# Is it okay to cheat????



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Jessye Norman sings the Immolation Scene very beautifully here BUT she lowers every high note by 2 or 3 notes. They are all harmonic with the music so the change is not jarring, but nevertheless. I can see one note. A number of sopranos omit or change the C in the conclusion of Siegfried ( Farrell, Traubel), but we are talking 4 or 5 key high notes in this instance. I think she was a mezzo by this point in her career and should not have been undertaking these parts. I say this as a fan of Jessye, particularly fat early Jessye. What is your feedback?? She used to be the queen of the Four Last Songs of Strauss, but after the weightloss she only sang the ones that never went above G.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Only, I would say, in exceptional circumstances, like Schwarzkopf providing a couple of Flagstad's top Cs in the Furtwängler recording of *Tristan und Isolde*. Had she not done so we would no doubt have been deprived of a studio representation of Flagstad's legendary Isolde.

Of course some would say Domingo cheated when he declined to sing the _unwritten_ top Cs in Manrico's _Di quella pira_, as he did when I heard him sing the role at Covent Garden. No doubt some would have preferred it if he'd transposed the aria down so that he could appear to be singing the top Cs, but he flatly refused to hoodwink the public in that way, and I have to say I agree with him.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

To my experience, I would rather the artist "cheat" and thereby preserve the overall effect of the opera if there is a risk of a jarring failure that will poison the entire experience.

But I understand if one has a favorite passage and is deprived of the full brilliance by the artist seeming to take an easy way out.


So a compromise that I am comfortable with is that in a full operatic performance you do what you have to do to preserve the flow of the whole, but in a "selections from" or highlights type show, you have to get it right because that is what everyone is listening for.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

GregMitchell said:


> Of course some would say Domingo cheated when he declined to sing the _unwritten_ top Cs in Manrico's _Di quella pira_, as he did when I heard him sing the role at Covent Garden. No doubt some would have preferred it if he'd transposed the aria down so that he could appear to be singing the top Cs, but he flatly refused to hoodwink the public in that way, and I have to say I agree with him.


Let's not be too quick to canonize Domingo. He certainly asked for, and received wholesale transpositions of certain roles (Alvaro and Gherman, among others), sometimes putting baritone colleagues at a disadvantage.

With respect to the original question, I'm perfectly OK with transpositions and omitted high notes, as long as a) the result is musically coherent and b) the performer has something else to compensate for the omissions/transpositions.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> Let's not be too quick to canonize Domingo. He certainly asked for, and received wholesale transpositions of certain roles (Alvaro and Gherman, among others), sometimes putting baritone colleagues at a disadvantage.
> 
> With respect to the original question, I'm perfectly OK with transpositions and omitted high notes, as long as a) the result is musically coherent and b) the performer has something else to compensate for the omissions/transpositions.


I agree. I am pleased with Jessye's performance here, but she did it again ( in the same dress.... and she calls herself a diva?) in Seattle on tv as well and my recollection is it came off more as sounding like she was singing flat as opposed to a consciously substituted notes that were harmonic, like she did here. In most of the piece she was wonderful, but a shadow of her performance with the correct notes 15 years before on disc when she was at her peak It was one of my favorite Immolation Scenes.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Only, I would say, in exceptional circumstances, like Schwarzkopf providing a couple of Flagstad's top Cs in the Furtwängler recording of *Tristan und Isolde*. Had she not done so we would no doubt have been deprived of a studio representation of Flagstad's legendary Isolde.
> 
> Of course some would say Domingo cheated when he declined to sing the _unwritten_ top Cs in Manrico's _Di quella pira_, as he did when I heard him sing the role at Covent Garden. No doubt some would have preferred it if he'd transposed the aria down so that he could appear to be singing the top Cs, but he flatly refused to hoodwink the public in that way, and I have to say I agree with him.


To take the Domingo story a bit farther: Schuyler Chapin, in his book, mentions the time Domingo was so frightened about taking the high note in "Pira" that they had a stand-in waiting in the pit so that when the time came Domingo would lip synch while the other tenor actually sang the note. That was the plan anyway, but finally when time came, what happened? Domingo, with pride went and sang the note himself. (Just knowing that he could have been spelled, gave him the courage to do it himself.)
Believe me, Domingo was known for transposing down.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Norman isn't intentionally "cheating" here, although she's definitely cheating her audience! She isn't changing the notes; she simply can't reach them and sings them hideously flat. Flatness on high notes was a frequent problem for her after a certain point in her career, and at this stage I must agree that she should have stuck to mezzo rep. Fortunately we can go on enjoying the recordings she made in her prime.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Norman isn't intentionally "cheating" here, although she's definitely cheating her audience! She isn't changing the notes; she simply can't reach them and sings them hideously flat. Flatness on high notes was a frequent problem for her after a certain point in her career, and at this stage I must agree that she should have stuck to mezzo rep. Fortunately we can go on enjoying the recordings she made in her prime.


You did it again. I love this.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Doesn't nearly every tenor cheat when it comes to Manrico? Maybe apart from Bonisolli, who would even repeat the damn thing (the absolute madman )?

(This is why I prefer his brother. Can't trust a tenor.)


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Sieglinde said:


> Doesn't nearly every tenor cheat when it comes to Manrico? Maybe apart from Bonisolli, who would even repeat the damn thing (the absolute madman )?


Virtually every tenor who sings the optional C's transposes the aria down at least a half step, at least in live performance.



> (This is why I prefer his brother. Can't trust a tenor.)


He has better music to sing, too.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Let's consider the options here:

1. Cheat (or sing flat)
2. Not sing Wagner

As bad as 1 may be, 2 is far worse


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Speaking of cheating, at Bayreuth no less, here's an excerpt from an interview with Stephen Gould:

"Wolfgang Wagner to his credit saw this and his way of dealing with it was to insist on us sitting down alone one day and he just started telling me stories for almost 15 minutes – (in a heavily accented Wolfgang-like voice) ‘Max Lorenz, wonderful, wonderful man, had no rhythm whatsoever’ and things like this. He also gave me a recording of Windgassen’s first Siegfried in Bayreuth and he leaves out 8 of the high As in the forging song. He just left them out and did not sing the phrases because he knew he wouldn’t obviously make them. If I did that today I would be booed off the stage."


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

wkasimer said:


> Virtually every tenor who sings the optional C's transposes the aria down at least a half step, at least in live performance.
> 
> He has better music to sing, too.


And he usually also looks hotter, being a baritone  Leonora needs glasses.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Nellie Melba said "Always sing below your potential"


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> To take the Domingo story a bit farther: Schuyler Chapin, in his book, mentions the time Domingo was so frightened about taking the high note in "Pira" that they had a stand-in waiting in the pit so that when the time came Domingo would lip synch while the other tenor actually sang the note. That was the plan anyway, but finally when time came, what happened? Domingo, with pride went and sang the note himself. (Just knowing that he could have been spelled, gave him the courage to do it himself.)
> Believe me, Domingo was known for transposing down.


I wasn't canonising Domingo or even defending him against any other charges of transposing. All I am saying is that _on this occasion_ he made a statement about refusing to transpose in order to be able to sing a couple of notes that Verdi didn't write anyway. I never know quite why people get so hot in the collar anyway about a couple of unwritten high Cs, as if a tenor has no right to be singing the role of Manrico if he doesn't have the notes. We don't castigate sopranos who don't sing the unwritten top Eb in _Sempre libera_. If they don't have the note they take the lower option. Indeed very few sopranos sing what Verdi actually wrote here (resolving on Ab on the stave rather than an octave above) as it's pretty anti-climactic and as you can hear in Muti's straitjacket EMI version, with Scotto. (Muti evidently changed his mind, as Fabricini sings the top Eb on his second Sony recording.)

What I also find puzzling is the fact that we are prepared to accept any amount of technical imperfections from singers that we would never accept from instrumentalists. Callas, who was also a fine pianist, is on record as stating that performers have no right to ignore certain details in the score just to make things easier for themselves. If there are trills, they should be executed, scale passages should be clean and accurate. You should be able to hear the difference between dotted notes and triplets and so on and so on. We expect these things from instrumentalists, but as long as a singer has firm, solid high notes, we seem to be prepared to accept their inability to accurately render what the composer wrote. As far as I'm concerned, it's still cheating.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Sing it where you can, just be musical and don't miss the notes.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

GregMitchell said:


> What I also find puzzling is the fact that we are prepared to accept any amount of technical imperfections from singers that we would never accept from instrumentalists. Callas, who was also a fine pianist, is on record as stating that performers have no right to ignore certain details in the score just to make things easier for themselves. If there are trills, they should be executed, scale passages should be clean and accurate. You should be able to hear the difference between dotted notes and triplets and so on and so on. We expect these things from instrumentalists, but as long as a singer has firm, solid high notes, we seem to be prepared to accept their inability to accurately render what the composer wrote. As far as I'm concerned, it's still cheating.


The difference is that instrumentalists can practice eight hours a day, and many of them do. That much practice allows a musician the ability to address technical imperfections and musical difficulties.

If a singer sang eight hours a day, they'd have a very, very short career.


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

This reminds of something funny - something true as well:
In Danish churches it is common practice that the congregation sings a few psalms to organ accompaniment during service. 
But a minor problem has occurred: the average height of the population has grown considerably in the past centuries and when body height grows the vocal cords grow to. That's the problem: when the vocal cord gets longer the voice gets deeper, so the old psalms are difficult for many church goers to sing, because the key is too high!


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

Anna Netrebko recorded Richrad Strauss's Four Last Songs with Barenboim for DGG a few years ago and I remember posting on a forum about how much I liked it - a more informed listener told me that Netrebko's voice doesn't fit The Four Last Songs because she is a mezzo - but I still love that recording - Maybe I just feel that a voice that is just a bit "darker" than the usual soprano for me is the perfect companion for that serene melancholy late romantic beauty.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I was tremendously moved by Norman’s performance, despite her imperfections in pitch. The orchestra was pushing the tempo at times, but I thought it played magnificently—both the singing and the background ignited, the spirit of it true to what Wagner intended. I was transfixed—such demanding and yet glorious music, and here was Norman being pushed to the limits of her ability. I was transfixed by it all... To compare the demands of an instrumentalist with a vocalist is entirely unfair when the energy required for each one is different. Most instrumentalists could play all day, if the situation demanded, from the bottom to the top of their horns, and yet it would be hard to imagine a vocalist being able to perform such a demanding role as this more than once a day, if then. I thought it was Norman’s performance that fired up the orchestra, because the orchestra ignited even more as she was standing there in the full dignity of her role as Brünnhilde.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

wrong thread, sorry


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Ras said:


> Anna Netrebko recorded Richrad Strauss's Four Last Songs with Barenboim for DGG a few years ago and I remember posting on a forum about how much I liked it - a more informed listener told me that Netrebko's voice doesn't fit The Four Last Songs because she is a mezzo - but I still love that recording -


Your "informed listener" is misinformed. Netrebko is a soprano, and I don't believe that she's ever sung a mezzo role in her entire career.

The darkness of her sound isn't a problem for me; the first performer of the songs, Kirsten Flagstad, was nominally a soprano, but by 1948, had a fairly dark sound (and did sing at least one mezzo role late in her career). Likewise, Jessye Norman has a fairly dark voice, and did sing mezzo parts in concert performances (e.g. the Missa Solemnis).

I don't think that Netrebko fits the VLL very well because her diction is dreadful, and I don't think that she's a particularly good or interesting singer, but that's another issue entirely....


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Jessye Norman sings the Immolation Scene very beautifully here BUT she lowers every high note by 2 or 3 notes. They are all harmonic with the music so the change is not jarring, but nevertheless. I can see one note. A number of sopranos omit or change the C in the conclusion of Siegfried ( Farrell, Traubel), but we are talking 4 or 5 key high notes in this instance. I think she was a mezzo by this point in her career and should not have been undertaking these parts. I say this as a fan of Jessye, particularly fat early Jessye. What is your feedback?? She used to be the queen of the Four Last Songs of Strauss, but after the weightloss she only sang the ones that never went above G.


Without commenting on Jessye Norman in particular, ordinarily, I'd say there is no reason to make a fetish of slavishly sticking to every note of the written score. Mozart and Beethoven certainly didn't when they performed their own music. Toscanini and other conductors of his era often modified the scores they conducted. The trouble is, certain classical standards have been canonized to such a degree that the slightest change can seem jarring. Opera fans can feel very strongly about the Immolation Scene, the Flower Song, the Aria of the Queen of the Night, etc., and exactly how they should sound. I try to stay open minded, but let's face it, taking down all the high notes because you can't reach them probably isn't ideal.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It's meaningless to conflate the common practice of transposing an aria or leaving out a couple of high Cs with singing flat because your range has shrunk and you're no longer capable of singing in tune. It would have been less damaging to the music, though no doubt impractical, to transpose the whole Immolation Scene down a half step, assuming that would have solved the problem. Given that concert pitch varied from place to place by at least a half step in 1876, there's really no artistic objection to doing it.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> The difference is that instrumentalists can practice eight hours a day, and many of them do. That much practice allows a musician the ability to address technical imperfections and musical difficulties.
> 
> If a singer sang eight hours a day, they'd have a very, very short career.


Sorry, so how come _some _ singers, generally those from an earlier time, are able to render scores with accuracy, whilst others can't? Why does it not bother us that soprano A ignores, say the rising set of trills Donizetti wrote into his _Coppia iniqua_ from *Anna Bolena*, whilst soprano B manages them perfectly well? Donizetti wrote them for a reason and they should be observed.

It may not matter to you, but it does to me, and I'm sure it would matter to the composer.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It's meaningless to conflate the common practice of transposing an aria or leaving out a couple of high Cs with singing flat because your range has shrunk and you're no longer capable of singing in tune. It would have been less damaging to the music, though no doubt impractical, to transpose the whole Immolation Scene down a half step, assuming that would have solved the problem. Given that concert pitch varied from place to place by at least a half step in 1876, there's really no artistic objection to doing it.


Right, singing out of tune is never a good idea, unless you're making a movie about Florence Foster Jenkins. I tried to make clear that I was responding to the original poster's more general topic about changing the notes in the written score, not the specific question of Jessye Norman and her alleged problem with singing high notes late in her career.
There can be problems at both ends of the vocal range. Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen goes down to B-flat below middle C a couple of times, and though most high sopranos manage to sing it, imho very few give it the necessary weight and authority (I've only heard one do it perfectly) and the song goes up to a high B-natural, so that might be difficult for a true mezzo. Moving the whole thing up half a step would be fine, but unlikely nowadays and I've never heard it


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

GregMitchell said:


> Sorry, so how come _some _ singers, generally those from an earlier time, are able to render scores with accuracy, whilst others can't. Why does it not bother us that soprano A ignores, say the rising set of trills Donizetti wrote into his _Coppia iniqua_ from *Anna Bolena*, whilst soprano B manages them perfectly well? Donizetti wrote them for a reason and they should be observed.
> 
> It may not matter to you, but it does to me, and I'm sure it would matter to the composer.


Of course it matters to me. But in any era, there are good singers and bad singers, fastidious ones and ones that are cavalier about musical values, dedicated ones and lazy ones.

I try not to generalize about singers "of an earlier time". I listen to lots of singers from the acoustic era, and some of them were pretty sloppy about what was written on the page. It's easy to get a skewed view of "the good old days" because most of the recordings that are still available (because they've been put on CD) are from the best singers, and those slovenly lesser singers languish in well-deserved obscurity.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

When I was studying voice back in college, I sang Schubert and other song repertoire in whichever of several published keys suited my range. Transposition has always been customary in song repertoire. Composers sometimes write lower options for certain difficult passages, in both opera and song (Schumann's "ich grolle nicht" has a lower option for which I was grateful, though I'm not sure it was the composer's idea). Composers may also approve of higher options where the singer can handle them. I was surprised to find in my score of _Parsifal_ that Kundry's last three notes in Act 2 are written an octave lower than they're normally sung; I've never heard anyone sing them as written, but the high B at that moment is artistically right and I can't imagine Wagner not approving it. The spirit of the music is what counts most, and small changes to the letter of the score aren't necessarily equivalent to musical sloppiness or "cheating."

The farther back we go, historically, the more musical styles and traditions invite the creative participation of the performer. Given the fashion for authenticity in performing music of the 18th century and earlier it's surprising that we're so literal about later music; I enjoy the little mordents and other embellishments, not to mention the rhythmic flexibility, that singers as late as the early 20th century applied to opera arias and the popular songs of their day, and have long felt that the authenticity movement needs to catch up to Romantic music.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The farther back we go, historically, the more musical styles and traditions invite the creative participation of the performer.


Yes, though improvisation in classical or art music has never disappeared entirely and still appears in contemporary music beyond just jazz or blues, where improvisation is fundamental. Of course, there's a big difference between improvisation and skipping over or fluffing the hard parts, or high notes. Anyone who knows classic jazz has heard the famous jazz improvisation of the Bach D minor concerto for two violins by Stephane Grappelli on the violin and Django Reinhardt on the guitar. It's a safe bet they could both play Bach "straight" pretty well.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Wonderful variety of response. You've made this a fun thread. Thanks.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> It's meaningless to conflate the common practice of transposing an aria or leaving out a couple of high Cs with singing flat because your range has shrunk and you're no longer capable of singing in tune. It would have been less damaging to the music, though no doubt impractical, to transpose the whole Immolation Scene down a half step, assuming that would have solved the problem. Given that concert pitch varied from place to place by at least a half step in 1876, there's really no artistic objection to doing it.


I think Dame Joan had the right attitude for a singer of a certain reputation. She often sang better than most anyone in her fach still when she was in her late 50's and early 60's and would transpose arias down so she didn't have to sing above a C# or D. Her devoted fans were likely not bothered by this so they could still hear her sing in her repertoire. On the other hand, if you move from Bel Canto to Wagner, I don't think the audience would be so forgiving. Different audience.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It's really a question of musical style and context. In concert you can transpose almost anything by a half or even a whole step and only the very few listeners with perfect pitch will know the difference or care. In "numbers" operas transposition may not be noticeable either. It doesn't matter if "Casta diva" is taken down a step from G to F, as it usually is; I had no idea it was written in G until I read that Sutherland sang it in G, and for all we know the effective pitch in 19th century performances was anything from E to A, depending on what key it was sung in and what pitch orchestras tuned to. Composers no doubt chose keys with their local tuning in mind, but they were certainly aware that pitch would vary from city to city. In any case transposition was an accepted expedient to accommodate singers, and not a guilty secret, well into the 19th century.

Through-composed operas are a different matter, since transposing portions of them will at best land you in some jarring key relationships, and at worst require recomposition of the music to smooth over the awkward transitions that would result. It's difficult to imagine transposing any part of _Otello_ or _Tristan_ shorter than an entire act.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Of course it's OK to cheat occasionally if you don't alter the thing too much. The great composers altered their operas depending who they had singing. Frankly whop cares as long as the performance is convincing.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

For some vocalists, no good deed and their strict adherence to the score goes unpunished.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> wrong thread, sorry


Right thread wrong planet


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