# Single Round. Mixed voices. Verrett, Croft, Podles



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Please read my notes below for explanation. I always mess up. This time I neglected to put the aria in the title. Oh, well.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

We are taking a short break from the baritones. This is a favorite aria of mine but it is not reliably sung by Orfeos, I guess because it is difficult. Ferrier skipped it. I wish I had Janet Baker's version which was wonderful but it is not on Youtube. Very few options are available on Youtube for this which is why we have jumbled up genders on this. All sing well and you should enjoy. Like in lieder it is fun to hear how a piece sounds with different sexes performing an aria.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Apparently this aria was added by Gluck to a French version of the opera years after the original Italian version of *Orfeo ed Euriduce* named *Orphee et Eurydice *. There are several versions of the opera, adapted for different voices. Very confusing.

Both Shirley Verret and Dwayne Croft sound hard pressed to me, so I'll vote for the more fluid Ewa Podles. The aria is not one of my favorites as I think it is spurious and does not fit in with the rest of the piece, perhaps owing to the various versions.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Podles takes the crown.
I simply adore Verrett -- she is tops with me, but not in this. I'll stick to her Tosca with Pavarotti. 
(and everything else)


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Verrett excels in coloratura in L'assedio di Corinto: "Non temer, d'un basso affetto" so I wonder why she is not shining with you guys here. Perhaps this is later???? Perhaps you don't think she is cut our for coloratura singing. Interesting.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Made a boo boo.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Made a boo boo.


By boo boo do you mean because Verrett was actually considered a mezzo for years and finally transitioned to soprano, though I never thought of her as a coloratura.
She was not only beautiful to look at -- such grace -- but she was a fine actress as well. She was the whole package to me.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> By boo boo do you mean because Verrett was actually considered a mezzo for years and finally transitioned to soprano, though I never thought of her as a coloratura.
> She was not only beautiful to look at -- such grace -- but she was a fine actress as well. She was the whole package to me.


Funny. No. Changed mind about a posting and you are required to create so many words to post..She was great at Tosca and Norma, but I thought her voice lost it's creamy, chocolaty texture down low when she sang soprano. I liked her coloratura but maybe I cut her slack as I love her singing mezzo. I see one person liked her version


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

As MAS has said, the aria was added for the Paris production of 1774, but it wasn't new, Gluck having lifted it from the earlier *Aristeo*.For Paris he re-cast the role of Orpheus for a haut-contre, or high tenor (in Vienna the role had been played by an alto castrato). Things are further compicated by the fact that there is a later Paris version, prepared by Berlioz for the mezzo Pauline Viardot. There are qute a few differences between the original Paris version and the Berlioz version. Finally, the version which we heard most often until recently, was based on a La Scala revival of 1889, which is mostly, but not entirely, the Berlioz version but in Italian. Marilyn Horne and Janet Baker both more or less recorded this 1889 version, in which the aria is called "Addio, addio, o miei sospiri".

So to the versions we hear here. I see that Richard Croft appears to be singing the 1774 version (though I'm surmising in a lower key), whilst Verrett and Podles are singing the Berlioz version, with, I assume Viardot's own added ornamentation. This would explain why Croft's version is about a minute shorter than the two mezzos. He manages the coloratura pretty well and I enjoyed this, but all in all I prefer it sung by a woman.

That said, I find it hard to choose between Verrett and Podles. Podles is technically stunning and, just as pure singing, she should win this one, but I have a bit of an emotional attachment to Verrett, and I feel she more convincingly suggests the male Orpheus. Incidentally, Verett sang quite a few coloratura roles with a fair degree of sucess; Elisabeth I in *Maria Stuarda*, Neocle in *L'Assedio di Corinto*, both Adalgisa and Norma. She also recorded a complete *Orfeo*, which is essentially the 1889 Milan version in Italian, but omitting _Addio, addio_ (the Italian version of this aria) so it is good that she got to record it separately for this recital dating from 1967, when she definitely considered herself a mezzo.

I should probably vote for Podles, whose coloratura is cleaner and more accomplished than Verrett's (it has to be admitted that she is occasionally a bit sketchy), but I prefer Verrett's timbre and so, perversly maybe, I'm voting for her.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Croft or Podles for me - Verrett is lovely but sounds forced sometimes in the fluid passages. I do have her Neocles but would prefer her in the more "modern" French and Italian repertoire.
Croft sings every bit as if in a Bach cantata, with precision - but Podles makes it sound spectacular. The uneasy bit comes as an additional overtone at 3:01 - 3:04, but it's still a very minor point.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I've never heard this coloratura showpiece, and I'm surprised to learn that Gluck stuck it into his rather sedate exercise in neoclassical purity, his version of the Orpheus myth. I'm guessing it expresses the hero's joy at getting his wife back. Did an opera house, or some virtuoso singer, demand a crowd-pleaser? Whatever. I really can't choose between these singers, all of whom seem to have the aria's considerable vocal demands, and minimal interpretive ones, well enough in hand.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I've never heard this coloratura showpiece, and I'm surprised to learn that Gluck stuck it into his rather sedate exercise in neoclassical purity, his version of the Orpheus myth. I'm guessing it expresses the hero's joy at getting his wife back. Did an opera house, or some virtuoso singer, demand a crowd-pleaser? Whatever. I really can't choose between these singers, all of whom seem to have the aria's considerable vocal demands, and minimal interpretive ones, well enough in hand.


I love the aria but it sticks out in the refined atmosphere of the rest of the role. The rest is more like Alceste.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I've never heard this coloratura showpiece, and I'm surprised to learn that Gluck stuck it into his rather sedate exercise in neoclassical purity, his version of the Orpheus myth. I'm guessing it expresses the hero's joy at getting his wife back. Did an opera house, or some virtuoso singer, demand a crowd-pleaser? Whatever. I really can't choose between these singers, all of whom seem to have the aria's considerable vocal demands, and minimal interpretive ones, well enough in hand.


Actually no it doesn't Orphée sings it in Act I. It is a rallying cry for love to give him the courage to go down to Hades to get Eurydice back. The original lyrics were _L'amour vient au secours _. Berlioz changed some of the lyrics for Viardot and she added her own ornamentation, when they made their version in 1859.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The stuff Verett does at 4:24 in her performance reminds me of




(AMAZING Mozart 3 - 3rd movement Cadenza)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I'm surprised to learn that Gluck stuck it into his rather sedate exercise in neoclassical purity, his version of the Orpheus myth. I'm guessing it expresses the hero's joy at getting his wife back. Did an opera house, or some virtuoso singer, demand a crowd-pleaser? Whatever.


It seems that even Monteverdi's version (where not only does the hero fail in his quest, he gets abducted, adding insult to injury) was apparently way too disturbingly tragic for the _enlightened_ sensibilities.


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