# Voices that record poorly



## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Edita Gruberová has been the Prima Donna of the Munich Opera for decades. She's now 66 and still singing most demanding roles at major opera houses and venues, to the joy of her audience and still often raving reviews. Inevitably of course, her voice does now show more or less obvious signs of wear but that's not what I'm trying to comment on.

I'd heard her live for the first time almost 20 years ago (in "Lucia di Lammermoor"), and she absolutely blew me away. Those coloraturas, wonderful seemingly effortless agility, rich top notes, marvelously creative vocal characterization, and a pianissimo that made the chills go down my spine! However, when I heard her do the same part on CD, I couldn't believe that it was supposed to be the same singer. The technique was still there (but felt somewhat cold) and so was her timbre in mid-range, but the magic of the pianissimi was gone, and those high notes sounded like she was being stabbed. Absolutely the negative caricature of a Bel Canto soprano (in my ears). And it was not just this particular recording. I loved her in the opera house and in concert halls where her voice sounded perfect to me but I could never find that on recordings, even of that very performance! (And again, it's not only recent recordings that I'm referring to -- they really don't sound so well but that's not my point.)

Maybe it's in my head but I've never made a similar experience with another voice. Have you experienced this (what must be an acoustic) phenomenon with a singer's voice: live great, recorded poor?


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Ebab said:


> Edita Gruberová has been the Prima Donna of the Munich Opera for decades. She's now 66 and still singing most demanding roles at major opera houses and venues, to the joy of her audience and still often raving reviews. Inevitably of course, her voice does now show more or less obvious signs of wear but that's not what I'm trying to comment on.
> 
> I'd heard her live for the first time almost 20 years ago (in "Lucia di Lammermoor"), and she absolutely blew me away. Those coloraturas, wonderful seemingly effortless agility, rich top notes, marvelously creative vocal characterization, and a pianissimo that made the chills go down my spine! However, when I heard her do the same part on CD, I couldn't believe that it was supposed to be the same singer. The technique was still there, and so was her timbre in mid-range, but the magic of the pianissimi was gone, and those high notes sounded like she was being stabbed. Absolutely the negative caricature of a Bel Canto soprano (in my ears). And it was not just this poor recording. I loved her in the opera house and in concert halls where her voice sounded perfect to me but I could never find that on recordings, even of that very performance! (And again, it's not only recent recordings that I'm referring to -- they really don't sound so well but that's not my point.)
> 
> Maybe it's in my head but I've never made a similar experience with another voice. Have you experienced this (what must be an acoustic) phenomenon with a singer's voice: live great, recorded poor?


I have experienced the same problem with Jan Peerce's RCA recordings and I've always thought that Geraint Evans did not sound right in recordings.


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## suteetat (Feb 25, 2013)

I would throw in Alexandra Marc. Her recording as Chrysothemis in Elektra with Barenboim, Verdi's Requeim with Barenboim/CSO, Sieglinde with von Dohnanyi really came no where close to when she performed lived as Chrysothemis and Verdi's Requeim with CSO. I only heard Gruberova lived once and I would agree that her voice is not captured all that well. Although her Lucia's recording is still one of my favourite. Dawn Upshaw voice can be rather thin and brittle on her recording and sounded much better with the right role lived.

I wonder what Nilsson's voice would be like lived. She kept complaining that when she sang in studio, she kept overloading the microphone and the recording engineer kept asking her to back away from the microphone again and again.


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