# Final Round: Voi Che Sapate: Berganza, Von Stade



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

125,773 views Sep 25, 2009 Cherubino's second act aria from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Teresa Berganza - Cherubino English Chamber Orchestra & Daniel Barenboim. Recorded in 1977. 




Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K.492 / Act 2 - "Voi che sapete" · Frederica von Stade · London Philharmonic Orchestra · Sir Georg Solti


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

That was an easy vote for me, because I complained in the second round, that I want Teresa Berganza from the first round back


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm afraid I find the lovely Von Stade's perfect purity of voice and manner perfectly uninteresting. I've never found Berganza a particularly interesting singer either, but she does let us know, here and there, that she understands and cares about the words she's singing. I realize now that this piece is only a song sung to the lady of the manor, but if you're going to perform, young man, _perform!_

I can't help remarking - even though I'm starting to feel like an old grouch when it comes to the matter of style in Mozart - that both conductors maintain an absolute, mechanical rigidity of tempo from start to finish, not even slowing up where it would seem so natural as to be obligatory, leading into the reprise of "Voi che sapete." I know I'm about forty years too late with this complaint, but forty years ago I wouldn't have cared enough about Mozart to make it. That's progress, I guess.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I like both of these ladies, but Von Stade is my choice…still.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I'm afraid I find the lovely Von Stade's perfect purity of voice and manner perfectly uninteresting. I've never found Berganza a particularly interesting singer either, but she does let us know, here and there, that she understands and cares about the words she's singing. I realize now that this piece is only a song sung to the lady of the manor, but if you're going to perform, young man, _perform!_
> 
> I can't help remarking - even though I'm starting to feel like an old grouch when it comes to the matter of style in Mozart - that both conductors maintain an absolute, mechanical rigidity of tempo from start to finish, not even slowing up where it would seem so natural as to be obligatory, leading into the reprise of "Voi che sapete." I know I'm about forty years too late with this complaint, but forty years ago I wouldn't have cared enough about Mozart to make it. That's progress, I guess.


I'm stoopid🤓 here but was Mozart sometimes conducted with a more variable tempo up till the time we were in our teens? Some of these things are not on my radar and I am trying to learn.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I still like Von Stade best. I just can't get her Glyndebourne Cherubino out of my head. She's been my ideal ever since.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I still like Von Stade best. I just can't get her Glyndebourne Cherubino out of my head. She's been my ideal ever since.


I'm so envious of the people you and Mas have seen live!!!! I was really into her when I was younger.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I'm so envious of the people you and Mas have seen live!!!! I was really into her when I was younger.


I didn't see it live, but I remember it being shown on TV when I was still at college. They decided to televise it because the production had been so successful and in order to capture the superb performances of the three female leads, Ileana Cotrubas as Susanna, Kiri Te Kanawa as the Countess and Frederca Von Stade as Cherubino, none of whom were particularly well known at the time.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I like both so I will compromise and vote for Maria Ewing 

What happened to getting her in the contest?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I know I'm about forty years too late with this complaint, but forty years ago I wouldn't have cared enough about Mozart to make it. That's progress, I guess.


Let's see, in another 0.4 century, how much further we change.  (I was born exactly 2 centuries after Mozart's death, btw.)


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Becca said:


> I like both so I will compromise and vote for Maria Ewing
> 
> What happened to getting her in the contest?


The Ewing clip is taken from the 1976 filmed version of "Nozze" - It appears to have been transferred from a VHS cassette to a CD-R and then converted into an MOV file and uploaded to YouTube - There are noticeable speed variations as a result of the multi-format transfer - It results in a rather odd "bleating goat" effect which I haven't found in any of her other arias which are available.

There are at least six other performers that I've found that she can square off against but the scheduling and all other contest decisions are made by SOF. Apparently my job is to "look pretty, wear something sexy, and make coffee"...


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> There are at least six other performers that I've found that she can square off against but the scheduling and all other contest decisions are made by SOF. Apparently my job is to "look pretty, wear something sexy, and get coffee"...


Oyy vay!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I'm stoopid🤓 here but was Mozart sometimes conducted with a more variable tempo up till the time we were in our teens? Some of these things are not on my radar and I am trying to learn.


I haven't listened to enough Mozart performances to be able to answer this, but in the post-Toscanini era there was a movement against "excessive" rubato and tempo fluctuation in music-making, particularly conducting. 19th and early 20th century musicians could be quite free with tempo; the tempo fluctuation we hear in a Mengelberg or a Caruso is very much in line with what seem to have been the practices of Wagner (see his essay "On Conducting") and Mahler. But such expressions of subjectivity, personality, and creative responsiveness to the emotional dynamics implicit in music died out to the extent that modern musicians seem to have no idea how to play with time for expressive purposes and think that unmarked tempo changes are somehow in bad taste. I suspect that a terror of inaccuracy in execution, fed by the permanence of recordings, is also a factor.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Shaughnessy said:


> The Ewing clip is taken from the 1976 filmed version of "Nozze" - It appears to have been transferred from a VHS cassette to a CD-R and then converted into an MP3 file and uploaded to YouTube - There are noticeable speed variations as a result of the multi-format transfer - It results in a rather odd "bleating goat" effect which I haven't found in any of her other arias which are available.
> 
> There are at least six other performers that I've found that she can square off against but the scheduling and all other contest decisions are made by SOF. Apparently my job is to "look pretty, wear something sexy, and get coffee"...


I was mainly going to do an extra round for Ewing, but as S... said it wasn't a good copy. I have too many other contest I want to get to. If there is wide protest i can reopen the rounds.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

^^ No need. For those interested, here is a semi-reasonable video of it...


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect that a terror of inaccuracy in execution, fed by the permanence of recordings, is also a factor.


Absolutely. Practically every performer is terrified of making “mistakes” to the point that spontaneity in music making in the classical music and opera realms, which naturally includes singing, has been lost. No one knows how to use rubato let alone properly (for it better be done properly lest it turns vulgar) which is so crucial to bring music to life. To summarize, straitjacketing is the order of the day and I don’t think there is a turning back. A lost art.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Becca said:


> ^^ No need. For those interested, here is a semi-reasonable video of it...


Her resemblance with a teenager is frightening.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

ColdGenius said:


> Her resemblance with a teenager is frightening.


How many mezzos who have sung Cherubino have gone on to successfully sing Salome and even go fully naked on stage during the dance which I saw at Covent Garden?


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Becca said:


> How many mezzos who have sung Cherubino have gone on to successfully sing Salome and even go fully naked on stage during the dance which I saw at Covent Garden?


I can't remember any mezzo, except her, who sang Salome. As for nudity, there was Catherine Malfitano, also one of a few who could dance.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

ColdGenius said:


> I can't remember any mezzo, except her, who sang Salome. As for nudity, there was Catherine Malfitano, also one of a few who could dance.


Bumbry but she was a hybrid Mezzo/ Soprano.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> How many mezzos who have sung Cherubino have gone on to successfully sing Salome and even go fully naked on stage during the dance which I saw at Covent Garden?


I believe it has only happened once before. Figaro thought he was sending Cherubino off to a reputable military academy that would make a man of him, never suspecting that the strangely androgynous youth was a _mezzosexual _who was soon to go AWOL and run off to Vienna, where he would call himself "Quinquin," win the favor of a middle-aged aristocratic lady by telling her she didn't look a day over twenty-three, seduce a debutante with fake flowers doused with cheap perfume, and end up in London stripping for the Royal Family.


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