# what do you think of Deborah Voigt (as brunnhilde, specifically)



## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

I was re-watching some of the clips from the Met Ring that we saw recently (in preparation for Siegfried of course, 17 days!!), and this is what stuck out at me. 

well, these are all things that I felt right after watching it, but just now re-watching clips my feelings were AMPLIFIED upon a reminder. 

1. Jonas Kaufman and Eva Marie Westbroek brought Act I to its strongest possible musical and theatric glory. possibly even to an extent greater than Lepage and Levine deserve.

2. Bryn Terfel is THE Wotan of my generation

3. Deborah Voigt is weak. 

number three is an UNDERSTATEMENT. I remember feeling Acts II and III fall short on account of Brunnhilde to a certain extent, but re-watching these clips i was appalled and disgusted! I'm sorry to be so negative but it really bums me out. (again, this is a bit of a late response but I guess I was too high on the positives of the evening to zero in too hard). How disappointing is it that after the Act I of the century to be so let down. Bryn Terfel, even Lepage and Levine deserve a terrifyingly brilliant show in the latter two Acts, and it just DOESN'T, simply DOESN'T fly with that Brunnhilde...

the clips have the hoija tojos at the beginning of Act II. She plays like some showboaty anti-wagner. at first, I was willing to accept that the way she staggers up the octave was a matter of interpretation, but upon revisiting the clips, its just stupid. and the voice is so thin, like a typical soprano's soprano if that makes sense. There's nothing wrong with her physical acting, its real good even, but it doesn't make up for the overall embodying of the role.

ok, sorry for ranting and being negative... Does anyone disagree in any form? I haven't seen her in anything else. I've heard good things about her Isolde


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

No doubt that Ms. Voigt was the weakest link there, but still, I don't think she was as bad as you're saying. I was expecting a true catastrophe (given her vocal troubles after she lost weight) but I think she was decent. Overall, considering the entire performance, it was a pretty good Die Walküre, in my opinion, so the fact that one singer is not as good as some of the other principals is not sufficient to sink the performance.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I would rate Act 1 lower than you and Voigt higher. Kaufman was excellent but Westbroek was frumpy, stiff, sounded muddy, and constantly looked like a scared rabbit. See Waltraud Meier. Can't say I would buy an audio recording of Voigt but I enjoyed her overall. In my opinion it was Stephanie Blythe in Act 2 who *completely* stole the show.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Kaufman sang beautifully and looked great, but his acting was surprisingly withdrawn (compared, say, to his Don Jose). Westbroek may have looked like a scared rabbit, but that's an easy trap to fall into when playing Sieglinde. Voigt had vocal difficulties and no longer has the most pleasant sound. She made a game effort at playing a young, almost adolescent Brunnhilde; the choices sometimes misfired, but I still appreciated the commitment. For me Terfel was the real hero of the evening. He may not possess the ideal dark Wotan voice, but he had a commanding presence and showed a real emotional involvement (even while acting with one eye).

I think what I appreciated most about the performances was that when Terfel and Voigt were onstage together, there was never a moment's doubt that they loved each other deeply and that their conflict was terribly painful for them both.


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## FragendeFrau (May 30, 2011)

amfortas said:


> *Kaufman sang beautifully and looked great, but his acting was surprisingly withdrawn (compared, say, to his Don Jose).* Westbroek may have looked like a scared rabbit, but that's an easy trap to fall into when playing Sieglinde. Voigt had vocal difficulties and no longer has the most pleasant sound. She made a game effort at playing a young, almost adolescent Brunnhilde; the choices sometimes misfired, but I still appreciated the commitment. For me Terfel was the real hero of the evening. He may not possess the ideal dark Wotan voice, but he had a commanding presence and showed a real emotional involvement (even while acting with one eye).
> 
> I think what I appreciated most about the performances was that when Terfel and Voigt were onstage together, there was never a moment's doubt that they loved each other deeply and that their conflict was terribly painful for them both.


I bolded what you said, because I thought JK was terrific as Siegmund, acting-wise, because I'd never seen him before. Now that I've tracked down and watched (and forced my friends to watch! dear friends!) his big roles on DVD, I completely agree with you. Watching _Walküre_ now, he looks much less involved than he usually is (just listening to his E lucevan le stelle from the live ROH production reduces me to a puddle, and that's just "listening to the acting").

As for DV as Brunni--I heard part of the first night on the radio, completely by chance--missed most of Act 1. But I remember thinking Brünnhilde sounded like a granny. Her voice sounded very old to me. When I saw it later in HD I didn't notice the voice as much because her acting was very good. But I'm still not crazy about just listening to her voice.


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## badRomance (Nov 22, 2011)

I strongly agree with your #3. She does well in less demanding passages as in the dream sequence, but when the passage calls for power, she can't deliver.

And in Siegfried, Morris's clear tone did not mesh well with Voigt's wide vibrato and grandma-like timbre. I'm sorry I had to use the word "grandma" but that's exactly how it sounded.


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

You all know by now that when it comes to Wagner I am fairly subject to overstatements! 

At the Met Siegfried recently, we saw Acts I and II with not a weak link on stage. I was worried. But she came on, she started singing, and I didn't bat an eye. I think the whole experience filtered things through for me so that I could only notice positiveness. or maybe it's her acting. Singing was not standout bad. Still don't like her, still would never listen to her, but I no longer feel that she has the ability to ruin an otherwise good production.

Couchie- I am rather obsessed with Waltraud Meier, I watched some clips of her Sieglinde which is phenomenal, but far from anything approaching "definitive" status (as is the case with her Kundry) To my opinion. I returned to clips of EMW in this production, and It was just as powerful and impressive impressive as it was in the theater in May. (Of course, it was only after this that I heard about her status as anna-nicole-boobtacular-diva, so maybe it helped that I didn't know these things at the time).


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Have you listened to the Brunnhilde she recorded with Domingo (the Siegfried duet)? The CD is called Wagner: Love Duets. She sounds sublime. Just what you imagine an awakening Goddess to sound like. I found that all the magic of that recording had gone by the time she sang the role onstage. The richness and body of the sound had largely gone and the top was shrill. I was extremely disappointed.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

damianjb1 said:


> Have you listened to the Brunnhilde she recorded with Domingo (the Siegfried duet)? The CD is called Wagner: Love Duets. She sounds sublime. Just what you imagine an awakening Goddess to sound like. I found that all the magic of that recording had gone by the time she sang the role onstage. The richness and body of the sound had largely gone and the top was shrill. I was extremely disappointed.


She was fabulous in that Wagner duets with Domingo, but that was many years and pounds ago. The huge, round, simply gorgeous High C she hit in the Siegfried duet was one of the great high notes I have ever heard. No lie! She had to lose weight for her health, but gastric bypass is very drastic,and even just losing a lot of weight after learning how to sing as a large person is always bad for the voice: e.g. Callas, Andrea Gruber, Jessye Norman, and now Voigt.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Voigt was never _hochdramatische_ material, even though she'd have kept more of her voice without the weight loss. I really wasn't all that impressed with her Wagner duets with Domingo; the voice was attractive but seemed lacking in weight and depth of tone. She should have stuck with Verdi, Puccini (but not Minnie), lighter Strauss, and lighter Wagner, and added some Mozart and Handel to her repertoire. By the time she got around to Brunnhilde it was beyond her - I heard it on radio and she sounded weak and tonally frayed, like an old woman - but she should never have sung it at all, even before the gastric bypass.

I could be off base here, but Voigt strikes me as a victim of the "fach" system, whereby it was decided early on that she was a "dramatic soprano," which destined her to spend her time battling large orchestras and neglecting a lot of great music that would have been well within her capacity and would have kept her voice in trim. Donna Elvira and Fiordiligi would have sounded much better in that voice than Isolde.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I heard her in recital in Seattle a few years post gastric bypass. The voice was still big and beautiful, but you never got the feeling of a really huge voice like one did hearing Jane Eaglen in recital. I think Voigt's top was bigger than Eaglen's but big B's and C's do not a Wagner singer make. Just because one can sing Wagner in a studio doesn't mean it can triumph over an orchestra. The role I most enjoyed her in was Chrysothemis in Elektra. Her voice was so beautiful and was the right size for this role.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Voigt was never _hochdramatische_ material, even though she'd have kept more of her voice without the weight loss. I really wasn't all that impressed with her Wagner duets with Domingo; the voice was attractive but seemed lacking in weight and depth of tone. She should have stuck with Verdi, Puccini (but not Minnie), lighter Strauss, and lighter Wagner, and added some Mozart and Handel to her repertoire. By the time she got around to Brunnhilde it was beyond her - I heard it on radio and she sounded weak and tonally frayed, like an old woman - but she should never have sung it at all, even before the gastric bypass.


^this. she is a spinto soprano. lighter Wagner would have been much better for her



> I could be off base here, but Voigt strikes me as a victim of the "fach" system, whereby it was decided early on that she was a "dramatic soprano," which destined her to spend her time battling large orchestras and neglecting a lot of great music that would have been well within her capacity and would have kept her voice in trim. Donna Elvira and Fiordiligi would have sounded much better in that voice than Isolde.


you mean a victim of people who don't know how to use the fach system?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> you mean a victim of people who don't know how to use the fach system?


Same thing. A system is only as good as the people who use it. People tell you you "are" a dramatic soprano, you start thinking of yourself as one, and you quickly get in over your head. The alternative is to think you might be capable of this or that dramatic role, and to sing within your known capacity most of the time while cautiously testing your limits. Maybe Voigt thought she was doing that, but it's my perception that she moved pretty quickly into heavy parts. Flagstad didn't tackle Isolde till she'd been singing for twenty years; her early repertoire included roles in every "fach," and she never, ever forced her voice. She still sounded great in her sixties, just deeper.

It's natural for singers to be ambitious and to want to test themselves in the exciting dramatic parts. But it's my observation that the world is now full of the forced, wobbly voices of wannabe dramatic singers who've been placed in that "fach" by opera companies desperate for talent.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Seattleoperafan said:


> She was fabulous in that Wagner duets with Domingo, but that was many years and pounds ago. The huge, round, simply gorgeous High C she hit in the Siegfried duet was one of the great high notes I have ever heard. No lie! She had to lose weight for her health, but gastric bypass is very drastic,and even just losing a lot of weight after learning how to sing as a large person is always bad for the voice: e.g. Callas, Andrea Gruber, Jessye Norman, and now Voigt.


Didn't Andrea Gruber also have some addiction issues to deal with? I've read that losing weight is not the issue - it's losing weight QUICKLY that is the problem. It's a shame because I imagine in every other way Deb Voight is happier than she's ever been right now - except the voice has gone. Very sad.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Voigt was never _hochdramatische_ material, even though she'd have kept more of her voice without the weight loss. I really wasn't all that impressed with her Wagner duets with Domingo; the voice was attractive but seemed lacking in weight and depth of tone. She should have stuck with Verdi, Puccini (but not Minnie), lighter Strauss, and lighter Wagner, and added some Mozart and Handel to her repertoire. By the time she got around to Brunnhilde it was beyond her - I heard it on radio and she sounded weak and tonally frayed, like an old woman - but she should never have sung it at all, even before the gastric bypass.
> 
> I could be off base here, but Voigt strikes me as a victim of the "fach" system, whereby it was decided early on that she was a "dramatic soprano," which destined her to spend her time battling large orchestras and neglecting a lot of great music that would have been well within her capacity and would have kept her voice in trim. Donna Elvira and Fiordiligi would have sounded much better in that voice than Isolde.


You might be right. People on other blogs who heard her in Italian rep weren't overly impressed though. But what is wrong with being the best Elisabeth, Elsa, Empress, etc on the planet? Isolde was within her capabilities but you might be right about Brunnhilde. I'm not sure about Mozart though. How much flexibility did her voice have? Have you seen her Chrysothemis from the Albert Hall with Marilyn Zschau as Elektra. Gorgeous gorgeous singing!!!


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Same thing. A system is only as good as the people who use it. People tell you you "are" a dramatic soprano, you start thinking of yourself as one, and you quickly get in over your head. The alternative is to think you might be capable of this or that dramatic role, and to sing within your known capacity most of the time while cautiously testing your limits. Maybe Voigt thought she was doing that, but it's my perception that she moved pretty quickly into heavy parts. Flagstad didn't tackle Isolde till she'd been singing for twenty years; her early repertoire included roles in every "fach," and she never, ever forced her voice. She still sounded great in her sixties, just deeper.


at least we have come to the agreement that matters of singing the right repertoire are not "hair splitting". anyway, I can see what you mean about the Forer Effect being a potentially harmful, but again, if someone is telling _anyone_ to sing dramatic soprano repertoire until later in their career, they are severely misusing the fach system. dramatic voices don't really start to blossom until, say, late 30s, and it's often closer to mid-40s if they are a _really_ dramatic voice (naturally, every voice is different, so there is room for variation and voices which mature unusually early, but these are not the norm, not by a long shot).



> It's natural for singers to be ambitious and to want to test themselves in the exciting dramatic parts. But it's my observation that the world is now full of the forced, wobbly voices of wannabe dramatic singers who've been placed in that "fach" by opera companies desperate for talent.


amen! if you cannot produce a _natural_ and _comfortable_ sound in a dramatic role, you are not a dramatic voice, period.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

damianjb1 said:


> Didn't Andrea Gruber also have some addiction issues to deal with? I've read that losing weight is not the issue - it's losing weight QUICKLY that is the problem. It's a shame because I imagine in every other way Deb Voight is happier than she's ever been right now - except the voice has gone. Very sad.


Yes, Gruber was on hard drugs as well. Both had bypasses, though. Voigt had to lose weight for her health. She can run a big opera company now with her name. The problem is singing is a sport. You learn to sing while heavy and your all important muscles grow to rely on the stomach fat pushing up the diaphram. If you lose too much like Callas, Voigt, Gruber, Norman you get into trouble. Christine Goerke is maybe the hottest dramatic soprano in the world today. She sang Norma in Seattle after losing a good deal of weight and was having problems going flat. Now she has gotten fat again and her voice appears to be rock solid. Sutherland was really rather slim in her 30's but added on some extra pounds to aid in vocal suport, although she always had a waistline, unlike many singers today. Flagstad, Nilsson and Varnay were all slender women in their first decade of their careers and were all singing the most demanding roles in opera without being overweight. But they learned to sing at that weight.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> *Sutherland was really rather slim in her 30's but added on some extra pounds to aid in vocal suport, although she always had a waistline, unlike many singers today. Flagstad, Nilsson and Varnay were all slender women in their first decade of their careers and were all singing the most demanding roles in opera without being overweight. But they learned to sing at that weight.*


I think it's good to remember that although big voices can't be expected to come out of little people, they are produced by a combination of resonating cavities and good vocal technique, not by body fat. People often gain weight later in life, but no gain in vocal weight has been shown to accompany it. Some of the leading dramatic voices of the 20th century belonged to people of rather normal weight: to mention only sopranos, Rosa Ponselle was quite slim, and not even "Wagnerian" sopranos such as Lilli Lehmann, Frida Leider, Marjorie Lawrence, Florence Austral, Martha Modl, Gwyneth Jones and the singers you mention, really exemplify the "fat lady" who lets us know the opera is over.

I would hope that no young singer is under the impression that being overweight is inherently helpful in learning to sing. The examples of Voigt and Callas should serve as cautionary tales about the potential pitfalls of studying singing and beginning a career while overweight (although I'm not sure we know what Callas's weight was during her earliest years as a singer; in some photos from the '40s she appears no more than mildly plump). I'm alarmed at the sight of very young singers, like Angela Meade, Jamie Barton, and Tamara Wilson, who are extremely obese. As these people develop health problems later in life and find it medically necessary to slim down, they (and we) may be unhappy with the vocal result.

Unfortunately, over two thirds of Americans are significantly overweight. And the rest of the world will surely catch up as cheap fast food and sedentary lifestyles make their way around the globe. We're told that there is a greater demand nowadays for slim, dramatically credible opera singers, and some people find this unfair and regrettable. But it may be the only thing fending off the epidemic of fat.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I think it's good to remember that although big voices can't be expected to come out of little people, they are produced by a combination of resonating cavities and good vocal technique, not by body fat. People often gain weight later in life, but no gain in vocal weight has been shown to accompany it. Some of the leading dramatic voices of the 20th century belonged to people of rather normal weight: to mention only sopranos, Rosa Ponselle was quite slim, and not even "Wagnerian" sopranos such as Lilli Lehmann, Frida Leider, Marjorie Lawrence, Florence Austral, Martha Modl, Gwyneth Jones and the singers you mention, really exemplify the "fat lady" who lets us know the opera is over.
> 
> I would hope that no young singer is under the impression that being overweight is inherently helpful in learning to sing. The examples of Voigt and Callas should serve as cautionary tales about the potential pitfalls of studying singing and beginning a career while overweight (although I'm not sure we know what Callas's weight was during her earliest years as a singer; in some photos from the '40s she appears no more than mildly plump). I'm alarmed at the sight of very young singers, like Angela Meade, Jamie Barton, and Tamara Wilson, who are extremely obese. As these people develop health problems later in life and find it medically necessary to slim down, they (and we) may be unhappy with the vocal result.
> 
> Unfortunately, over 2 thirds of Americans are significantly overweight. And the rest of the world will surely catch up as cheap fast food and sedentary lifestyles make their way around the globe. We're told that there is a greater demand nowadays for slim, dramatically credible opera singers, and some people find this unfair and regrettable. But it may be the only thing fending off the epidemic of fat.


exactly. natural resonance is primarily the result of facial structure rather than overall frame, though there is a weak correlation between the two. if you notice, not all big voices have large bodies, but most of them have somewhat large _faces_ which allow for greater resonation space (with a few exceptions, such as Callas, Corelli, etc)


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> exactly. natural resonance is primarily the result of facial structure rather than overall frame, though there is a weak correlation between the two. if you notice, not all big voices have large bodies, but most of them have somewhat large _faces_ which allow for greater resonation space (with a few exceptions, such as Callas, Corelli, etc)


Callas did have really wide cheekbones, an enormous mouth, and supposedly a very high, cathedral shaped roof of her mouth, which could have helped create her very penetrating sound.







Here is a comparison of Corelli's face to Nilsson's.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Yes, Gruber was on hard drugs as well. Both had bypasses, though. Voigt had to lose weight for her health. She can run a big opera company now with her name. The problem is singing is a sport. You learn to sing while heavy and your all important muscles grow to rely on the stomach fat pushing up the diaphram. If you lose too much like Callas, Voigt, Gruber, Norman you get into trouble. Christine Goerke is maybe the hottest dramatic soprano in the world today. She sang Norma in Seattle after losing a good deal of weight and was having problems going flat. Now she has gotten fat again and her voice appears to be rock solid. Sutherland was really rather slim in her 30's but added on some extra pounds to aid in vocal suport, although she always had a waistline, unlike many singers today. Flagstad, Nilsson and Varnay were all slender women in their first decade of their careers and were all singing the most demanding roles in opera without being overweight. But they learned to sing at that weight.


Callas wasn't always fat in her younger days, by the way. If you look at photos of her from her Italian debut onwards, you will see that she was statuesque rather than fat at the beginning. The weight seemed to pile on around 1951/52 and then gradually start to reduce around 1953. When she sang *Medea* at La Scala at the end of 1953, she was probably around the same weight she had been when she arrived in Italy in 1947. But once she started losing the weight, her driving ambition wouldn't allow her to stop there, and by the time she sings in *La Vestale* the following year she is pencil thin.

I've always maintained that, like athletes, singers need a great deal of stamina. Back in the 1950s we didn't know too much about nutrition. Callas never lost the top notes, just the ability to sustain them, and, though she could still hit them, they were thin and wiry and would flap out of control, as if her body no longer had the stamina to support them.

Anyway, photos of Callas in war-torn Greece when she was studying with Elvira De Hidalgo show that Callas was not fat when she learned to sing, though she wasn't the slender figure she became in 1954. Maybe if she hadn't piled on all that weight in the early 1950s, she would not have dieted so drastically. Who knows?


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

I'll be the minority here. Voight was one of my favorite things about Walkure, who really brought the emotions to the foreground to me. I thought the chemistry between her and Terfel was wonderful.

I speak purely in terms of acting and emotions though. One of the reasons I listen to opera more than watch it is because I really can't give the music it's proper due when there's so much else going on with the stage and such. Unless it's really awful or really spectacular I couldn't really give a specific impression on singing quality on film. But again from the story perspective itself, Voight helped really draw me into the intensity of the end of Walkure in a way listening to the pure music had not done, so I appreciate her work for that.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sonata said:


> I'll be the minority here. Voight was one of my favorite things about Walkure, who really brought the emotions to the foreground to me. I thought the chemistry between her and Terfel was wonderful.
> 
> I speak purely in terms of acting and emotions though. One of the reasons I listen to opera more than watch it is because I really can't give the music it's proper due when there's so much else going on with the stage and such. Unless it's really awful or really spectacular I couldn't really give a specific impression on singing quality on film. But again from the story perspective itself, Voight helped really draw me into the intensity of the end of Walkure in a way listening to the pure music had not done, so I appreciate her work for that.


This is good to hear because she had a well founded reputation as a very wooden actress. I guess she realized she could no longer rely on her gorgeous instrument and had to put herself into the part. Glad you enjoyed it. She sure looks great on stage now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> This is good to hear because she had a well founded reputation as a very wooden actress. I guess she realized she could no longer rely on her gorgeous instrument and had to put herself into the part. Glad you enjoyed it. She sure looks great on stage now.


Acting can't be easy when you're grossly obese. Watch Jane Eaglen's Isolde on the Met video if you can bear to. She and Ben Heppner might as well have been hippopotami wallowing in an African waterhole for all the erotic tension they generated. The woman could hardly move! (And he was only a little more mobile). I never gave much thought to the body shape of opera singers and how it affects them and us until I saw that awful performance. It's possible that neither Eaglen nor Voigt, once their bodies had become enormous, could have become thin without resorting to drastic measures, so I'm not unsympathetic to them. But you simply cannot be a satisfactory artist on the stage if you're twice to three times the size you should be. Tamara Wilson and the rest of the supersized youngsters should be forced to watch Eaglen in action - or rather inaction - and to think about their own futures and their responsibility toward their art. Callas may have taken her quest to be Audrey Hepburn a bit too far, but she wasn't wrong to make an effort.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Callas may have taken her quest to be Audrey Hepburn a bit too far, but she wasn't wrong to make an effort.


Was Callas ever obese?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Sloe said:


> Was Callas ever obese?


I guess she might now have been thought clinically obese in 1951 to 1952.

Here in *Norma* at Covent Garden










That's Sutherland as Clotilde in the background by the way.

And here rehearsing *I Vespri Siciliani* at La Scala in 1951.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I guess she might now have been thought clinically obese in 1951 to 1952.
> 
> Here in *Norma* at Covent Garden
> 
> ...


I would rather say a bit chubby.
I have never understood the talk of fat Callas. She was never more fat than many other singers that are never or seldom mentioned as fat and especially not comparing with Debora Voigt who looked like a ball when it was as worst. For Voigt it was probably a matter of avoiding serious health issues.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sloe said:


> I would rather say a bit chubby.


Standards of obesity have changed, haven't they? A majority of Americans are now "a bit chubby."


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Sorry everybody, I didn't mean to derail the thread in any way, but we were talking about weight and how it affects the voice, and, inevitably of course, Callas's weight loss was mentioned.

Now let's get back to Deborah Voight.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Standards of obesity have changed, haven't they? A majority of Americans are now "a bit chubby."


Actually she was obese.

According to this article she weighted 108 kg in 1947 according to IMDB she was 1,73 that would mean a BMI of 36 the line for obesity goes at 30.

Or maybe she just had really big muscles.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sloe said:


> Was Callas ever obese?


Yes, back when her voice was at it's peak. She lost 80 pounds. Still, she was slender compared to Eaglen or A. Marc.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Yes, back when her voice was at it's peak. She lost 80 pounds. Still, she was slender compared to Eaglen or A. Marc.


I did find out myself it was a thing I had been thinking of for a while there are a lot of Callas pictures on this forum and I never thought she was really fat maybe good angles. A BMI of 36 is obese.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sloe said:


> I did find out myself it was a thing I had been thinking of for a while there are a lot of Callas pictures on this forum and I never thought she was really fat maybe good angles. A BMI of 36 is obese.









Not gobby fat but certainly very different from her skinny look.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Re-watched some of Die Walküre today & I don't find her Brünnhilde to be attractive listening at all :-(


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

pre weight loss: a lovely spinto/dramatic voice with a pleasant, bright timbre. her singing had a liveliness and a kind of "shimmer" which I normally find lacking in Wagner. 
post weight loss: absolutely dreadful, came back several months too early. 
currently: eventually, she got most of her voice back. it's a respectable voice, but sounds a bit more like a pushed up mezzo at this point. the top sounds quite labored and has lost most of its "soprano-y" qualities. 

overall, I'm glad she got the surgery done for health reasons (and cosmetic. she looks great for someone a few years shy of 60), but dramatic life alterations have a tendency to change the voice, and, like many to whom similar things have happened, she's chosen to stick to the same rep after coming back. granted, at 57, few singers decide "let's change fachs and learn 10 new roles for another type of voice!", but it does highlight the dilemma. ideally, I would have suggested she had taken this into consideration when she began re-training after the incident, but few singers have been that strategic in their careers, and the dye is pretty much cast at this point. alas, it's a lot easier for me to sit here with "I told you so's" than it ever would be for her to actually do it, so I can't judge too harshly. she's far from the most tumultuous career witnessed in the industry.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

It has been said that the current management at the Met don't know voices & I'm finding it to be true. They seem more interested in casting famous names than casting appropriate voices.


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