# SOPRANO TOURNAMENT (Bonus Match): Sierra vs Damrau vs Cotrubas



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Nadine Sierra, USA, 1988-






Diana Damrau, Germany, 1971-






Ileana Cotrubas, Romania, 1939-






'Caro Nome' from Verdi's _Rigoletto_.

Who's performance did you prefer and why?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Sierra and Damrau are obviously singing in the same production and their performances are consequently quite similar Both fuss with the tempo and the musical line too much for my taste, though Damrau's performance is more afflicted and emerges as rather mannered. Of the two I prefer Sierra, but the voice does harden slightly above the stave. I don't think either of them really captures Gilda's innocence. I find both performances just a little too sesually sexual. I understand that the aria represents Gilda's awakening to love, but that is still surely a romantic ideal of love.

Cotrubas wins by a mile for me. She much better conveys Gilda's extreme innocence and her rendering of the aria is much more dreamy as a concequence. She also lets the music speak for itself and doesn't fuss with the line the way the others do.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Not even close.
Even though Nadine Sierra's version was a bit slower her trills were magnificent, her voice was richer but then more mature than the other two, and she hit more of the staccato phrases than the other two did. Cotrubas hardly has a decent trill so important in this aria, and sang every note straight. Those parts are not supposed to glide as smoothly as they all did them.
Of course there really was no spectacular Gilda in this group -- how about 3 more?


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Very uneven competition. The *LEGENDARY Ileana* against a child (Nadine is good here, but no comparison to Ileana) and a singer (sorry, Diana) she is complete unsuitable for this role. Victory with hands down for the Romanian and many thanks for the game.

(Diana is a GOOD singer. She is put here to be executed from very superior competition. This is somehow unfair to her. Nadine and Ileana were enough for this comparison.)


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

I agree with other posters that Cotrubas is the clear winner here. She captures the innocence of Gilda the best and has the most beautiful voice of the three. Sierra had a rather unpleasant top here and Damrau was merely okay.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Cotrubas is the winner, although not perfect. Sierra has nice trills, but many of her lower notes sound approximated and top ones are unpleasant. Damrau has less core to her voice here and articulation is not that impressive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

None of these is ideal, and I feel pretty indifferent to the lot. Cotrubas at least reminds me that opera singers didn't all used to have distracting vibratos, so I'll vote for her.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I enjoyed watching Sierra and Damrau, but Cotrubas’s voice has an extra layer of richness and she is able to portray the sweetness and purity of the character without going too overboard on melodrama.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Cotrubas' voice has more presence and richness, so she doesn't really need to "act" (ie, mug) much to convey feelings. The others convey preciousness rather than innocence, and their voices had me thinking more about how I wished their voices didn't sound like that than about what Gilda was feeling. Out of these, Cotrubas by a lot.


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