:





Luisa Tetrazzini:





Adelina Patti:





You can hear the chest voice very clearly in all three on the line "Gelo e poi sento l'alma avvampar"

In two versions by modern mezzo-sopranos, the low notes on that line almost fall out completely:
Joyce DiDonato:





Elina Garanca





Again, this seems to contradict Nezet Seguin's theory that even registers are a recent phenomenon, in Mozart singing as well as Verdi singing.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Duh


fine singer: yes. nice full voice. brings a bold style to music which is often sung in a somewhat sterile manner
one of the best: no


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Insulting me is not responding to my arguments. What's more, Oscar Wilde was a radical, not a defender of Victorian institutions. So unless you are trying to support my iconoclasm by quoting lines from a caricature of "society" ladies by a radical who believed that society was so corrupt he called for the abolition of all government and private property (what would Bracknell say to that!?), your non-response made no sense.
> 
> As above, you have completely misread my comments. I was adopting your arguments to show that your own position disqualifies you from questioning Cornelius Reid. Furthermore, I did not in any way say "all academia is bogus and flawed." You are arguing against a straw man.
> 
> ...


Indeed you don't even need to go that far back to hear proper chest notes.











Some people might think Baltsa uses too much, but even Von Stade uses chest when the line dips low at_ l'alma avvampar_.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Insulting me is not responding to my arguments. What's more, Oscar Wilde was a radical, not a defender of Victorian institutions. So unless you are trying to support my iconoclasm by quoting lines from a caricature of "society" ladies by a radical who believed that society was so corrupt he called for the abolition of all government and private property (what would Bracknell say to that!?), *your non-response made no sense.*
> 
> As above, you have completely misread my comments. I was adopting your arguments to show that your own position disqualifies you from questioning Cornelius Reid. Furthermore, I did not in any way say "all academia is bogus and flawed." You are arguing against a straw man.
> 
> .


Sorry but my non-response was an ironic response to an argument that made no sense to me. Making accusations about straw men doesn't make sense either. I have not in any way question Mr reid. I didn't realise he was on the videos anyway as he died in 2008


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> fine singer: yes. nice full voice. brings a bold style to music which is often sung in a somewhat sterile manner
> one of the best: no


I'm more enthusiastic and I don't know many other modern singers with both that rich timbre and flexibility.

I did originally make the proviso



> Thanks very much for this info.
> 
> One of Cornelius Reid's students was George Shirley, just about *the best Mozart tenor of his time!*


Which is not to damn with feint praise but it is to contextualise his worth and, as a result, the success of Cornelius Reid's tutelage.

Given that Shirley, unlike say Jadlowker, was not born at the time when bel canto was practiced everywhere: his flexibility is admirable.

Given that Shirley's was the first generation to bring roles like Ferrando and Idomeneo to theatres the size of the Met and attempt the bravura style: he met the challenge admirably.

Comparing him to contemporaries, I prefer him both to specialists like Richard Lewis and international stars like Alfredo Kraus (Cosi) and Gedda (Cosi and Idomeneo) or, much later, Pavarotti and Domingo. At any rate, he was competing with the best of his time.

If he was younger, he would perhaps have benefited from historically informed practice - we don't know.

Long story short, he was a top rank artist and I don't think it is a stretch to say his name adds lustre to the reputation of his teacher/ that tradition.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I'm more enthusiastic and I don't know many other modern singers with both that rich timbre and flexibility.
> 
> I did originally make the proviso
> 
> ...


With all due respect to Shirley, I would certainly not prefer him to Lewis and to say he is preferable to the stars you mention seems somewhat fanciful. They were, of course, the best of the best. He was certainly not up there with them I'm afraid. That is not to damn him with faint praise but just to state what we hear.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> With all due respect to Shirley, I would certainly not prefer him to Lewis and to say he is preferable to the stars you mention seems somewhat fanciful. They were, of course, the best of the best. He was certainly not up there with them I'm afraid. That is not to damn him with faint praise but just to state what we hear.


What are your credentials?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Adelina Patti:


This is otherworldly. Who would dare to sing like this now? Could we even imagine it if we didn't hear it from this woman born in 1843? "Not proper Mozart style!" we'd all be screaming. "A stupendous artist," Verdi called her. Who is right?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> What are your credentials?


My ears. What I hear. It is my opinion. I find Kraus & co far preferable. So apparently did the recording industry btw. In any case as people have argued forcibly that credentials and qualifications don't matter when it comes to singing it appears that would be eminently acceptable!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> *My ears. What I hear.* It is my opinion. In any case as people have argued forcibly that credentials and qualifications don't matter when it comes to singing it appears that would be eminently acceptable!


As Stravinsky said, "A duck can hear."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> My ears. What I hear. It is my opinion. I find Kraus & co far preferable. So apparently did the recording industry btw. In any case as *people have argued forcibly that credentials and qualifications don't matter* when it comes to singing it appears that would be eminently acceptable!


No, what we have argued forcibly is that official credentials don't prove that people know what they're talking about, and that demanding them as if they do is foolish. After pages of trying to demonstrate this to you, we are now holding you to your own flawed standard in hopes that desperate measures will penetrate the armor of your stubbornness.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> As Stravinsky said, "A duck can hear."


Stravinsky also picked George Shirley for his recording of Oedipus Rex. Small world


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Indeed you don't even need to go that far back to hear proper chest notes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The more you listen, the less likely it seems that lightweight, barely-there-chest-notes have any precedent whatsoever.

Some nice recordings I've listened to recently include
Caballe in Cosi fan tutte





Tebaldi in Nozze Di Figaro





Sutherland in Idomeneo





Depending on the music they didn't have to dig into the low notes but there was nothing feeble about them either.

Even more apparent is that the older singers are not at all reticent: they sound turbocharged by comparison...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> The more you listen, the less likely it seems that lightweight, barely-there-chest-notes have any precedent whatsoever.
> 
> Some nice recordings I've listened to recently include
> Caballe in Cosi fan tutte
> ...


I loved hearing Tebaldi in the _Figaro_ aria. But why did you include Sutherland in a demonstration of chest voice?


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I loved hearing Tebaldi in the _Figaro_ aria. But why did you include Sutherland in a demonstration of chest voice?


I also began to appreciate and prefer full Italianate voice like Tebaldi, Carteri, Quartararo in Mozart than the typical "tip-toeing", lieder-like approach that is so common these days.

Another example:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

silentio said:


> I also began to appreciate and prefer full Italianate voice like Tebaldi, Carteri, Quartararo in Mozart than the typical "tip-toeing", lieder-like approach that is so common these days.
> 
> Another example:


"Mozart is usually sung with two much delicacy, as though the singer were on tiptoes, when his music should be performed with the same frankness and bel canto approach one would use in *Il Trovatore*, for example." Maria Callas in her Juilliard Master Class on Donna Anna's _Non mi dir_.

And here she is in a test recording, made for EMI in 1953, just before she recorded her first complete opera for the label (*Lucia di Lammermoor*). The recording was made just for the engineers to get a feel for the voice and was never intended for release, and one should remember that when listening to it, but she surmounts the aria's difficulties with ease.






The aria never takes the singer particularly low, so she doesn't use chest, but she does have full low notes.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Here she goes quite low.

The low notes here aren't booming, but they're there, along with a lot of other great stuff:





I don't need the low notes to be thundering, I just need them to be there. Mozart couldn't have intended for the singer to just disappear in the middle of an aria - otherwise he would have written rests. If chest voice is needed to sing those notes audibly, Mozart must have expected chest voice. It's odd that there's even controversy about it.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I loved hearing Tebaldi in the _Figaro_ aria. But why did you include Sutherland in a demonstration of chest voice?


Eek lol Yes, that was daft. I had been thinking around how Joan accentuated the positive there

If you don't have a particularly strong chest voice you don't have to compound it by being low energy/reticent - she went for broke

I'm sure it would have been a doozy... I just forgot to write it haha


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

silentio said:


> I also began to appreciate and prefer full Italianate voice like Tebaldi, Carteri, Quartararo in Mozart than the typical "tip-toeing", lieder-like approach that is so common these days.
> 
> Another example:


Thanks for reminding about Quartararo. I liked her in Pagliacci with Vinay, I've not listened to her records in a while.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Here she goes quite low.
> 
> The low notes here aren't booming, but they're there, along with a lot of other great stuff:
> 
> ...


Exactly! Mozart is not Verdi, but the notes are there and I'm sure he intended them to be heard!


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## Guest (Sep 29, 2019)

I haven't read the whole thread in thorough detail, so I'll apologise in advance if these points have already been made.

I'm not a great fan of opera, and ceratinly no expert, so I can't comment on the technical arguments being made about individual conductors, and the specific examples offered about their "coaching" of singers.

However, I do find it interesting that TIO writers prefer to write anonymously because, their own website says, they are putting forward views that are not popular and they want to protect themselves from "people who have bad intentions".

I also find it interesting that the Youtube presentation in the OP puts a headline quote about young conductors not knowing their profession. Whatever may be the accuracy of the conflicting views about YNS and Pappano's approach to opera, it seems a bit of a stretch to use the criticism as a generalised attack on "young" conductors. I note that some members here say they don't know much about YNS but whatever his age, he seems to be beyond being described as a young conductor and sufficiently well thought of to be employed by the New York Met. (Obviously, that means nothing if you're a diehard traditionalist and think that all modern opera is a travesty of the art.) If _I've _heard of him (and watched two of his performances on TV at the Proms and the BPO), he's pretty well established.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I haven't read the whole thread in thorough detail, so I'll apologise in advance if these points have already been made.
> 
> I'm not a great fan of opera, and ceratinly no expert, so I can't comment on the technical arguments being made about individual conductors, and the specific examples offered about their "coaching" of singers.
> 
> ...


' protect themselves from people with bad intentions '? What are they expecting? Death threats? Bomb attacks? Who on earth are the people with bad intentions? Or is this just some sort of paranoia that they can't bear people to disagree with them. But given some of the comments I have received it appears that even to question these guys and who they are is a major crime in some peoples eyes.
It's interesting that ever since I've been following music people have made this same comment about conductors that they don't know their profession. They said it about Solti I remember. I remember previous to him Kubelik having a terrible time at the Royal Opera house because people said the same sort of things about him. Beecham (who has been passed over for the job) and others forced Kubelik out by saying he didn't know his job. Anyone think now Kubelik that didn't know his profession in the light of history? Such comments would make anyone a laughing stock now. I do not know about YNS but he appears to have made some pretty well received recordings. Also I would point out that the corruption in the art world that people have talked about works both ways and there is envy and spite on both sides. Those who haven't made it can be just as envious and spiteful as those who have. As for Pappano I think his record speaks for itself. I must confess I have been disappointed in some of the productions from the Royal Opera house but not in his own music making. I have on DVD a brilliantly conducted Carmen and an equally brilliantly conducted Figaro, So a bunch of anonymous people on YouTube saying he doesn't know his job appears to be somewhat disingenuous


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

MacLeod said:


> I haven't read the whole thread in thorough detail, so I'll apologise in advance if these points have already been made.
> 
> I'm not a great fan of opera, and ceratinly no expert, so I can't comment on the technical arguments being made about individual conductors, and the specific examples offered about their "coaching" of singers.
> 
> ...


I think the premise of that video could be summarised as "Tebaldi saw the writing on the wall in 1979: it's 2019, nothing has changed - look who is in charge".

It's basically a persuasive essay in video form, citing examples.



> (Obviously, that means nothing if you're a diehard traditionalist and think that all modern opera is a travesty of the art.)


If you read Lanfranco Rasponi's "The Last Prima Donnas" - where the author interviewed over fifty singers from about Flagstad's time onwards, including Tebaldi - it is worth noting this was a prevalent view among those singers.

Many believed there had been a big decline since their time, complained about the administration of opera houses, thought that the itinerant travelling put a terrible strain on singers. They were concerned about a tradition fading.

It's an interesting read and provides context even if you disagree.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I think the premise of that video could be summarised as "Tebaldi saw the writing on the wall in 1979: it's 2019, nothing has changed - look who is in charge".
> 
> It's basically a persuasive essay in video form, citing examples.
> 
> ...


Reading this guys life story, he sounds a right wide boy


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Reading this guys life story, he sounds a right wide boy


What do you mean? Surely his qualifications speak for themselves:

"He received a BA in English from the University of California Berkeley, which he attended on an exchange scholarship, and then an MA from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1937, after which he began writing articles and reviews for the New York Times and Opera News."

N.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Conte said:


> What do you mean? Surely his qualifications speak for themselves:
> 
> "He received a BA in English from the University of California Berkeley, which he attended on an exchange scholarship, and then an MA from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1937, after which he began writing articles and reviews for the New York Times and Opera News."
> 
> N.


Nothing to do with his qualifications:

"Rasponi's association with Rosetta Valenti proved to be his undoing as a publicist. In 1963 Valenti's foundation was dissolved by the New York Supreme Court after charges were brought by the state's attorney general that the actual beneficiaries of her charity balls were herself, Rasponi, and others who helped her promote the events. Rasponi closed his public relations firm and left for Italy, never again to work in the United States." Sounds somewhat of an Arthur Daley


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Nothing to do with his qualifications:
> 
> "Rasponi's association with Rosetta Valenti proved to be his undoing as a publicist. In 1963 Valenti's foundation was dissolved by the New York Supreme Court after charges were brought by the state's attorney general that the actual beneficiaries of her charity balls were herself, Rasponi, and others who helped her promote the events. Rasponi closed his public relations firm and left for Italy, never again to work in the United States." Sounds somewhat of an Arthur Daley


In this instance, Rasponi's qualifications or otherwise aren't that important. If you read the book, which I'm assuming you haven't, you'd know he lets the prima donnas in question speak for themselves. Are you questioning their qualificiations too?

Please can you stop now, David, so the rest of us can get on with discussing the premise of the video? This constant derailing of the thread is all becoming really tiresome and you are not doing anyone any favours, least of all yourself.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> ' protect themselves from people with bad intentions '? What are they expecting? Death threats? Bomb attacks? Who on earth are the people with bad intentions? Or is this just some sort of paranoia that they can't bear people to disagree with them. But given some of the comments I have received it appears that even to question these guys and who they are is a major crime in some peoples eyes.


You need to quit speculating on people's supposedly nefarious and illegitimate motives and address the substance of what they say. I've offered this thread as a consideration of what is said about singing in a particular video. All _you've_ said about singing is that you're unable to appreciate acoustic recordings of singers. You've spent the rest of your time, and wasted ours, criticizing the makers of the video for not submitting a satisfactory resume to your personnel department.



> It's interesting that ever since I've been following music people have made this same comment about conductors that they don't know their profession. They said it about Solti I remember. I remember previous to him Kubelik having a terrible time at the Royal Opera house because people said the same sort of things about him. Beecham (who has been passed over for the job) and others forced Kubelik out by saying he didn't know his job. Anyone think now Kubelik that didn't know his profession in the light of history? Such comments would make anyone a laughing stock now. I do not know about YNS but he appears to have made some pretty well received recordings.


I'm sure Solti, Kubelik and other poor, unfortunate conductors who may have faced criticism are grateful to be defended by such a heavily credentialed individual as yourself.



> Also I would point out that the corruption in the art world that people have talked about works both ways and there is envy and spite on both sides. Those who haven't made it can be just as envious and spiteful as those who have.


Which of these are _you?_ What accounts for _your_ spiteful comments about the makers of This Is Opera?



> As for Pappano I think his record speaks for itself.


But you'll speak for it anyway...



> I must confess I have been disappointed in some of the productions from the Royal Opera house but not in his own music making. I have on DVD a brilliantly conducted Carmen and an equally brilliantly conducted Figaro, *So a bunch of anonymous people on YouTube saying he doesn't know his job appears to be somewhat disingenuous*


No one has said that Pappano "doesn't know his job," which, last I heard, is conducting. This video and this thread are about singing. In ignoring that and pretending that someone is smearing Pappano's "reputation," you're the only one being disingenuous.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Tsaraslondon said:


> In this instance, Rasponi's qualifications or otherwise aren't that important. If you read the book, which I'm assuming you haven't, you'd know he lets the prima donnas in question speak for themselves. Are you questioning their qualificiations too?
> 
> Please can you stop now, David, so the rest of us can get on with discussing the premise of the video? This constant derailing of the thread is all becoming really tiresome and you are not doing anyone any favours, least of all yourself.


Not at all. It was someone else, actually, who brought up the question of Rasponi's qualifications not me. Now would someone please tell me who these guys in the video are and what qualifies them to criticise international opera conductors and singers? Are they voice coaches? Practicing opera singers? Just who are they? I am not commenting on whether they are right or wrong but I am asking what qualifies them to do this. Surely it is a legitimate question. It is a question of integrity. This is not 'derailing' the thread but a very important point in assessing the artistic integrity of these people.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Not at all. It was someone else, actually, who brought up the question of Rasponi's qualifications not me. Now would someone please tell me who these guys in the video are and what qualifies them to criticise international opera conductors and singers? Are they voice coaches? Practicing opera singers? Just who are they? I am not commenting on whether they are right or wrong but I am asking what qualifies them to do this. Surely it is a legitimate question. It is a question of integrity. This is not 'derailing' the thread but a very important point in assessing the artistic integrity of these people.


That question has been answered over and over again by several people in this thread. Enough now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Now would someone please tell me who these guys in the video are and what qualifies them to criticise international opera conductors and singers? Are they voice coaches? Practicing opera singers? Just who are they? I am not commenting on whether they are right or wrong but I am asking what qualifies them to do this. Surely it is a legitimate question. *It is a question of integrity. This is not 'derailing' the thread but a very important point in assessing the artistic integrity of these people.*


Your ridiculous obsession with the "credentials" of TIO has occupied most of the eleven pages of this thread and is driving everyone else here to suicide or homicide, or simply driving them away. If you can't live without exploring the biographies of people who offer opinions on the internet, hire a private detective. But know this: nothing you could possibly learn about the makers of this video would prove their "integrity." Only the intrinsic value of what they're offering is at issue, and if you're blind to that (as you clearly are) and are not even interested in learning anything (as you clearly aren't), then your own integrity is what needs attending to.

I repeat: the rest of us are interested in singing and in discussing the ideas proposed in this video. I posted the video in order to stimulate conversation on precisely that subject. If all you can think about is whether people are "qualified" - by _your_ standards, whatever the hell they may be - to speak at all, you shouldn't even participate here, or in any forum where normal people expect to be able to offer ideas without having their "integrity" questioned.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Sometimes it's easy to miss examples from post WW2 but before LPs really took off - they might get lost in the shuffle.

Maggie Teyte, Nozze Di Figaro, 1946, (age c. 58!)





Giulietta Simionato, Cosi fan tutte, 1949





Carla Gavazzi, Don Giovanni, 1953





+ another Tebaldi treat, this one is 1955




Such a lovely record


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Sometimes it's easy to miss examples from post WW2 but before LPs really took off - they might get lost in the shuffle.
> 
> Maggie Teyte, Nozze Di Figaro, 1946, (age c. 58!)


I adore Maggie Teyte. I assume you know this.






Hers was not a big voice but she had a firm and perfectly placed chest voice. She was also still singing brilliantly in her 60s, her top register as firm and free of wobble as it was when she was a good deal younger. She's the perfect example of how having a good chest voice doesn't harm the top of the voice.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Sometimes it's easy to miss examples from post WW2 but before LPs really took off - they might get lost in the shuffle.
> 
> Maggie Teyte, Nozze Di Figaro, 1946, (age c. 58!)
> 
> ...


Such different singers! Maggie Teyte followed by three Italians is absolute culture shock. It raises thoughts about the increasing internationalization of culture - in singing, the homogenization of style and technique - over the last several decades.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I adore Maggie Teyte. I assume you know this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What a gorgeous record! I've not listened to her enough if that's anything to go by 
Thanks for sharing


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I adore Maggie Teyte. Hers was not a big voice but she had a firm and perfectly placed chest voice. She was also still singing brilliantly in her 60s, her top register as firm and free of wobble as it was when she was a good deal younger. She's the perfect example of how having a good chest voice doesn't harm the top of the voice.


I find many recordings of singers in the acoustic era proving the truth of your last statement. We hear recordings of Patti, Lilli Lehmann, Melba, Tetrazzini, Schumann-Heink and others in their sixties, sounding older but without a trace of wobble.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Such different singers! Maggie Teyte followed by three Italians is absolute culture shock. It raises thoughts about the increasing internationalization of culture - in singing, the homogenization of style and technique - over the last several decades.


Yes! there was a distinctive tradition influencing the artists, playing to their different emphasis and strengths. You could liken record collecting at that time to stamp collecting - wherever they were from, they each had a different take.

Meta Seinemeyer, Nozze di Figaro (In German)





Ninon Vallin, Nozze di Figaro (In French), 1944





Renata Tebaldi, Nozze di Figaro (In Italian), 1955





It made the records so much more interesting.

Now you might say the artists are all trying to use the same colours from the same palette in the same manner


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I find many recordings of singers in the acoustic era proving the truth of your last statement. We hear recordings of Patti, Lilli Lehmann, *Melba*, Tetrazzini, Schumann-Heink and others in their sixties, sounding older but without a trace of wobble.


Yes, Dame Melba! My favorite of her was this "Claire de lune" when she was 65-year-old. As if each note has its own life and could linger in the air at its will. Melba may not be the most thrilling singer in opera, but she is absolutely magical in songs:


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

The question of how early music should be sung is pretty interesting to me. Honestly, I did not really care for pre-classical vocal music as much until I started listening to Golden Age singers singing it. As music, I appreciated it, but I did not like the thin, light voices.

These singers, all This is Opera! endorsed, btw, sing it fully, but certainly not like it's verismo. One finds with the women rich, full voices with strong low notes. Where can one find performances of this music of this quality today? In short, I think an interest in Baroque and early classical music is reason to wish for a return to this early 20th century vocal technique, not a reason to spurn it.

Eide Norena's performance of Care selve is one greatest recordings (of anything) I've ever heard. I've listened to it two dozen times since I discovered it through TIO, and I am deeply moved and amazed every time by her legato, breath control, portameni, phrasing, incredible Caballe-esque pianissimi, and most importantly of all, her deep passion and sincerity.





Elisabeth Rethberg, who was acclaimed as Aida and Sieglinde, singing Handel. I think the author of the video sums it up pretty well: "This isn't the anaesthetized mid-20th century Handel everyone is used to nowadays but rather one in the old tradition, with blood and limbs and a mind and a soul-Handel sung by a human and not by a woodland færie."





Louise Kirkby-Lunn, incredible voice:





Ezio Pinza:





Louise Homer (low notes!):





Rosa Ponselle (low notes!):


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

vivalagentenuova said:


> These singers, all This is Opera! endorsed, btw, sing it fully, but certainly not like it's verismo. One finds with the women rich, full voices with strong low notes. *Where can one find performances of this music of this quality today?* In short, I think an interest in Baroque and early classical music is reason to wish for a return to this early 20th century vocal technique, not a reason to spurn it.
> 
> ]


Thankfully as someone has commented. We perform this sort of music much better today in the sort of style the composer might have recognised. That is not to denigrate the great singers of the past but to realise that we have learned a lot more about period performance in recent years.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Now you might say the artists all using trying to use the same colours from the same palette in the same manner


And the colors are largely shades of beige. Individual and national differences in personality, sound and style seem virtually nonexistent among singers today.

I wonder whether it's unrelated to observe that, in this country at least, there seems to be an increasing fashion for dark and "neutral" - i.e. drab - colors. The apartment house where I live is in the process of being painted, and I was disappointed to see that the basic color is going to be a darkish gray. As I look around the immediate area, I see that most of the other apartments are also gray. I asked one of the painters about this, and he said that about 70% of their house-painting jobs now are asking for - yup! - gray. I've long been puzzled by the number of gray (or "silver") automobiles as well.

Is this a class thing? Are dull colors considered "sophisticated"? Or are they just "safe" - like singing nowadays?


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> And the colors are largely shades of beige. Individual and national differences in personality, sound and style seem virtually nonexistent among singers today.
> 
> I wonder whether it's unrelated to observe that, in this country at least, there seems to be an increasing fashion for dark and "neutral" - i.e. drab - colors. The apartment house where I live is in the process of being painted, and I was disappointed to see that the basic color is going to be a darkish gray. As I look around the immediate area, I see that most of the other apartments are also gray. I asked one of the painters about this, and he said that about 70% of their house-painting jobs now are asking for - yup! - gray. I've long been puzzled by the number of gray (or "silver") automobiles as well.
> 
> Is this a class thing? Are dull colors considered "sophisticated"? Or are they just "safe" - like singing nowadays?


Haha, indeed. I was looking at some pictures of houses for sale near me recently, and probably 80% of them had at least one part of the house painted gray. It's so ugly and really takes the life out of a space. Also, I live in a northern climate: it's gray outside for most of the year! Why would you also make the inside of your house gray too!?

I think we see a similar process taking place across the arts: instead of real understanding of differences, with one style influencing another, we have homogenization. Take architecture. Cities either founded or built up in the last few decades can be quite hard to distinguish for a non-specialist, sometimes not even then. Concrete boxes and metallic, asymmetrical monstrosities are everywhere. This is in contrast to the past, when style was local and coherent. 
Compare these buildings:















Now compare with these buildings from the same places from roughly 300 years ago:














The first thing to be said about the recent ones is that they are pretty ugly: dark and drab colors, no warmth or personality. Secondly, however, is that most people couldn't tell you where they are from on the basis of the style (if one can call how they are designed "style" at all). It's not being able to tell their location that's important, it's that the act of making buildings has a) been stripped of a need to inspire awe and beauty, and b) been removed from any kind of local control or necessity. Venice is a city that could only be built there, and it looks like nowhere else in the world. Buildings now are (I realize I'm generalizing here, but I'm talking about trends, not universals) the embodyments of our abstractions, as so many of our recent art works are. It's quite sad.

In singing, it shows up in hollowed out performances with coreless voices. I think we need a new Romantic movement to sweep through all the arts (and beyond), and counteract these tendencies.



> Thankfully as someone has commented. We perform this sort of music much better today in the sort of style the composer might have recognised. That is not to denigrate the great singers of the past but to realise that we have learned a lot more about period performance in recent years.


I'm not at all convinced that Handel and Gluck wanted weak, colorless, coreless voices that can't be heard in the theatre. TIO opera actually addresses this subject in detail:





And claims about vibrato are also exaggerated:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> The question of how early music should be sung is pretty interesting to me. Honestly, I did not really care for pre-classical vocal music as much until I started listening to Golden Age singers singing it. As music, I appreciated it, but I did not like the thin, light voices.
> 
> These singers, all This is Opera! endorsed, btw, sing it fully, but certainly not like it's verismo. One finds with the women rich, full voices with strong low notes. Where can one find performances of this music of this quality today? In short, I think an interest in Baroque and early classical music is reason to wish for a return to this early 20th century vocal technique, not a reason to spurn it.
> 
> ...


These are wonderful, both intrinsically and as reminders that our 18th-century ancestors were flesh and blood humans and not porcelain figurines.

Scholarship has taught us many things about the execution of instrumental music of the Baroque, but next to nothing about singing. Piping boy sopranos are not standards by which to judge performances of this music. A well-developed castrato would be more useful as a model, and accounts of them would seem to describe singers like these more than the Emma Kirkby types considered suitable by HIP adherents.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

vivalagentenuova said:


> The question of how early music should be sung is pretty interesting to me. Honestly, I did not really care for pre-classical vocal music as much until I started listening to Golden Age singers singing it. As music, I appreciated it, but I did not like the thin, light voices.
> 
> These singers, all This is Opera! endorsed, btw, sing it fully, but certainly not like it's verismo. One finds with the women rich, full voices with strong low notes. Where can one find performances of this music of this quality today? In short, I think an interest in Baroque and early classical music is reason to wish for a return to this early 20th century vocal technique, not a reason to spurn it.
> 
> Eide Norena's performance of Care selve is one greatest recordings (of anything) I've ever heard. I've listened to it two dozen times since I discovered it through TIO, and I am deeply moved and amazed every time by her legato, breath control, portameni, phrasing, incredible Caballe-esque pianissimi, and most importantly of all, her deep passion and sincerity.


Thanks very much for these lovely selections. You're right about the passion and sincerity.

These are the same reasons I love Maartje Offers singing Lascia ch'io pianga - an enthusiast put up this video





She was another versatile artist - her other records include Rienzi, Trovatore, Aida etc.

Just as well nobody told her Handel was off limits


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> Thanks very much for these lovely selections. You're right about the passion and sincerity.
> 
> These are the same reasons I love Maartje Offers singing Lascia ch'io pianga - an enthusiast put up this video
> 
> ...


The poor fellow may have a good ear for music, but he has a tin ear for languages. "Laskia"? Dio mio!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm not really into opera, but it seems to me that the TIO critic is saying that modern-day singers can't sing, and that modern-day conductors are incompetently and misguidedly encouraging this.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not really into opera, but it seems to me that the TIO critic is saying that modern-day singers can't sing, and that modern-day conductors are incompetently and misguidedly encouraging this.


An overstatement - these things are a matter of degree - but that's the drift. It's hard to argue (though some will) that vocal standards haven't declined, and that there aren't fewer conductors than formerly with a sound understanding of the voice.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Maybe there's a need for more vocalist/conductor artists? Barbara Hannigan is one.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> And the colors are largely shades of beige. Individual and national differences in personality, sound and style seem virtually nonexistent among singers today.
> 
> I wonder whether it's unrelated to observe that, in this country at least, there seems to be an increasing fashion for dark and "neutral" - i.e. drab - colors. The apartment house where I live is in the process of being painted, and I was disappointed to see that the basic color is going to be a darkish gray. As I look around the immediate area, I see that most of the other apartments are also gray. I asked one of the painters about this, and he said that about 70% of their house-painting jobs now are asking for - yup! - gray. I've long been puzzled by the number of gray (or "silver") automobiles as well.
> 
> Is this a class thing? Are dull colors considered "sophisticated"? Or are they just "safe" - like singing nowadays?


I was listening to a recording the other day and it occurred to me that I had not heard anything like it since. No doubt some people will argue that is just as well.

It was Giuseppe di Stefano singing Rienzi's Prayer at La Scala in 1964.





It's everything it shouldn't be, but it definitely wasn't beige, or boring, or routine. He takes a completely idiosyncratic approach to the part.

Re: class, I'm pretty sure that it would be considered vulgar... which is always a good sign 

It also happens to be the only time I've ever loved this scene and there are things I think are just inspired about the performance.

It occurred to me that di Stefano had the training, and the bravado to take risks re: dynamics, phrasing, tempo but the environment must have been conducive as well...

I started to question when was the last time that a major tenor broke the mould...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

starthrower said:


> Maybe there's a need for more vocalist/conductor artists? Barbara Hannigan is one.


She's an anomaly, and obviously a bundle of energy. But I think the problems with opera today are various. "Art music" has changed and become less voice-friendly, as well as more distant from vernacular musical styles, which nourished singing, and music itself, in earlier eras. Much of the "standard" operatic repertoire (18th, 19th and early 20th centuries) is less and less relevant to contemporary life and sensibilities. The music world is more mobile and international; singers and conductors have less opportunity to perfect their art and craft - and learn each other's - in stable, local ensemble situations. The life of a singer is more frenetic. I suspect there's less of a work ethic, and that singers are more likely to go before the public with inadequate technique, resulting in premature vocal decline. There are no doubt a number of other factors at work.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Maybe someone could compose a satirical opera called The Jet Setters with a lot of bad singing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> I was listening to a recording the other day and it occurred to me that I had not heard anything like it since. No doubt some people will argue that is just as well.
> 
> It was Giuseppe di Stefano singing Rienzi's Prayer at La Scala in 1964.
> 
> ...


I'm afraid I can't share your enthusiasm. Different it certainly is, it isn't boring, and I like the fact that he makes it prayerful, but a vocal student who scooped like that should be forced to write JUST SING THE DAMNED NOTE a thousand times on the blackboard before being allowed to sing again. It IS apparently a hard thing to sing; it's a somewhat ungainly melody, it's taxing and not flattering to the voice, and I've never heard a wholly satisfactory rendering, although Melchior at least sounds in command of it, with NO SCOOPING.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I'm afraid I can't share your enthusiasm. Different it certainly is, it isn't boring, and I like the fact that he makes it prayerful, but a vocal student who scooped like that should be forced to write JUST SING THE DAMNED NOTE a thousand times on the blackboard before being allowed to sing again. It IS apparently a hard thing to sing; it's a somewhat ungainly melody, it's taxing and not flattering to the voice, and I've never heard a wholly satisfactory rendering, although Melchior at least sounds in command of it, with NO SCOOPING.


But you weren't bored so...that's something  :lol:

...and speaking of Melchior, as if by magic


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> There are no doubt a number of other factors at work.


I suspect that streaming and dvd--and the consequent greater emphasis on the looks of singers--plays at least as great a role.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Revitalized Classics said:


> But you weren't bored so...that's something  :lol:
> 
> ...and speaking of Melchior, as if by magic


Thanks especially for all that Caruso. His "Ombra mai fu" always melts me into a puddle: a voice like a deep organ stop, and listen to him trill! The oceans will cover us before we hear the like of it again.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

starthrower said:


> *Maybe there's a need for more vocalist/conductor artists?* Barbara Hannigan is one.


Domingo I believe fits that category? Also Schreier, Jacobs and Gardiner come to mind. Anyone else?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> I suspect that streaming and dvd--and the consequent greater emphasis on the looks of singers--plays at least as great a role.


Of course. Marilyn Horne said that HD was the enemy of the opera singer and she was right. It does give opera a far wider audience but it also is very unforgiving in how people look. No longer an elderly Manrico hope that no one sees the lines on his face from the back of the stalls. It is difficult to take the character of Carmen seriously when she looks middle aged compared with Mchaela. Opera of course does demand a suspension of disbelief but modern technology means that the disbelief gap has become narrower. And of course if we regard opera as a drama it does mean that the characters we see should approximate to what they are supposed to be


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

starthrower said:


> Maybe there's a need for more vocalist/conductor artists? Barbara Hannigan is one.


Can't do any harm 

Even if a singer has all the good intentions and their aural ideal includes all the old virtues there cannot be a lot for them to do if the conductor or producer are on a different wavelength.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I feel like we've presented enough evidence on this, but I can't resist one last example. Nellie Melba singing Desdemona at age 65. She uses huge chest voice on the low notes. She was personally coached by Verdi in this role. Either she changed her singing drastically after he died, or this is how Verdi wanted and appreciated the low notes for soprano sung. It's an amazing recording. I wonder if Nezet Seguin has heard it.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I feel like we've presented enough evidence on this, but I can't resist one last example. Nellie Melba singing Desdemona at age 65. She uses huge chest voice on the low notes. She was personally coached by Verdi in this role. Either she changed her singing drastically after he died, or this is how Verdi wanted and appreciated the low notes for soprano sung. It's an amazing recording. I wonder if Nezet Seguin has heard it.


Melba is used as an example in this video


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I feel like we've presented enough evidence on this, but I can't resist one last example. Nellie Melba singing Desdemona at age 65. She uses huge chest voice on the low notes. She was personally coached by Verdi in this role. Either she changed her singing drastically after he died, or this is how Verdi wanted and appreciated the low notes for soprano sung. It's an amazing recording. I wonder if Nezet Seguin has heard it.


This is amazing. The low notes are unforced and crystal clear, and all registers are so well-blended. Even her cool temperament here fits the Willow Song nicely: these subtle "_salce_" are recited as if Desdemona is half-mindlessly daydreaming about her childhood. I find it much more convincing than the reading of many modern sopranos who overact with texts.

When I was first introduced to historical singers and their recordings, Melba was the one I had the most aversion to. I found her singing rather bland where the roles require expressions, and downright ridiculous in her favorite show-pieces (The Lucia Mad scene and Traviata excerpts, for example). But in the right kind of music, like this Willow Song and the Ophelia Mad Scene (what insane coloratura, and drama too!), she is pretty much in a class of her own. I also come to appreciate that maybe her art represents a different kind of charm than the dramatic appeal of Muzio and Callas, the charm of singing correctly, cleanly, and effectively.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I've been following the "This is opera " channel on You Tube for some time, and frankly, it's a joke . It;s totally biased towards famous opera singer of the past and biased against singer of the present era . Of course, there certainly were many superlative opera singers in the past, and there's nothing wrong with admiring them and their recordings . But there are very few people alive who are opera fans and are old enough to have heard them sing live . 
And nobody is alive today who actually saw such legendary names as Caruso, Melba, Patti, Ponselle, Battistini and others . They died too long ago or retired too long ago . 
"This Is Opera " is ridiculously one-sided . They never say anything positive about famous living or recently retired opera stars as Gheorghiu, Alagna, Bartoli, Hampson, Fleming, Heppner, et al . The only use examples of contemporary opera singing they don't like and they never say anything negative about legendary singers form the alleged "golden age" of opera .
Naturally, this extends to leading opera conductors of the present day . Guys like Pappano, Nezet-Seguin and others know their business whether you like their conducting or not . And today's opera stars really like working with them and they would not if they didn't know what they were doing .
Also, Christian Thielemann worked his way up from being a rehearsal pianist to conducting in the smaller German regional companies to becoming music director of the Saxon state opera in Dresden , the Deutsche oper Berlin and becoming the top guy at the Bayreuth festival . 
Complaints about younger conductors not having the right experience and knowledge to conduct opera are nothing new and I recall them from my callous youth as an opera fan way back in the 70s .


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^This Is Opera may be biased and limited in the scope of their inquiry, but I think it's unfair to call them a joke. We all have our biases and points of view on singers and singing. This Is Opera appears to be dedicated mainly to pointing out what they find lacking in contemporary vocal technique - they focus mainly on the development of the vocal registers - and their method of doing this consists largely of playing recordings of the recognized greats of the past, of which we have an enormous treasury, and comparing them with well-known singers of our day. I think most of us can find fault with some of their choices and feel that some recent singers are better than TIO gives them credit for being. But for those of us who can accept the hard fact that there are fewer big, thrilling operatic voices around than we remember from our youth, not to mention from the whole legacy of recordings (I go back to the '50s, and I inherited 78rpm shellacs of Caruso, Galli-Curci and others), listening to the singing and discussion on TIO can provide both welcome vocal discoveries and ways of thinking about the possible reasons for the current state of affairs.

I also find the suggestion that conductors know less about singing than they once did entirely reasonable. Before WWII and going back to the 19th century, many of the great conductors cut their teeth in the pits of provincial opera houses. This is no longer the case.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> ^^^This Is Opera may be biased and limited in the scope of their inquiry, but I think it's unfair to call them a joke. We all have our biases and points of view on singers and singing. This Is Opera appears to be dedicated mainly to pointing out what they find lacking in contemporary vocal technique - they focus mainly on the development of the vocal registers - and their method of doing this consists largely of playing recordings of the recognized greats of the past, of which we have an enormous treasury, and comparing them with well-known singers of our day. I think most of us can find fault with some of their choices and feel that some recent singers are better than TIO gives them credit for being. But for those of us who can accept the hard fact that there are fewer big, thrilling operatic voices around than we remember from our youth, not to mention from the whole legacy of recordings (I go back to the '50s, and I inherited 78rpm shellacs of Caruso, Galli-Curci and others), listening to the singing and discussion on TIO can provide both welcome vocal discoveries and ways of thinking about the possible reasons for the current state of affairs.
> 
> I also find the suggestion that conductors know less about singing than they once did entirely reasonable. Before WWII and going back to the 19th century, many of the great conductors cut their teeth in the pits of provincial opera houses. This is no longer the case.


I thought TIO want to make the case for bel canto as the only legitimate operatic singing style?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> I thought TIO want to make the case for bel canto as the only legitimate operatic singing style?


I don't know. Have they said that? "Bel canto" is certainly a term that needs defining.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> I thought TIO want to make the case for bel canto as the only legitimate operatic singing style?


They put a cut quote by Callas showing the kind of notes a singer should have in one of her masterclasses. She stated it was the only way to sing, and TIO seems to be owning up to since everything I see in their poorly narrated videos are constant magister dixit arguments (not to call defeasable reasoning) (I had to look the Latin up since I only know it in Spanish).

But what makes me argue their videos are poorly narrated? This thread and some of the fellow members, even if I don't agree with their points, have told and reasoned their points in a more natural manner and with any of the tricks the channel uses, (like muting the pitch of streaming performances against an old live concert in old and compressed audio, placing text and interviews with no sense of eyesight, typography, narrativeness...) I'd rather make a case of how poorly TIO presents what they can state that is evident but fail to adress and put in context the limitations of their own technology (I'm not meaning 20s recordings like DavidA, I'm meaning 2010s opera broadcasts! I'm meaning video thumbnails! I'm meaning video editing!).


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I saw the video we are talking about a month ago. Back then I was quickly infuriated by the tone and awful editing the channel had. Not long ago I had imprinted on the YNS recording of Das Lied von der Erde I purchased. It had not appealed to me compared to old recordings of the work, but listening closely I began to fall in love with the playing and started to forgive and even appreciate the singing (which isn't entirely chesty but to my ears it adjusts really well to the LPO playing). But that is another case.

I still side with DavidA against this kind of reasoning and view of opera, but reading the thread better I can take many of the points made. The point of chest singing being lost over the "egos" and "interpretations" of conductors is something I can understand. It is certainly jarring in the case of stage directors who are more likely to be the protagonist of the opera since newspapers have it easier to pull videos and pictures of alternate universes and unwritten endings instead of asking the reader to *imagine* a night of arresting singing technique. But if the point is made this way about a way of singing that should come back for the sake of our ears and patience, so anyone could make a video about old Opera conductors knowing nothing about the job while playing videos and interviews of conductors like Thielemmann, Bernstein, Pappano, Currentzis and even YNS showing a detail in the score rehearsal more likely of the best Karajan days.

I recently listened to a Riccardo Muti performance of Il Trovatore in La Scala in 2000. Singing could be argued to be extremely insufficient, and I don't remember the best conducting bits, but it was a wholy operatic experience that very few conductors if any achieved to make live and on record, same about Pappano but being way more bombastic.


















Do you know why the argument that I'm making here is also defeasable? Why didn't I put the extracts of the 61 Perlea recording or the Cellini studio recording that show the same or even more string bite than the modern recordings? Same with TIOs arguments. Just to prove a valid and understandable argument in a way a simpleton can see the difference, they pick the most intense and legendary extracts of chest singing (preserved by collectors before the internet precisely because they were excellent examples, unlike many other average old recital recordings that have gone into oblivion) and then go pick an example of any YouTube streaming masterclass by a conductor or opera performance where the video's audio is severely compressed by modern technology to undermine even more the kind of singing they thoroughfully dislike.

The technology of Youtube limits their reasoning way more than this long and rich thread. Titles, thumbnails, video cuts, typography. That's what they should work out if they don't want someone like me run away by such formally poor arguing.

[HR][/HR]
Oh, and before I forget, let me place another point of view to this video: You're welcome for the views, TIO. But I'm not subscribing.








James Tolksdorf said:


> My dear annonymous opera channel. I'm an opera singer myself and have sung Wagner alot like Flying Dutchman (main role), Kurvenal( Tristan), Klingsor (Parsival). I love that you like to get back to the real singing but I want to tell you that you PLEASE don't forget that times in the opera business have changed alot. Showing what old singers did as an example is wonderful but young people get depressed by being criticized. I'm 49 years old and had the pleasure to study in Frankurt (Germany) and also at Juilliard School NYC with the teacher of Simon Estes (the first black Dutchman in Bayreuth, Germany). Singing Wagner is very demanding, physically and mentally. But in these days we often have no rest to build up power to perform brilliantly. For example. In my theater we had in my production two Sentas and I was the only Holländer. So, the orchestra/stage rehearsal were "four" times in two days. The opera of the flying dutchman fits into one 3 hour rehearsal which means I had to sing loud out the Flying Dutchman 4 times in two days; in the morning at 10am and evening at 6pm. And the performances were not different. Two weekends where I sang 3 times in 4 days the Dutchman. This is something that did't happen in the glorious days of the big singing in the 50's or 60's were singer were appreciated. I can go on now but I don't want to. I know the market here in Germany. Everybody comes in since the wall in 1989 is open from the east and even from the US and Korea. The Market of opera is flooded with people who sing for almost nothig because they don't make money in their countrys, the studies are reduced from 8 to 4 years ( which makes no sence for growth), the media is only looking for sexappeal and so on, not for real good voices. So there are alot of things that mix up the market and the prices. And although Germany has almost the equivalent of music theaters to the rest of the world (over 150) Good or bad singer are treated like milk and butter. Regie theater is the thing since the 60's were the the illuminator, the outfitter, the regisseur and conducter has more importance that the singer. In these days caressing egos of the hirachie is more important than the art of singing itself. UNFORTUNATELY
> Dear members of "This is opera" If you really want to do something: "do it" not just siting there and compare the old school of singing with the new on. It's not helping. It's only reminding. Go and teach live as I do!





Peter Maleitzke said:


> There is one tragic flaw with the production and therefore the premise of this video. The audio quality of the more recent performance is muted in some way.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^Could you put more concisely your point(s) of disagreement with the ideas expressed by This Is Opera? Do you think incorrect their views on vocal technique and their suggestion that contemporary conductors know less about singing than their predecessors? Or is your argument primarily with the sloppy presentation of the video?


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know. Have they said that? "Bel canto" is certainly a term that needs defining.


Yes.



> We are a group of musicians who are very passionate about restoring opera to its past glory. Through our experiences we learned a very important lesson: there is only one correct way to sing, and that is the old Italian school of singing, the bel canto technique. Absolutely nothing else can work efficiently for the human anatomy and for this art form that calls for power, stamina and beauty.


https://thisismisteropera.wixsite.com/thisisopera/about-us


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> ^^^Could you put more concisely your point(s) of disagreement with the ideas expressed by This Is Opera? Do you think incorrect their views on vocal technique and their suggestion that contemporary conductors know less about singing than their predecessors? Or is your argument primarily with the sloppy presentation of the video?


Second. The presentation oversimplifies their points and in some cases they cheat. But also, their way of arguing in the video they undermine their nostalgia over one technique without addressing how mediatised and manipulated all our operatic material is, and that is sound quality, compression, selection, time span, prestige, cultural status back and then...

About suggesting the young conductors know less about singing, this is relative. Sure, I understand conductors are making more decisions by themselves to enhance music making, sometimes along stage directors, but they try to throw these examples to imply that it is the main reason new singing school is ruining opera (notice the judgement they make). There is much less chest singing nowadays, yes, but why the use of media interviews of conductors talking about singing (not their job) and ommiting all the times they talk about the composers and works and how they see them to propose a coherent music making (their job actually). Provided that we put conductors from the past prone to media starting by Karajan, mixed with other known names like Georges Pretre, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, James Levine, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Zubin Mehta, and place them in a YouTube world where opera houses plead for videos of them to promote their events, how would they end up not talking at some point about singing?

Aren't we now for better or worse in a context where opera goers supposedly don't go to the opera house to "sit back and enjoy"? I don't think we can think about the voices on record now when we pull them away of context, hunger of labels for DVD making and broadcasting, and the view of stage directors of opera as cinema, where movie goers come to be surprised by art rather than entertained by craft, and therefore anything is possible. This is the mindset that could also explain why are we here.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Yes.
> 
> https://thisismisteropera.wixsite.com/thisisopera/about-us


I agree completely with their statement about singing in our Western musical tradition: "there is only one correct way to sing, and that is the old Italian school of singing, the bel canto technique. Absolutely nothing else can work efficiently for the human anatomy and for this art form that calls for power, stamina and beauty."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Granate said:


> Second. The presentation oversimplifies their points and in some cases they cheat. But also, their way of arguing in the video they undermine their nostalgia over one technique *without addressing how mediatised and manipulated all our operatic material is*, and that is sound quality, compression, selection, time span, prestige, cultural status back and then...
> 
> Aren't we now for better or worse in a context where opera goers supposedly don't go to the opera house to "sit back and enjoy"? *I don't think we can think about the voices on record now when we pull them away of context,* hunger of labels for DVD making and broadcasting, and *the view of stage directors* of *opera as cinema*, where movie goers come to be surprised by art rather than entertained by craft, and therefore* anything is possible.* This is the mindset that could also explain why are we here.


We can agree that TIO is amateurish in its presentation and not necessarily fair to certain performers. If this prevents people from considering the basic message, which has mainly to do with vocal technique and changing expectations of vocal performance, TIO must certainly take some of the blame. But what matters here, in the end? Personally, I listen through these drawbacks the way I listen through poor sound on old recordings in order to get to the meat of the matter. _How do people sing? How well do they sing? How should we think about singing and about opera?_

If I understand you, you're suggesting that the diverse media and venues through which we now experience opera may influence what people now expect of operatic singing. That's plausible, and perhaps likely; seeing singers close up on a screen, and even hearing them close up on a microphone, may make the cultivation of the fullest capabilities of the voice seem unnecessary, at least with regard to sheer audibilty. With some generous help from the sound engineers, a young, good-looking, sweet-voiced lyric tenor might play Tristan onscreen, and the operatically untutored viewer, unacquainted with the likes of Vickers and Melchior, might be none the wiser. After all, the guy looks pretty, acts well and sounds pleasant, doesn't he? Perhaps that is the fate to which opera, and the art of singing, is doomed.

But we have to decide whether that is what we want. As one who is very much tutored in the art of singing, I can say that it is decidedly not what I want. I reject your statement "I don't think we can think about the voices on record now when we pull them away of context." If we still care about the great operas as the composers conceived them (and not merely as playthings for directors who can't create anything of their own), then we most definitely can, and must, think about voices, and what voices can do. Opera remains an art form that depends on music and the proper performance of it, and that means singing, singing of the kind which composers require to bring their music to life. Whatever we opera-goers and movie-goers now expect when we "sit back and enjoy," Mozart and Verdi and Wagner had their own expectations, and they should have the final say in the matter. They gave us powerful and difficult music, and they expected it to be sung by voices capable of doing its technical and expressive demands full justice.

It's up to us whether we want to try to preserve our cultural heritage, of which opera and the art of singing are important parts.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I have no problem with the nostalgia for what people think is a lost past. The statement: 'We are a group of musicians who are very passionate about restoring opera to its past glory.' How old are these guys? I am in my 70s and I can only just remember Tebaldi & co when I was a young man and only through their records. So unless these guys are a lot older than me it's a pretty firm bet they cannot have seen many of these great singers they quote live on stage. I don't know if anyone here can reach back that far to have actually seen them on stage? I'd be interested. How far can you go back?


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Then my point about the video and channel is made and I need to discuss about it no more. Your thoughts could lead to one of the threads already created like the future of opera or if Opera is stupid (I don't have the free time to read them or continue following this thread, sorry. Appreciate your reply even if I'd like to develop the argument about pulling modern opera singers' technique and performances, and the performances recorded in a very distant past, in a common and comparable context, which I don't think they share.

Both you and DavidA (who I spiritually agree with in this topic) are valuable posters in this forum. You know I sometimes side with one and other times with the other 

Two weeks ago I watched on youtube this complete performance of Il Trovatore before checking out 25 recordings of the work, which I listened fully in 8 days. I was only looking for a performance that followed more or less the dressing and plot of the Verdi opera, even if the singing made me space out many times during Act III.






Indeed, I really enjoyed the old mono recordings from the singers from the past since 1938, and a great quartet with powerful singing (which I think I only found in the Azucena of this production) can make the opera really enjoyable, but it's like throughout 60 years, very few singers have recorded the main roles and many times repeated them:

Jussi Björling, Mario del Monaco, Franco Corelli, Carlo Bergonzi, later Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, less times for José Carreras and Roberto Alagna
Mirella Parutto (new discovery), Zinka Milanov, Renata Tebaldi (only studio), Leontyne Price (one of her landmarks) Gabriella Tucci, Antonietta Stella, Maria Callas; later Gheorghiu, Ricciarelli, Plowright and Sutherland with arguable success.
Leonard Warren, Ettore Bastianini (so many recordings!), Rolando Panerai, later Sherrill Milnes, Nesterenko, Piero Cappuccilli and Leo Nucci.
Fedora Barbieri (so so many!), Giulietta Simionato, Fiorenza Cossotto and Irene Dalis and later Brigitte Fassbaender and Shirley Verrett.

Especially historical recordings from 50s and early 60s are now available and show a good deal of performances with different combinations but essentially the same singers. Surely there were many more performances with other singers in other opera stages but these ones have been recorded and preserved.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

DavidA said:


> I have no problem with the nostalgia for what people think is a lost past. The statement: 'We are a group of musicians who are very passionate about restoring opera to its past glory.' How old are these guys? I am in my 70s and I can only just remember Tebaldi & co when I was a young man and only through their records. So unless these guys are a lot older than me it's a pretty firm bet they cannot have seen many of these great singers they quote live on stage. I don't know if anyone here can reach back that far to have actually seen them on stage? I'd be interested. How far can you go back?


This argument made me remember one video about the future of the universe that shows that in 100 Billion years every object or star outside our group of galaxies won't be able to be observed any more, so our civilization won't be able to prove they exist even if we once knew they were there and they will be forced to believe they are the center of the universe since everything ouside the galaxy is pitch black and nothingness. :lol:






From 4:06


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I have no problem with the *nostalgia* for what people think is a lost past. The statement: 'We are a group of musicians who are very passionate about restoring opera to its past glory.' How old are these guys? I am in my 70s and I can only just remember Tebaldi & co when I was a young man and only through their records. So unless these guys are a lot older than me it's a pretty firm bet they cannot have seen many of these great singers they quote live on stage. I don't know if anyone here can reach back that far to have actually seen them on stage? I'd be interested. How far can you go back?


There is a good deal of opera on film from the early postwar years, in addition to a vast treasury of recordings of more singers than most of us have even heard of. I myself continue to be surprised by new discoveries of extraordinary singers from the past. The TIO people have obviously devoted vast amounts of time to exploring these materials. I hardly think that your limited personal experience - and your confessed limited interest in the subject - carries much weight in this conversation, or entitles you to describe other people's opinions as "nostalgia."

I'm not old enough to be "nostalgic" about Flagstad and Melchior as Tristan and Isolde at the Met in the '30s, but I sure as hell know that I cannot today hear those roles sung the way they sang them.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> There is a good deal of opera on film from the early postwar years, in addition to a vast treasury of recordings of more singers than most of us have even heard of. I myself continue to be surprised by new discoveries of extraordinary singers from the past. The TIO people have obviously devoted vast amounts of time to exploring these materials. I hardly think that your limited personal experience - and your confessed limited interest in the subject - carries much weight in this conversation, or entitles you to describe other people's opinions as "nostalgia."
> 
> I'm not old enough to be "nostalgic" about Flagstad and Melchior as Tristan and Isolde at the Met in the '30s, but I sure as hell know that I cannot today hear those roles sung the way they sang them.


So you didn't actually hear them in the opera house of course? How often do you visit the opera house today then? Or in the recent past? Or were you a regular visitor in the past?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Granate said:


> This argument made me remember one video about the future of the universe that shows that in 100 Billion years every object or star outside our group of galaxies won't be able to be observed any more, so our civilization won't be able to prove they exist even if we once knew they were there and they will be forced to believe they are the center of the universe since everything ouside the galaxy is pitch black and nothingness. :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well if you live that long, let me know how it goes! Mind you, I bet they'll still be people banging on about how good it was in the good old days! :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> So you didn't actually hear them in the opera house of course? How often do you visit the opera house today then? Or in the recent past? Or were you a regular visitor in the past?


Your point? (Please don't bother responding unless you have something to contribute besides more of the usual ignorant sniping.)


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Your point? (Please don't bother responding unless you have something to contribute besides more of the usual ignorant sniping.)


Why all the defensiveness. I am simply wondering in view of you continually setting your views out what practical experience you have of the opera house. How is this ignorant sniping?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Why all the defensiveness. I am simply wondering in view of you continually setting your views out what practical experience you have of the opera house. How is this ignorant sniping?


Ignorant sniping is what you do. You've contributed nothing of value to this thread. As several of us have tried to explain to you, your insistence that anyone who sets forth an opinion must satisfy your need to assess their "credentials" is immature, obnoxious, and simply idiotic. Now you want to know if I can "back up" my "continual" statements by "proving" to you my "qualifications" to speak.

I will not play your juvenile game of "And who are YOU to claim to know anything?" Check out my views, research my claims, accept them, reject them - I don't give a tinker's damn.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Ignorant sniping is what you do. You've contributed nothing of value to this thread. As several of us have tried to explain to you, your insistence that anyone who sets forth an opinion must satisfy your need to assess their "credentials" is immature, obnoxious, and simply idiotic. Now you want to know if I can "back up" my "continual" statements by "proving" to you my "qualifications" to speak.
> 
> I will not play your juvenile game of "And who are YOU to claim to know anything?" Check out my views, research my claims, accept them, reject them - I don't give a tinker's damn.


Yes I have checked out your views which is why I (politely) raise questions. But never mind. I don't want to get into name calling. It is not an argument. Agree to differ.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> 'We are a group of musicians who are very passionate about restoring opera to its past glory.'


Maybe they should sell MOGA hats on their site?


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

wkasimer said:


> Maybe they should sell MOGA hats on their site?


More like MAKE OPERA CHESTY AGAIN!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A NOTED CRITIC'S VIEW

This Is Opera's presentations of Nezet-Seguin's coaching of singers were recently brought to the attention of veteran opera critic Conrad L. Osborne, whose comments can be read on the latest installment of his blog, "Osborne on Opera: A Critical Blog." Much of what Osborne says will be hard to follow if you don't have access to the scores being described, but enough is comprehensible to make clear that he agrees with both the reservations generally expressed about TIO's amateurish presentation and the essential soundness of their arguments about singing and opera.

http://conradlosborne.com/2019/10/11/the-nezet-seguin-vocal-technique-kerfuffle/

Osborne notes that TIO are "open to charges of cherry-picking,"and that "fearless pronouncements look a lot less fearless when they're anonymous." But he goes on to illustrate his belief that "The inconvenient thing, though, is that slapdash and rash though they sometimes are, 'This Is Opera's' arguments are, broadly speaking, correct." Of Nezet-Seguin, Osborne says "N-S is an extremely accomplished musician. He seems to be a sincere believer in tireless work on craft, on detail, as the route to freedom with performing material. He has valid insights on musical interpretation, a few of which I'll take note of as we go along. He is clearly a dedicated artist, devoted to the operatic mission. He is also friendly and respectful with his young charges, and not on a power trip with them. All this, though, does not make him a keen analyst of singing technique, or, as suggested above, of the relationship between aesthetic preferences and vocal function. And it is in those capacities that our interest lies here."

For those with the patience to slog through a certain amount of detail, the article may be worth a read.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> A NOTED CRITIC'S VIEW
> 
> This Is Opera's presentations of Nezet-Seguin's coaching of singers were recently brought to the attention of veteran opera critic Conrad L. Osborne, whose comments can be read on the latest installment of his blog, "Osborne on Opera: A Critical Blog." Much of what Osborne says will be hard to follow if you don't have access to the scores being described, but enough is comprehensible to make clear that he agrees with both the reservations generally expressed about TIO's amateurish presentation and the essential soundness of their arguments about singing and opera.
> 
> ...


Thank you. A fascinating article. I've subscribed to his blog too.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

From another article on his site, called "Preamble":


> With respect to singing, the crux of the matter is easily, if baldly, stated: there is a worldwide dearth of voices of sufficient calibre and coloristic span to enable even basically satisfactory renderings of many of the greatest classical works, most obviously those of Verdi and Wagner, but extending to most of what still makes up the standard repertory.... We have reached the point whereat some of the heavier operas not only cannot be well cast by any single company, but could not be so by drawing on the resources of all companies.


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## MarthaAnne (Dec 16, 2019)

Well, she's correct.


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## MarthaAnne (Dec 16, 2019)

vivalagentenuova said:


> From another article on his site, called "Preamble":


From what I am listening to and learning, this is the sad truth.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

MarthaAnne said:


> Well, she's correct.


Based upon?...............................


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

DavidA, 

I have read your posts in this thread and others. Whatever your qualifications may be, you unfortunately argue in a recalcitrant and arrogant manner while accusing others of obduracy or ignorance when disagreeing with you. It appears that you post to "hear" yourself talk and not to have an exchange of ideas. I tend to agree with Wodduck, you do not contribute value and, no, you are not polite in your questions.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

VitellioScarpia said:


> DavidA,
> 
> I have read your posts in this thread and others. Whatever your qualifications may be, you unfortunately argue in a recalcitrant and arrogant manner while accusing others of obduracy or ignorance when disagreeing with you. It appears that you post to "hear" yourself talk and not to have an exchange of ideas. I tend to agree with Wodduck, you do not contribute value and, no, you are not polite in your questions.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

VitellioScarpia said:


> DavidA,
> 
> I have read your posts in this thread and others. Whatever your qualifications may be, you unfortunately argue in a recalcitrant and arrogant manner while accusing others of obduracy or ignorance when disagreeing with you. It appears that you post to "hear" yourself talk and not to have an exchange of ideas. I tend to agree with Wodduck, you do not contribute value and, no, you are not polite in your questions.


Ah, that must have been the post where I said, ' I don't want to get into name calling. It is not an argument. Agree to differ.'


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

Yup, I am a "junior member". Although I have been reading posts here since 2017!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Becca said:


> I don't know who did this, nor am I any expert on the topic, but my reaction is that whoever made the video has an agenda that overrides understanding of the intent of YN-S etc. There is probably a lot of truth in the basic arguments but that doesn't excuse how he went about this presentation.
> 
> Incidentally if there is any one currently active operatic conductor who came up the traditional way as an assistant, coaching etc., it is Pappano.


 Christian Thielemann also began this way , and I know there are some other leading conductors of the same generation who have done this also, even though I can't recall the names offhand .


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

superhorn said:


> Christian Thielemann also began this way , and I know there are some other leading conductors of the same generation who have done this also, even though I can't recall the names offhand .


However, most singers say that conductors since the 80's knew little or nothing about singing, nor they cared much for singers. Apparently, the only one that does today is Muti as he was a singer accompanist when young. However, Muti does not appear to have created a tradition for other conductors.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

VitellioScarpia said:


> However, most singers say that *conductors since the 80's knew little or nothing about singing*, nor they cared much for singers. Apparently, the only one that does today is Muti as he was a singer accompanist when young. However, Muti does not appear to have created a tradition for other conductors.


Interesting! Sir Antonio Pappano's father, Pasquale Pappano, was by vocation a singing teacher so no doubt he taught his son nothing? As from an early age Tony played the piano for his father's singing pupils I guess he might have picked up something? After musical training in piano, composition, and conducting, he became a rehearsal accompanist at the New York City Opera at the age of 21. He is also married to a vocal coach. So is he one who knows nothing about singing?


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Interesting! Sir Antonio Pappano's father, Pasquale Pappano, was by vocation a singing teacher so no doubt he taught his son nothing? As from an early age Tony played the piano for his father's singing pupils I guess he might have picked up something? After musical training in piano, composition, and conducting, he became a rehearsal accompanist at the New York City Opera at the age of 21. He is also married to a vocal coach. So is he one who knows nothing about singing?


Pappano is the exception that confirms the rule and my fault that I forgot about him. Its counterpart is Nézet-Séguin who is now in charge at the Met and makes ludicrous remarks to singers... I have heard performances (e.g., Slatkin comes to mind as an early example in a Tosca with Mitchell and Milnes, not small voices) which were battles by the singers to be heard over the orchestra...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

VitellioScarpia said:


> Pappano is the exception that confirms the rule and my fault that I forgot about him. Its counterpart is Nézet-Séguin who is now in charge at the Met and makes ludicrous remarks to singers... I have heard performances (e.g., Slatkin comes to mind as an early example in a Tosca with Mitchell and Milnes, not small voices) which were battles by the singers to be heard over the orchestra...


Not sure about Nezet-Seguin. He Is not without voice experience as He became the musical director of the Chœur polyphonique de Montréal in 1994 and obtained the same post at Choeur de Laval in 1995. In 1995, he founded his own professional orchestral and vocal ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, with whom he performed two to four concerts a year until 2002. From 1998 to 2002, Nézet-Séguin was chorus master, assistant conductor and music adviser of the Opéra de Montréal.


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Not sure about Nezet-Seguin. He Is not without voice experience as He became the musical director of the Chœur polyphonique de Montréal in 1994 and obtained the same post at Choeur de Laval in 1995. In 1995, he founded his own professional orchestral and vocal ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, with whom he performed two to four concerts a year until 2002. From 1998 to 2002, Nézet-Séguin was chorus master, assistant conductor and music adviser of the Opéra de Montréal.


Choral singing can be very different in terms of technique than solo and opera singing. I have done both and I was never challenged with choral writing as I was in solo singing in my vocal technique. Nézet-Séguin's statements in some videos were "surprising" to me. But hey, I am not a conductor...


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

wkasimer said:


> I believe that you mean that he doesn't sing as loudly. Mattei also sings in tune, doesn't wobble, doesn't resort to bluster, and is able to sing in a wide range of repertoire and genres with intelliigence and style. Yeah, I'd probably prefer to hear Merrill or a young MacNeil in the Paliacci Prologo or as Rigoletto. I'd prefer Mattei in virtually everything else.
> 
> If the only things that matter to you are big, beefy, barely controlled voices singing Verdi and verismo, well, suit yourself.


You couldn't pay me to listen to Peter Mattei. Everything he sings is composed 50% of straight tones and 100% of muffled warbling. It sounds incredibly unfree, boring, and nothing at all like classical singing. I mean seriously, what's with all the straight tones? He's basically a pop crooner. It's truly awful, and the fact that you would adduce that as a positive example immediately disqualifies you as a competent listener.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

PaulFranz said:


> You couldn't pay me to listen to Peter Mattei. Everything he sings is composed 50% of straight tones and 100% of muffled warbling. It sounds incredibly unfree, boring, and nothing at all like classical singing. I mean seriously, what's with all the straight tones? He's basically a pop crooner. It's truly awful, and the fact that you would adduce that as a positive example immediately disqualifies you as a competent listener.


I've enjoyed what little I've heard of Peter Mattei, so go ahead and disqualify me as well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

> _Originally Posted by _*wkasimer *
> 
> Mattei also sings in tune, doesn't wobble, doesn't resort to bluster, and is able to sing in a wide range of repertoire and genres with intelliigence and style. Yeah, I'd probably prefer to hear Merrill or a young MacNeil in the Paliacci Prologo or as Rigoletto. I'd prefer Mattei in virtually everything else.





PaulFranz said:


> You couldn't pay me to listen to Peter Mattei. Everything he sings is composed 50% of straight tones and 100% of muffled warbling. It sounds incredibly unfree, boring, and nothing at all like classical singing. I mean seriously, what's with all the straight tones? He's basically a pop crooner. It's truly awful, and the fact that you would adduce that as a positive example immediately disqualifies you as a competent listener.


I'll be a touch more moderate than PaulFranz and say that I find Mattei's basic sound pleasant and his dramatic sense often strong; for example, I was surprised at how well his lyric baritone managed the role of Amfortas, his portrayal of whom I found moving (on radio), and he seems quite an amusing Figaro in _Barbiere_ from the bit I've seen. He does have conspicuous weaknesses, however. I find this, for example, a rather baffling substitute for legato singing (try to ignore the stupid regie production):






That kind of note-by-note "expressiveness" is something we ought to get over before we ever sing in public. An instrumentalist could never get away with it. Compare a true legato:






Onegin's aria exhibits those abundant vibratoless tones mentioned by PaulFranz:






If he can't vibrate the short notes as well as the long ones, he has a technical problem. If it's a choice, he has a musical problem.

Few singers are perfect, but these particular faults do mark Mattei as amateurish, however pleasing one may find his timbre and stage presence.


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> That kind of note-by-note "expressiveness" is something we ought to get over before we ever sing in public. An instrumentalist could never get away with it.







A comment on this version of the same aria: 
"Barry Tonelove
il y a 5 ans
The amount of pitch problems and straight tone in his singing are not acceptable. Peter is a great singer, but in this video it is not good."

I would put that in much stronger words, as you have doubtless seen, but I agree fully with the first sentence.

EDIT: also, the straight tones are not exclusively on shorter notes. He starts many longer notes with a straight tone and then adds vibrato, like a hack cabaret singer. The first syllable of "immer" about 25 seconds into the version posted by Woodduck illustrates this phenomenon.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

PaulFranz said:


> A comment on this version of the same aria:
> "Barry Tonelove
> il y a 5 ans
> The amount of pitch problems and straight tone in his singing are not acceptable. Peter is a great singer, but in this video it is not good."
> ...


It seems he has more trouble with the vibrato on the lower notes. It's too bad, as he has a nice voice (good chest voice too, which is lacking nowadays); if he figured the issues out, I feel he could be really good.


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

I highly doubt that he will ever "figure it out," considering that he's doing it on purpose and is in excellent company among other modern Lieder-crooner-light-opera singers like Gerhaher and Quasthoff. Furthermore, he is 56, which is long past the prime of any working baritone.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

amfortas said:


> I've enjoyed what little I've heard of Peter Mattei, so go ahead and disqualify me as well.


Oh boo hoo! I have been disqualified and thrown to the ranks of an incompetent listener by a bloviated expert named Paul Franz. Who knew???


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

PaulFranz said:


> You couldn't pay me to listen to Peter Mattei. Everything he sings is composed 50% of straight tones and 100% of muffled warbling. It sounds incredibly unfree, boring, and nothing at all like classical singing. I mean seriously, what's with all the straight tones? He's basically a pop crooner. It's truly awful, and the fact that you would adduce that as a positive example immediately disqualifies you as a competent listener.


Fair enough. But I must ask - are there any active singers whose singing you consider satisfactory? Because based on what you've written on TC, I would think that for you, attending a performance would require heavy pre-performance use of sedatives.


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

wkasimer said:


> Fair enough. But I must ask - are there any active singers whose singing you consider satisfactory? Because based on what you've written on TC, I would think that for you, attending a performance would require heavy pre-performance use of sedatives.


Hm. It's tempting to just say no, but there are a few here and there, and doubtless more that I haven't heard of. I don't go to live performances anymore because...well you know. It depends on what you consider "active"...I like Domingo and Alagna in certain rep, though they're just about done. I quite liked Rubén Amoretti, but his voice is leaving him rapidly. And of course, "satisfactory" depends on the context. I've sung with plenty of people I'd consider good for a small regional house, but singing the most demanding roles consistently in the most famous houses and winning recording contracts is a whole other ballgame. By far the best person I've ever sung with is Niklas Spångberg. Among the up-and-comers I see on Youtube, I like Bror Magnus Tødenes, Arseny Yakovlev, and Matthew White, though I don't really follow their careers. Oh and Philippe Castagner can sing, despite his manifest insanity. If operas had casts generally at their level, I would go again.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

PaulFranz said:


> Hm. It's tempting to just say no, but there are a few here and there, and doubtless more that I haven't heard of. I don't go to live performances anymore because...well you know. It depends on what you consider "active"...I like Domingo and Alagna in certain rep, though they're just about done. I quite liked Rubén Amoretti, but his voice is leaving him rapidly. And of course, "satisfactory" depends on the context. I've sung with plenty of people I'd consider good for a small regional house, but singing the most demanding roles consistently in the most famous houses and winning recording contracts is a whole other ballgame. By far the best person I've ever sung with is Niklas Spångberg. Among the up-and-comers I see on Youtube, I like Bror Magnus Tødenes, Arseny Yakovlev, and Matthew White, though I don't really follow their careers. Oh and Philippe Castagner can sing, despite his manifest insanity. If operas had casts generally at their level, I would go again.


Thanks. I just "auditioned" the singers you mentioned via YouTube (other than Domingo and Alagna, whose singing I know well, and don't care for much). It's hard to get any idea of a singer via YouTube, particularly with piano accompaniment, but I was impressed by Amoretti and Tødenes (the latter has a recital on Spotify, which I'll listen to later today), less by some of the others.

But I think that it's safe to say that you and I differ considerably about what constitutes good singing.


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