# SOPRANO TOURNAMENT (By Request): Spani vs Arangi-Lombardi



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Hina Spani, Argentina, 1896-1969






Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, Italy, 1891-1951






'Ma dall'arido stelo divulsa' from Verdi's _Un ballo in maschera_.

Who's singing did you prefer and why?


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## Concertantek364 (Mar 13, 2021)

Thank you, Bonetan, for putting up this contest that I requested earlier. Glad to know you find Bob Rideout's Opera Voices site useful. 

Here're the biographical info of the two sopranos featured in the contest, written by Rideout:

Hina Spani:
https://bob-opera.weebly.com/hina-spani.html

Giannina Arangi-Lombardi:
https://bob-opera.weebly.com/giannina-arangi-lombardi.html

Coincidentally, these two did sing in a same performance at La Scala, where Arangi-Lombardi later triumphed as Aida. Not only did she become the most famous and acclaimed Aida of the time in Italy, she also became one of the leading prima donnas of La Scala during Toscanini's reign at the house in the 1920s. Here's an excerpt from Rideout's write-up:



> ...on 26 December [1924] she debuted at La Scala as Elena with Hina Spani, Aureliano Pertile and De Angelis [in Boito's _Mefistofele_], to enormous ovations. She recalled it as the greatest personal success of her career. La Scala's management was so impressed that she was offered Aida as her second role and on 22 February 1925 she sang the Ethiopian princess there for the first time. The cast included Giuseppina Zinetti, Pertile and Franci and the revival was conducted by Ettore Panizza. This was the great breakthrough, for though Elena had been hysterically received, no one was quite sure what would happen when Arangi attempted the classic soprano role. To say there was disbelief would be to understate the obvious. Her triumph was complete and the Milan critics were literally speechless. They could only write in awe about that which they had read the previous summer, but which most admitted they did not believe.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

This was a much easier choice for me than the two Elisabeths singing the aria from *Lohengrin*.

It seems to me that Arangi-Lombardi's more outwardly dramatic performance is achieved by her imposing expression on the music, rather than finding it within the music. Spani's phrasing is more musical, her singing altogether more stylish and yet I find her just as dramatic. Arangi-Lombardi can be careless of note values too. where Spani is exemplary. Arangi-Lombardi evidently had a very impressive instrument, but I find her a less musical singer. Spani it is.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> It seems to me that Arangi-Lombardi's more *outwardly dramatic* performance is achieved by her *imposing expression on the music*, rather than finding it within the music. Spani's phrasing is more musical, her singing altogether more stylish and yet I find her just as dramatic. Arangi-Lombardi can be careless of note values too. where Spani is exemplary. Arangi-Lombardi evidently had a very impressive instrument, but I find her a less musical singer. Spani it is.


These observations seem to be generally applicable to many Italian sopranos active during the inter-war period, during which the so-called verismo style of singing held sway e.g. Bianca Scacciati, Giuseppina Cobelli, Iva Pacetti, Maria Caniglia (who feature in several complete opera recordings starring Beniamino Gigli), Gina Cigna, etc. Even the highly revered Claudia Muzio was not free from such mannerisms (e.g. her famous 1935 Italian Columbia recording of "Addio del passato" from La Traviata). In her heyday, Arangi-Lombardi was not seen as a 'veristic' singer and she was known more as a follower of the 19th-century tradition of less flamboyant, more exquisite vocalism. As can be heard from the recording, even she couldn't completely escape from the influence of the then-dominant verismo style.

The above are just my observations from my limited understanding. Perhaps vocal music gurus here like Vivalagentenuova could shed much more light on this.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Concertantek364 said:


> Thank you, Bonetan, for putting up this contest that I requested earlier. Glad to know you find Bob Rideout's Opera Voices site useful.
> 
> Here're the biographical info of the two sopranos featured in the contest, written by Rideout:
> 
> ...


What a wonderful discovery to find Bob Rideout's Opera Biographies! So much information. I just wish he had featured more singers. I decided to see what all the fuss was about concerning Spani on here lately and was enormously impressed. I listened to her sing "D'amore" from Trovatore and aside from a lack of the required trills, she was astonishingly wonderful. What a perfectly beautiful voice. This is one of my favorite Verdi arias and she was spectacular here.
Arrangi-Lombardi also was wonderful and would be a very welcome voice on the opera scene today but Spani has the edge with me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

This is one of my favorite moments in one of my favorite Verdi operas, and in Hina Spani's I have now heard what is so far my favorite rendering of it. Her focused concentration, her controlled intensity, her precise musicality, and - not least - the superb vocal technique that makes all of that possible - has impressed me unfailingly in these matchups so far, and I can hardly imagine anyone surpassing what she does here. I was riveted to every nuance and nanosecond of it. In almost any other comparison, the excellent Arrangi-Lombardi would be competitive, and needless to say - but I'll say it anyway, and most of us will be thinking it - we'd be lucky to have her around now.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> This is one of my favorite moments in one of my favorite Verdi operas, and in Hina Spani's I have now heard what is so far my favorite rendering of it. Her focused concentration, her controlled intensity, her precise musicality, and - not least - the superb vocal technique that makes all of that possible - has impressed me unfailingly in these matchups so far, and I can hardly imagine anyone surpassing what she does here. I was riveted to every nuance and nanosecond of it. In almost any other comparison, the excellent Arrangi-Lombardi would be competitive, and needless to say - but I'll say it anyway, and most of us will be thinking it - we'd be lucky to have her around now.


I wonder how many find Spani a new discovery from these contests? I never had heard of her. If she is new to you click like on this.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

This one is hard, I had to listen to each clip more than once. On the one hand, Spani is clearly more beautifully sung, but when I take into account the dramatic setting for the recitative and aria, I can't help but feel that Arrangi-Lombardi's more dramatic delivery is appropriate. I also liked her darker voice quality. But it was very hard vote for me.


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## Concertantek364 (Mar 13, 2021)

Seattleoperafan said:


> What a wonderful discovery to find Bob Rideout's Opera Biographies! So much information. I just wish he had featured more singers. I decided to see what all the fuss was about concerning Spani on here lately and was enormously impressed. I listened to her sing *"D'amore" from Trovatore* and aside from a lack of the required trills, she was astonishingly wonderful. What a perfectly beautiful voice. This is one of my favorite Verdi arias and she was spectacular here.
> Arrangi-Lombardi also was wonderful and would be a very welcome voice on the opera scene today but Spani has the edge with me.


In an interview with the _Gramophone_ magazine's critic Desmond Shaw-Taylor in 1958, Spani named "D'amore" from Trovatore, Elsa's Song to the Breezes from Lohengrin, the Death Scene from Madama Butterfly and "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca as among the best of her operatic recordings.

Here're YT uploads of the said recordings for anyone wishing to sample them:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Despite the fact that Lombardi elicits more drama in her rendering, I find that Spani gives a much more clean and delicate touch to this aria. I also find Lombardi's highs to be too white and a bit strident. Spani!


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

In my mind's ear, I have Maria Callas for this aria. That is not to say that Mmes. Arangi-Lombardi and Spani have already been relegated to the trash bin. I have listened to both singers several times and found, like others, that Mme. Arangi-Lombardi (how I love that name!) is the more red-blooded singer and more overt in her emissions. Her voice is well-used and splendid in sound. Her _diminuendo_ on the last note is breathtaking.

In contrast, Mme. Spani is much more contained even when expressing distress as in her voicing of terror in the _"ah che veggio!_" section of the aria when she sees the phantom head coming at her. The voice is well-schooled and compact and controlled throughout. Her last note (both singers used variants in the last phrases) was a long drawn out _mezzo piano_ evenly spun.

In the opera house I'd have loved to encounter Mme. Arangi-Lombardi - for frequent home listening, Mme. Spani will probably give the most pleasure.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I wonder how many find Spani a new discovery from these contests? I never had heard of her. If she is new to you click like on this.


I discovered her when I was buying a lot of CDs in the '80s, I think, and there were historical transfers of all kinds of singers (Ward Marston and his colleagues were very busy). I bought a collection of hers but it didn't make much of an impression then, but I was green so I traded with a friend who had something I wanted more. I can appreciate her now, but now I collect only Callas and Corelli and a few essential others.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> In my mind's ear, I have Maria Callas for this aria.


Mine too. She doesn't so much sing the notes as mould the whole aria in one great sweep. I have four different versions from different times in her career and in all of them, I love the way she phrases onwards and through the top C climax so that it is less of a feature unto itself.

Here she is singing the aria in the 1957 La Scala production, the only time she sang the whole role on stage. She's still in remarkably good voice here.


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## Concertantek364 (Mar 13, 2021)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Mine too. She doesn't so much sing the notes as mould the whole aria in one great sweep. I have four different versions from different times in her career and in all of them, I love the way she phrases onwards and through the top C climax so that it is less of a feature unto itself.
> 
> Here she is singing the aria in the 1957 La Scala production, the only time she sang the whole role on stage. She's still in remarkably good voice here.


I had actually thought about whether to compare Spani's rendition to that of Callas for the contest. Of Callas' two recorded Amelias, I prefer the live 1957 La Scala opening night recording for its greater vividness and spontaneity of vocalisation and expression before a live audience. Later I came to think that it would be fairer and at least equally interesting to compare Spani with her contemporary Arangi-Lombardi both of whom had actually shared the same stage in a performance, and to compare two recordings of more or less the same vintage.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Concertantek364 said:


> I had actually thought about whether to compare Spani's rendition to that of Callas for the contest.


I think that would be an unfair comparison in terms of interpretation. The constraints of the recording medium available at the time should always factor into our evaluation of singers from the acoustic and early electric eras, and one of those constraints was the amount of music you could cram onto a side of a 78rpm record. This was brought home to me most vividly when I compared Frida Leider's live recording of Isolde's "Liebestod" from a Met performance in 1933 with her studio recording of the same aria. The expanded time scale of the former, allowing for a more relaxed tempo and thus more nuance from the singer, along with the usual exhilaration of a live occasion, resulted in a far superior performance.

I'd love to have heard Spani live, but even her studio recordings indicate a major artist, and one who seems to have the edge over Callas in terms of vocal purity and consistency. Callas would be my choice among post-WW II interpreters of the music in question. About singers in the 78rpm era we generally have to withhold final judgment, and simply be grateful that we have as good a representation of them as we do.


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## Concertantek364 (Mar 13, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> I think that would be an unfair comparison in terms of interpretation. The constraints of the recording medium available at the time should always factor into our evaluation of singers from the acoustic and early electric eras, and one of those constraints was the amount of music you could cram onto a side of a 78rpm record. This was brought home to me most vividly when I compared Frida Leider's live recording of Isolde's "Liebestod" from a Met performance in 1933 with her studio recording of the same aria. The expanded time scale of the former, allowing for a more relaxed tempo and thus more nuance from the singer, along with the usual exhilaration of a live occasion, resulted in a far superior performance.
> 
> I'd love to have heard Spani live, but even her studio recordings indicate a major artist, and one who seems to have the edge over Callas in terms of vocal purity and consistency. Callas would be my choice among post-WW II interpreters of the music in question. About singers in the 78rpm era we generally have to withhold final judgment, and simply be grateful that we have as good a representation of them as we do.


Yes, that was what I was thinking when deciding not to compare Callas with Spani. The contrasting contexts (an aircheck from the late 1950s vs a 78 rpm electric recording with its boxy acoustic, reduced orchestra and cut music) just don't make the comparison workable.

Spani's rendition of the _Ballo_ aria is a famous recording and John Steane singled it out in his book_ The Grand Tradition _for particular praise. I remember when someone uploaded this recording on YT more than a decade ago the responses were highly enthusiastic, instantly recognising Spani as a singer and artist of extraordinary calibre. As recently as last year, _The Record Collector_ (March 2020) did a main story feature on her written by Tully Porter. Her recorded output is relatively limited when compared to other more prolifically recorded operatic artists of the same era but each of her recordings is a gem, whether operatic arias or songs.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Concertantek364 said:


> Yes, that was what I was thinking when deciding not to compare Callas with Spani. The contrasting contexts (an aircheck from the late 1950s vs a 78 rpm electric recording with its boxy acoustic, reduced orchestra and cut music) just don't make the comparison workable.
> 
> Spani's rendition of the _Ballo_ aria is a famous recording and John Steane singled it out in his book_ The Grand Tradition _for particular praise. I remember when someone uploaded this recording on YT more than a decade ago the responses were highly enthusiastic, instantly recognising Spani as a singer and artist of extraordinary calibre. As recently as last year, _The Record Collector_ (March 2020) did a main story feature on her written by Tully Porter. Her recorded output is relatively limited when compared to other more prolifically recorded operatic artists of the same era but each of her recordings is a gem, whether operatic arias or songs.


You should post more. Seriously.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

I'm behind the curve once again and given the fact we compare such high-caliber voices here I took some time to evaluate more. Arangi-Lombardi has the advantage of much better recording quality (exposing slightly questionable high C), but Spani offers more drama and the way she builds towards the first climax takes my breath away.


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