# Round One: Ich kann nicht sitzen from Elektra. Studer and Voigt



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Please, please be nice to each other. This is a test. This is some of the most beautifull music in the opera.




Chrysothemis - Cheryl Studer Live, 1989, Chor und Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Claudio Abbado




R. Strauss: Elektra Op. 58 (Ich kann nicht sitzen; Chrysothemsis' scene) · Deborah Voigt · Natascha Petrinsky · Sir Richard Armstrong · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I URGE you strongly to also listen to the great Glenn Gould's piano transcription of this aria. He even sings a little bit. It is very powerful and beautiful!!! If you have never heard the eccentric Gould before he sings along with his playing when he gets really carried away. I think his voice is beautiful. I read three books on him and did a speech at Toastmasters on him and it was well received. I wish I had taped it.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I truly love the plush gorgeous sound of Voigt here from her heavy days and even better in the live video version from a concert performance and she is really into the emotions of the aria BUT Studer is absolutely incandescent here! She is soooo passionate!!!!!!!! Both hot but Studer is hotter IMHO. I saw Voigt right after her weight loss before her voice went downhill. It was a big round sound but not as big as Jane Eaglen's titanic voice. I think it would have been a good size for this role but not for the big Wagner roles. Where she really shown was in her encore. She sat at the piano and played and sang " I love a piano" and it was electrifying. Her playing was really exciting. If you would like to see Voigt's live version it begins about a minute in this clip. I thought she had a pretty face even when she was as big as a house


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

It is really impossible to pick between these two singers as presented here, both relishing Strauss’s crazy, soaring vocal lines. Studer is live, delving into the lines with gusto. Voigt sings from a studio recording, but sings it just as urgently. I can’t yet make up my mind. Too late at night?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Studer gets about as much out of this as can be got. I even prefer her timbre to Voigt's, which has never suggested to me the dramatic soprano she thought she was. Studer's voice isn't that either, but it has more incisiveness, clarity and core, which allowed her to take on heavier parts than one might expect her to. I don't think it was the weight loss alone that accounted for Voigt's deterioration.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I URGE you strongly to also listen to the great Glenn Gould's piano transcription of this aria. He even sings a little bit. It is very powerful and beautiful!!!


I believe the expression is "LOL."


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Unusual music, not voting, want to have fun reading what others wrote.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BBSVK said:


> Unusual music, not voting, want to have fun reading what others wrote.


It is sort of early twentieth century stuff and of the same school as his writing for Salome. Not atonal, but kind of odd. You really hear the oddness in Gould's transcription. BUT when it takes off it is magnificently lyrical and very very moving. It is all about a woman wanting to be normal and have children and leave her haunted family behind her. Both singers are quite wonderful in their own way. After Salome and Elektra he moved away from the twisted psychological stuff.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

@Seattleoperafan Salome is easier for me. I am getting used to Elektra as well, but not enough to tell how I want it sung.

I hope she will have those children eventually


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Please, please be nice to each other. This is a test. This is some of the most beautifull music in the opera.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I came back to see if I can choose now. The pattern is the same as in thr round two - I prefer if the voice appears less high pitched and the words more clear, which is Cheryl Studer.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> ...
> Studer's voice isn't that either, but it has more incisiveness, clarity and core,
> ...


Would you say that this appearance of lower pitch, even if the same tones are sung - it this that mythical "core" which I never understand ?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BBSVK said:


> Would you say that this appearance of lower pitch, even if the same tones are sung - it this that mythical "core" which I never understand ?


"Core" is a metaphor, like much of the terminology we use to describe sounds. A voice with "core" conveys the impression of steady, solid, clear tone without extraneous noise or air in the sound. The sound of an oboe has core. The sound of a kazoo doesn't.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

I've just known what is a kazoo. Why?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

ColdGenius said:


> I've just known what is a kazoo. Why?


It is like an instrument children play.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

ColdGenius said:


> I've just known what is a kazoo. Why?


Thanks for reminding me. I have concealed I don't know what kazoo is and meant to look it up later. Now I did


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> It is like an instrument children play.





BBSVK said:


> Thanks for reminding me. I have concealed I don't know what kazoo is and meant to look it up later. Now I did


I didn't know it is called a kazoo. Indeed, my daughter has something like that. We both try to blow in it, me in a pitiful attempt to play _Che facesti? _Well, at least it's playing in my head.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I truly love the plush gorgeous sound of Voigt here from her heavy days and even better in the live video version from a concert performance and she is really into the emotions of the aria BUT Studer is absolutely incandescent here! She is soooo passionate!!!!!!!! Both hot but Studer is hotter IMHO. I saw Voigt right after her weight loss before her voice went downhill. It was a big round sound but not as big as Jane Eaglen's titanic voice. I think it would have been a good size for this role but not for the big Wagner roles. Where she really shown was in her encore. She sat at the piano and played and sang " I love a piano" and it was electrifying. Her playing was really exciting. If you would like to see Voigt's live version it begins about a minute in this clip. I thought she had a pretty face even when she was as big as a house


I love love love Voigt in this performance. I think she sounds gorgeous. It's purely personal preference but I much prefer Voigt's sound to Studer's.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

damianjb1 said:


> I love love love Voigt in this performance. I think she sounds gorgeous. It's purely personal preference but I much prefer Voigt's sound to Studer's.


Voigt was not always the most exciting singer but before and just after her gastric bypass she had one of the most beautiful voices ever heard live. It was lush without being distracting and she had a great bloom to the voice on top up to C. Her C in the Siegfried Duet is one of the most beautiful I ever heard. It was a very big, plush, round sound which you don't often hear at C. I hated that pinched sound she developed a few years into her new black dress weight. It was no longer a gorgeous voice. I was lucky to hear her in recital a year after her weight loss before the problems kicked in. I also saw her in Der Freischutz but I don't remember much as I really didn't enjoy the opera and wasn't in a good mood to enjoy her singing.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Voigt was not always the most exciting singer but before and just after her gastric bypass she had one of the most beautiful voices ever heard live. It was lush without being distracting and she had a great bloom to the voice on top up to C. Her C in the Siegfried Duet is one of the most beautiful I ever heard. It was a very big, plush, round sound which you don't often hear at C. I hated that pinched sound she developed a few years into her new black dress weight. It was no longer a gorgeous voice. I was lucky to hear her in recital a year after her weight loss before the problems kicked in. I also saw her in Der Freischutz but I don't remember much as I really didn't enjoy the opera and wasn't in a good mood to enjoy her singing.


I'm so glad to hear you say that about her Brunnhilde high C in Siegfried. A real test for me has always been Brunnhilde's first few lines in Siegfried. Brunnhilde's Awakening is one of my favourite passages in all music and I want to hear a goddess. Deborah Voigt on the Domingo Wagner Duets CD is one of my favourites. She sounds magnificent. It's a real shame that by the time she came to sing the role on stage her voice was nowhere near what it had been at its best.
My favourite 'goddess' Brunnhilde's are Flagstaff, Varnay and Voigt (on the CD - NOT on stage).


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

BBSVK said:


> Thanks for reminding me.* I have concealed I don't know what kazoo is* and meant to look it up later. Now I did





ColdGenius said:


> *I didn't know it is called a kazoo*. Indeed, my daughter has something like that. We both try to blow in it, me in a pitiful attempt to play _Che facesti? _Well, at least it's playing in my head.


Kind of a Christmas gift for the two of you - Have a box of tissues handy when the black mascara stained tears of ecstasy roll down your freshly shaven cheeks...

Two gifts in one - A kazoo and ukulele version of "Nessun Dorma" 



Spoiler: Nessun Dorma (for kazoo and ukulele)


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Shaughnessy said:


> Kind of a Christmas gift for the two of you - Have a box of tissues handy when the black mascara stained tears of ecstasy roll down your freshly shaven cheeks...
> 
> Two gifts in one - A kazoo and ukulele version of "Nessun Dorma"
> 
> ...


I can't listen to it now, I'm in the theater!


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Thanks for posting this contest.

I love Studer and I love Elektra, so this is a lovely treat for me (especially since few others here share my love).

I haven't heard Voigt in this aria, but I'm not a fan and so expect to be voting for Studer who delivers a searingly passionate Chrysosthemis here. There's a scalpel like directness to her voice that will no doubt put some off, but I adore the strength of her committment to the role and that's what I'm getting here, not just a difficult stretch of music sung well or beautifully, but an emotional portrayal. Technically it all works too, the vowels are nicely centered (well as far as possible with this music) and then... tack! At the end the voice takes off and soars (that is it can be heard above the orchestra and still retains its beauty, it's sheen and bloom and it's vibrato). Loud AND aesthetically pleasing.

Voigt is better than I expected (which is good). Hers is a more down to earth performance (and her diction is better than Studer's). In some ways this is difficult as Voigt does very well and certainly sounds more in control than Studer. She doesn't have the overwhelming passion of Studer though.

I hadn't expected this to be so close! I'm going with Studer, but Voigt would have been in the running to win if up against a different Chrysosthemis.

N.


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