# Singers singing out of their voice type...and doing it well.



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Preferably something a bit further apart (ie, it's pretty normal for a contralto to sing a dramatic mezzo role, a dramatic soprano to sing a spinto role, etc).


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Jerry Hadley sings baritone







Mary Costa sings spinto/dramatic soprano







Elena Obraztsova sings soprano






Robert Merrill sings tenor


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Of these, Costa is most successful. Her voice sounds large enough for the music, and technique and musicianship do the rest. Merrill doesn't sing tenor here. He transposes the aria down a minor third, exactly where Leoncavallo would have put it had he made Canio a baritone.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Of these, Costa is most successful. Her voice sounds large enough for the music, and technique and musicianship do the rest. Merrill doesn't sing tenor here. He transposes the aria down a minor third, exactly where Leoncavallo would have put it had he made Canio a baritone.


In some ways, I'm inclined to put Hadley over Costa, but out of recognition of my own biases. I originally stumbled across Hadley singing the Desert Song and thought "pftt! No tenor can sing this aria  ", and then...he was actually good, and I had to bite my tongue. You know what? I'm just gonna call it a draw.

Be that as it may, what impresses me the most about Mary Costa is how she comes from a background where good singing is just...good singing. She had a perfectly good, natural voice early in her career before becoming an opera singer, and the only changes she made were singing with a slightly more open/vertical jaw, a bit more chest voice and an ever-so-slightly lower larynx. She sang in a range of musical styles throughout her career, and, unlike most singers with this kind of versatility, she did them all well, and had only to make minor stylistic changes without sacrificing the core of the voice. The same is true for her relatively versatile opera repertoire. 

Obraztsova comes in third because she screeches up high, Robert Merrill just cheats, so he gets disqualified. haha


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The most impressive contrast is Jessye Norman singing the mezzo/ contralto part of the Verdi Requiem ( contest soon) and winning our Libera me domine contest as a soprano early this year. Both very hard parts to do. I would love to have heard heard Leonard Warren singing Di quella pira walking home from the opera with friends. Lastly I nominate Ponselle singing Delilah''s big low mezzo arias beautifully as well as The Russian Gypsy Song as a baritone.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> Jerry Hadley sings baritone
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I really like Obraztsova singing Suicidio but no one did in the contest I placed her in. I like her early on when she could be very exciting.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> The most impressive contrast is Jessye Norman singing the mezzo/ contralto part of the Verdi Requiem ( contest soon) and winning our Libera me domine contest as a soprano early this year. Both very hard parts to do. I would love to have heard heard Leonard Warren singing Di quella pira walking home from the opera with friends.


I think Jessye Norman's singing style sounds weird, but I have to respect her versatility. 



> Lastly I nominate Ponselle singing Delilah''s big low mezzo arias beautifully as well as The Russian Gypsy Song as a baritone.


You mean this?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I think Jessye Norman's singing style sounds weird, but I have to respect her versatility.
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She has been a great operatic love of mine for many years. I am happy that she often does well in the right type of material here. She is not for everyone but at least she is not hated here like many other opera favs of mine on this site.


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## Edgardo12 (2 d ago)

I'm a massive tenor fan being one myself (supposedly a spinto tenor, but I digress) so I'll post a few tenor peculiarities.

Firstly, here is Mario Del Monaco singing the baritone aria Largo al factotum from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, 1966.
M.Del Monaco - Largo al factotum (live 1966) - YouTube

Next is Enrico Caruso singing the bass aria Vecchia zimarra from La Boheme. The story supposedly goes that during a performance of La Boheme the bass was indisposed, so Enrico Caruso decided to sing his aria for him and did such an admirable job that he eventually recorded the same aria in the studio. While definitely not a bass, Caruso does a fine job with it, recorded in 1916.
Enrico Caruso as Bass in La Bohéme: Vecchia zimarra - YouTube

Jussi Bjorling was a lyric tenor but could sing almost anything. Still, the role of Otello takes a special sort of tenor, generally one with at least a spinto sort of heft to the voice. Unfortunately Bjorling passed away before he could essay the role of Otello, but he left us with this duet of the tenor-baritone duet with the wonderful Robert Merrill, recorded in 1951.
Verdi: Otello, "Oh! Monstruosa colpa!...Si, pel ciel" - Jussi Björling & Robert Merrill - YouTube 

Finally, here is Placido Domingo, as versatile as they come, but for intents and purposes, a lirico-spinto or spinto tenor. The role of Nadir in Bizet's Les Pecheurs de Perles, an essentially leggiero/light lyric one is something that Domingo only sang in his early to mid-twenties in Israel. Listening to his performance of Je crois entendre encore, recorded in 1980, t's clear that Domingo is a size or two voice sizes too large for the role, but it's still interesting to hear his attempt to lighten the voice to a more conventional lyric tenor.
Placido Domingo. Je crois entendre encore .Les Pêcheurs de Perles. - YouTube


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Best of the best of the best!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Edgardo12 said:


> Finally, here is Placido Domingo, as versatile as they come, but for intents and purposes, a lirico-spinto or spinto tenor. The role of Nadir in Bizet's Les Pecheurs de Perles, an essentially leggiero/light lyric one is something that Domingo only sang in his early to mid-twenties in Israel. Listening to his performance of Je crois entendre encore, recorded in 1980, t's clear that Domingo is a size or two voice sizes too large for the role, but it's still interesting to hear his attempt to lighten the voice to a more conventional lyric tenor.
> Placido Domingo. Je crois entendre encore .Les Pêcheurs de Perles. - YouTube


Here is another example of Domingo singing outside of what anyone could consider his natural _fach_. The long run is just about perfect and he even manages a big rallentando at the end. His technique can't have been that bad!


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Here is another example of Domingo singing outside of what anyone could consider his natural _fach_. The long run is just about perfect and he even manages a big rallentando at the end. His technique can't have been that bad!


Imo, this isn't too unusual a choice of repertoire. He never really had a super huge voice to begin with. I do not....remotely understand the people saying "he sounds like a baritone" (if that sounds like a "baritone", Lawrence Tibbett is a bass-baritone and Robert Merrill is a basso profondo lmao).


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