# Past vs. current singers



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Around lunch time today I was listening to a Met Opera Radio broadcast of an old Il Trovatore with Corelli, Price, and Stratas. Instead of being thankful for the opportunity to enjoy such exquisite singing, I actually got quite upset. I know several modern versions of Il Trovatore and I love the opera, but I think I had never realized the full range of vocal possibilities that can be found in it. 

Aren't we contemporary opera lovers being robbed of the sublime heights of our beloved artform due to the raise of pretty faces and weird Regietheater productions, to the detriment of the highly artistic, well informed, pure voices of the past?

Present company excluded (meaning, Anna Netrebko, she's just *too* beautiful and sexy to be second-guessed), what is causing the current decline in voice skills? A smaller pool of talent because opera is not as popular as it used to be? Interference from the new media and the new societal trends dictating that image is more important than sound? Today's different orchestral tune-up?

Opinions?


----------



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I think it's a smaller pool of talent because appearance is so much more important now. Fortunately Anna is gifted with both looks and talent. Caballé wouldn't find much work today despite her sublime voice.

Performers also have to be fit as even in traditional productions, there's a lot more physical activity.


----------



## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

And many purchasers of opera prefer DVD as a medium. We have talked extensively here about looks when we discuss productions.


----------



## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

I'm guilty of that myself. Ms. Voigt's heft really put me off of her portions of Ariadne auf Naxos, and I even equivocated a bit on Natalie Dessay playing a girl 30 years younger than herself in La Fille du Regiment. Yet I have no problem buying into "trouser roles".

It's a problem almost unique to opera. In a movie, you'd never have a 45 year old playing the role of a high school student (unless it was part of the story, i.e. Billy Madison or something) or a lady of Ms. Voigt's size playing a lovelorn princess. But due to the smaller talent pool (and the increased importance of the talent being actually talented instead of just attractive; not gonna find the opera equivalent of a Paris Hilton in any real opera house), an increased suspension of disbelief is required of the audience. Like I said, I'm part of the problem in that I prefer my performers be comely, or at least not distracting.


----------



## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

i'm not really sure of the decline of talent as i'm pretty new to opera. i think my favorite singers and performances were in the 60's-80's, but also a significant revival of interest in that art came about during that time so who knows. i've seen 3 operas and all have been great, the style and direction were very much altered compared to past performances, but that's how it should be. what's the point of using the same set, cast, style, direction for each la boheme? or each pagliacci? there's just no point, it's up to interpretation and sometimes it doesn't come off well but sometimes the relationships between singers, directors, conductors, stage crew, costumes etc. etc. etc. are just perfect


----------



## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Almaviva said:


> Today's different orchestral tune-up?


Renata Tebaldi has said that this is by far the most important reason and who am I to disagree with her? But I don't think that there's a lack of quality singers today, but maybe there's a lack of individuality.


----------



## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

I'm not sure about the 'decline in talent' either, but then I'm in the opposite camp in this matter. I don't listen to or watch old recordings if I can help it, mostly because of sound quality but also because it seems, especially in terms of opera on DVD, overly old fashioned in style for my taste. *runs and hides under table* When I first discovered opera I was more into traditional productions and now I'm actually more in favour of the new stagings that people seems to love to hate. I don't know what happened, maybe I'm influenced by the visual art world's "demand" of inventing something new every time and not looking to history 

Anyway, I just think that if we keep clinging to Pavarotti and Callas and all the others we'll be missing out on so many great singers who are (in my opinion) just as talented.

can I come out from under the table now?


----------



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

As far as I'm concerned you can come out from under the table, Karen.

I'm not a full blown traditionalist, since I enjoy many updated versions. I just don't like them when there is an excessive ego trip from the stage director. 

But I was thinking more about the singing. The majority of my opera collection contains relatively recent singers, and my contact with the old ones is more through YouTube and Met Opera Radio - to give you an idea, I don't even own a turntable so no vinyl for me(although I do have a few old remastered recordings on CD and some older DVDs). It's just that in several occasions, when I listen to one of the great oldies, the current ones do seem to pale in comparison.


----------



## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

although it's true to a point, there's probably a lot of confounding variables due to that, the opera world is very different nowadays. i do know there is a ton of students pursuing education in opera, and a lot of damn good ones. we seem to focus on the exceptions, the greatest of the greats. which is obvious, but it'd be interesting to compare the "b-list" singers of now and yesterday. it's harder to find older ones like that because only recordings were made of the best, and obviously not much live/bootleg recordings were around and certainly no internet to promote it all. but i think the best singers have been in the past 40 or so years, i consider that modern,, and we have some great guys out there still. domingo still does his thing, juan diego and robert alagna are great as well. although the latter seems to be losing it


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The alleged "decline" of singing is the oldest cliche in the massive book of opera. 
Singing has been "declining" for centuries. It was always better in the past according to veteran fans and critics. 
And you can bet your last dollar that 50 or so years from now,when all or most of us are gone or very,very old, opera fans will be lamenting the "decline" of singing and longing for the "good old days" of Netrebko, Mattila, Voigt,Fleming, Dessay,Bartoli, Borodina, Heppner,Alagna,Domingo,
Villazon, Hampson, Terfel,and Pape etc.
Even Rossini complained of the decline of singing in his later years. The more things change the more they stay the same......


----------



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

superhorn said:


> The alleged "decline" of singing is the oldest cliche in the massive book of opera.
> Singing has been "declining" for centuries. It was always better in the past according to veteran fans and critics.
> And you can bet your last dollar that 50 or so years from now,when all or most of us are gone or very,very old, opera fans will be lamenting the "decline" of singing and longing for the "good old days" of Netrebko, Mattila, Voigt,Fleming, Dessay,Bartoli, Borodina, Heppner,Alagna,Domingo,
> Villazon, Hampson, Terfel,and Pape etc.
> Even Rossini complained of the decline of singing in his later years. The more things change the more they stay the same......


Interesting. Yeah, I should have thought of that. Maybe it's just a human reflex of devaluing what is current. Maybe however there is another mechanism involved in this effect: the test of time. When we thing of current singers, we think of them all. We listen to some current stuff and find it so-so. But when we think of past singers, we think of those outstanding ones who survived the test of time and are still remembered today. Likely, during their own time there were plenty of so-so singers to bring down the average. So maybe in the future those contemporary singers who bring down our time's average will be gone, and just the best ones among them will be remembered, they will be better than the average of future singers, causing the same impression of decline.


----------



## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

The advantage future generations will have is that we can now record voices with sufficiently high integrity to allow for valid comparisons. It's tough to say precisely how good, say, Caruso or Gigli actually were because recording technology was so primitive compared to today's standards.

Reminds me a bit of baseball, people used to wonder if Bob Feller threw harder than Nolan Ryan. The problem is, the radar gun is a relatively recent invention, as is high speed film that would allow you to measure the number of frames it took for a ball to cover 60 ft. You know how they measured the speed of a fastball back then? By having the pitcher throw vs. a motorcycle going at 90 mph and seeing which made it to the end first. Amazingly primitive by our standards, but that's the best they could do at the time.


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Times of Callas and Corelli passed and now they are representative but back then many weak singers were as well known, popular as them. How many great singers from 50's do we treasure so much? Ten maybe? X-teen? There were tens of thousands of them and same is today, the impression of imbalance is caused by the fact that that old times were filtered out of mediocre and present times are full of it and it's hard to find another Callases And Corellis among them. But it would be reasonable to assume that such singers must exists, perhaps they're not recording for DG and stuff. It's hot in here and I myst watch my nosa.


----------



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aramis said:


> Times of Callas and Corelli passed and now they are representative but back then many weak singers were as well known, popular as them. How many great singers from 50's do we treasure so much? Ten maybe? X-teen? There were tens of thousands of them and same is today, the impression of imbalance is caused by the fact that that old times were filtered out of mediocre and present times are full of it and it's hard to find another Callases And Corellis among them. But it would be reasonable to assume that such singers must exists, perhaps they're not recording for DG and stuff. It's hot in here and I myst watch my nosa.


That's what I meant when I said this - "Likely, during their own time there were plenty of so-so singers to bring down the average" - but I kind of wrote in a very confusing way, and you made it clear.:tiphat:


----------



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*Alive and dead*

Alive: Anna Netrebko, she has a beautiful voice and she is sexy. Roberto Alagna, awesome...His Roumanian ex-wife, excellent, not very sexy though...

Dead: well...you know many of them: Pavarotti, Carusso, La stupenda, la divina, la stupida....LOL

and these:






(il barbiere.....awesome. I bought this opera in Russian, better than in Italian!)






Lemeshev is Lensky (Oneguin)






Vizhneskaya is Tatiana (Oneguin)






Martin


----------



## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

It may be partly due to the old recording, but I don't really like Ivan Kozlovsky's "crazy" high notes and not the low one's heard here, either. Sergei Lemeshev's singing is an altogether different thing. It's a truly beautiful performance of Lensky's aria. Since I have a strange fondness of Galina Vishnevskaya (I love her Tosca, for example), although her voice is not most beautiful in the world (I appreciate Scotto, too, although she could at least have left Mimì alone at the age she recorded it with Levine...), I like her Tatyana here.


----------



## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> (il barbiere.....awesome. I bought this opera in Russian, better than in Italian!)


Italian opera in Russian is hilarious! I found this recording of La Cenerentola in Russian from 1950 with Dolukhanova, and there is just something about Russian bel canto that sounds very odd. Especially when it's an opera you already know rather well.

As for the past vs. present singers argument, I think it's all very overblown. People need to realize that there existed bad singers then, just as there exist bad singers now. The good ones have a tendency of living on after their careers are over, especially now because of recordings. As remarked previously; people will probably look back longingly at the age of singers like Netrebko, Mattila, Voigt, Fleming, Dessay, Bartoli, Borodina, Heppner, Alagna, Domingo, Villazon, Hampson, Terfel and Pape etc. and comparing their styles of singing to the contemporary fashion, whatever that might be. Just like in every video of any contemporary soprano singing any Italian aria you can find on YouTube, there will be x number of comments saying that that version is crap because the singer does not sing it like Callas/Sutherland/anyone, I think people will start drawing the same comparisons to the now contemporary singers in just a few years time.


----------



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aksel said:


> Italian opera in Russian is hilarious! I found this recording of La Cenerentola in Russian from 1950 with Dolukhanova, and there is just something about Russian bel canto that sounds very odd. Especially when it's an opera you already know rather well.
> 
> As for the past vs. present singers argument, I think it's all very overblown. People need to realize that there existed bad singers then, just as there exist bad singers now. The good ones have a tendency of living on after their careers are over, especially now because of recordings. As remarked previously; people will probably look back longingly at the age of singers like Netrebko, Mattila, Voigt, Fleming, Dessay, Bartoli, Borodina, Heppner, Alagna, Domingo, Villazon, Hampson, Terfel and Pape etc. and comparing their styles of singing to the contemporary fashion, whatever that might be. Just like in every video of any contemporary soprano singing any Italian aria you can find on YouTube, there will be x number of comments saying that that version is crap because the singer does not sing it like Callas/Sutherland/anyone, I think people will start drawing the same comparisons to the now contemporary singers in just a few years time.


I declare myself in full agreement with this, and take back whatever I said in the original post.


----------



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*an mp3 CD*



> Italian opera in Russian is hilarious! I found this recording of La Cenerentola in Russian from 1950 with Dolukhanova, and there is just something about Russian bel canto that sounds very odd. Especially when it's an opera you already know rather well.


I bought many years ago a weird and beautiful CD containing about 25 European operas (Carmen, Cenerentolla, Il Barbiere, Aida and many more) in Russian by great old singers: Lemeshev, Kozlovsky, Vizhneskaya, etc...

Also another CD mp3 with all Wagner operas in German and all R. Strauss operas + 24 Russian operas. 10$ each!!!!

Martin


----------



## rborganist (Jan 29, 2013)

What I am noticing is that careers seem to be getting shorter, and this is probably at least partially the fault of the opera companies. They try to push young singers into parts for which they simply are not ready, and in order to stay employed, the young singers feel they must accept those parts. Sometimes, however, it is the fault of the teacher, especially in the case of Callas. Her teacher should not have let her out of the studio with such pronounced register breaks; if that problem had been fixed, that alone would have lengthened her career. Of course, it didn't help that she would go back and forth from very dramatic parts such as Lady Macbeth to lyrical parts such as Violetta or Gilda in a short amount of time. Lilli Lehmann sang a huge variety of parts, but she graduated from one to another, though she did keep Violetta in her repertory to the very end. As it was, Callas had ten or fifteen great years, and the rest were spent managing the decline; had she taken better care of her voice, she could have been still in her prime when she died at age 53. Yes, some of the new singers have lovely voices, indeed, but they don't last long enough to be able to deepen their interpretation of a role. That is what we are missing today--that and some of the sheer technique of singers of the past (think of Zinka Milanov's pianissimos of of James Mc Cracken's actually singing the high B flat in the Flower Song in Carmern pianissimo, or of Renata Tebaldi's crescendos from pianissimo to fortissimo without losing that creamy sound).


----------



## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Aksel said:


> there is just something about Russian bel canto that sounds very odd.


*Tartakov - Largo al factotum (1901)* - I like it! haha.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I think really great singers just aren't that common of an occurrence.I do think opera has fallen off the radar of many younger singers and likely the pool of great singers is smaller. The fifties sixties were one of the great conjunctions in history for a plethora of great singers with female singers such as Sutherland,Varnay, Milanov, Nilsson, Caballe, Verrett, Bumbry, Tebaldi, Horne, Janet Baker, Arroyo, Ludwig, Ferrier, M. Forrester ( notice how many were Black). I think the higher tuning of orchestras help ruin singer, espcially ones like Tebaldi and Traubel who were incredible but had trouble at the top. Today Radvanovski, Fleming, and Powdles are only singers who really capture my total attention. In general I'd much rather listen to earlier greats.


----------



## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I think really great singers just aren't that common of an occurrence.I do think opera has fallen off the radar of many younger singers and likely the pool of great singers is smaller. The fifties sixties were one of the great conjunctions in history for a plethora of great singers with female singers such as Sutherland,Varnay, Milanov, Nilsson, Caballe, Verrett, Bumbry, Tebaldi, Horne, Janet Baker, Arroyo, Ludwig, Ferrier, M. Forrester ( notice how many were Black). I think the higher tuning of orchestras help ruin singer, espcially ones like Tebaldi and Traubel who were incredible but had trouble at the top. Today Radvanovski, Fleming, and Powdles are only singers who really capture my total attention. In general I'd much rather listen to earlier greats.


I gave you a like but perhaps you would enlarge on Tebaldi and Traubel ??


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

moody said:


> I gave you a like but perhaps you would enlarge on Tebaldi and Traubel ??


 . Both Traubel and Tebaldi had voices you could hear around the block and both were of astonishing beauty and seamless from top to bottom. Both were secure above high A# only early in their careers. Traubel actually began as a contralto and pushed her voice up which explains her sumptuousness in low lying passages. I know some people in this forum do NOT like Traubel and others LOVE RENATA. One cannot please everyone. I don't think there is a Wagnerian soprano today who is in the same class as Traubel. In some roles their voices worked better than in others after they lost their facility at the very top.


----------

