# Agnes Baltsa: The Glorious Voice of the Famous....Dramatic Soprano?!



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Agnes Baltsa has been growing on me the last few months. The voice has tremendous personality, moves well and possesses a pleasing, roasted-almonds-and-honey timbre which compliments her complexion.

As I listed a bit more, I noticed someone claim in one of the comments that she had studied as a soprano at conservatory and that she mentioned in an interview that she was a "dramatic soprano in disguise".

By this point, I had already noticed an unusually heroic timbre (Non Piu Mesta, Habanera and Una Voce Poco Fa aren't exactly written for heroic voices), so I decided to give some of her soprano rep a listen....I was not disappointed. The voice is full of spice and mettle, even coarseness....but in a good way. This makes her a departure from my normal tastes in soprani (even with heavier soprani, I usually prefer the voice to blossom at the top with some bright overtones and a good amount of spin), but her rep in Verdi and bel canto is nothing short of asssoluta, the likes of Marisa Galvany and Shirley Verrett. The core of the voice is still very much a mezzo, with the flexibility of a Rossini singer, but also with the heroic weight and crashing-tidal-wave high notes of a dramatic soprano.


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

I should clarify that, in spite of all this, the title is just a touch exaggerated. Don't get me wrong, the voice is glorious in this rep and I would kill to hear her sing Norma, but the core of the voice is essentially that of a mezzo. At the end of the day, I think she made a wise decision sticking primarily to the mezzo rep for the sake of preserving the voice. Still, some of these clips really threw me a curve ball. The fach system isn't generally meant to be super-rigid, and there are plenty of singers who sing, dramatic soprano and dramatic mezzo rep, lyric soprano and high coloratura rep, etc. but coloratura mezzo and dramatic soprano are generally _very_ different voices, and it's wonderfully bizarre to hear a voice which is a hybrid between the two.


----------



## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

It was her performance of O Don Fatale live on the radio from Vienna (which I recorded on cassette) that sealed the deal between me and opera. So count me a fan. Saw her live at Covent Garden but not as Eboli.


----------



## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Love her *Romeo* in Muti recording with Gruberova. Top contender for greatest Romeo ever recorded.
Terrific (maybe underrated?) *Preziosilla* (Sinopoli recording).
And very intense *Eboli* for sure!
Count me as a fan.


----------



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I saw her quite a few times at Covent Garden, first as a superb Adalgisa to Sylvia Sass's woefully inadequate Norma. I remember an opera singer friend of mine remarking that, had she been a Norma in the dressing room listening to her, she'd have been sh***ing bricks! She was also a great comedienne, adorably funny as Dorabella in *Cosi fan tutte* (with Kiri Te Kanawa's gorgeously sung Fiordiligi), and hilariously assertive as Isabella in *L'Italiana in Algeri*. I saw the production again the following year, when Isabella was sung by Marilyn Horne. Admittedly this was near the end of her career, but she was nowhere near as adept, the comedy being underlined too heavily, and therfore nowhere near so funny.

Her Carmen (with Carreras) remains one of the most thrilling memories of my opera going career, and her Eboli, which was, I think, the last time I saw her on stage, brought the house down.

She also sang the Verdi Requiem at that time (a special, hastily arranged performance to raise money for the family of a stage hand who had been killed by falling scenery at one of the rehearsals - I believe it was she and Ricciarelli who suggested it) and she was, without doubt, the stand out singer that evening. She was quite a slim woman but the voice was pretty large and penetrating, and she was an excellent actress, who moved well on stage.

The vocal problems she developed (a pronounced vibrato and huge gaps in her registers) began to show soon after that *Don Carlo* I saw, and her appearances at Covent Garden became more infrequent, but I still count her one of the most exciting singers I have ever seen.

I have quite a few of her performances on disc, and I'd find it hard to choose a favourite; probably her Eboli or her Amneris, who reminds us for once, that she is a _young_ princess and a valid rival for Aida.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Count me a fan, I'd class her a dramatic mezzo and despite not seeing her live, on disc she was excellent in both lyric and dramatic repertoire.

N.


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Count me a fan, I'd class her a dramatic mezzo and despite not seeing her live, on disc she was excellent in both lyric and dramatic repertoire.
> 
> N.


I'm splitting hairs on this one. She has successfully sung that rep, so you're free to disagree, but to my ears, a true dramatic mezzo needs more denseness in the lower register. With that said, it can be confusing because dramatic mezzos fall on a scale of being anywhere from almost dramatic soprano to indistinguishable from contralto. In this case though, I'm a bit more confident with this claim because the vast majority of her vocal weight is in the middle and upper registers. When she sings in the mezzo range the voice is much lighter. Obviously, it's got some bite to it and it's not soubrette light, but comparatively speaking, her voice is more youthful in this range, more flexible, full of light and playfulness.

If I wanted to get really technical, I would classify her as an assoluta, in the same vein as Callas or Verrett. 
- Broad range
- comfortable in a variety of tessituras
- can sing both lyrically and dramatically
- able to sing with tremendous coloratura in all parts of the voice

The only thing that is less assoluta about her though is that her timbre is relatively consistent (not that I'm complaining, it's a lovely timbre). Overall it's as if a Rossini mezzo and a Verdi soprano were spliced into the same voice :O


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

When I say dramatic mezzo, I mean dramatic mezzo and not dramatic contralto. Or to put it another way, what I call a dramatic mezzo isn't what you call a dramatic mezzo.

N.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I hope I am mistaken, but apparently Agnes Baltsa is a prime candidate for the,

Boxless Musicians - notable artists who still don't have complete recordings box-sets 

thread.


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I saw her quite a few times at Covent Garden, first as a superb Adalgisa to Sylvia Sass's woefully inadequate Norma.


in all fairness, pretty much everyone is inadequate after hearing Callas as Norma. Other singers can be decent in any one portion of the role, but overall....only Callas nails it completely.


----------



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> in all fairness, pretty much everyone is inadequate after hearing Callas as Norma. Other singers can be decent in any one portion of the role, but overall....only Callas nails it completely.


I'd agree, but there are others (Caballe, Sutherland, Verret and, more recently, Radvanovsly) who have made more than just a good stab at the role. Sass didn't satisfy in any part of it. Baltsa pretty much wiped the floor with her.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

GregMitchell said:


> I'd agree, but there are others (Caballe, Sutherland, Verret and, more recently, Radvanovsly) who have made more than just a good stab at the role. Sass didn't satisfy in any part of it. Baltsa pretty much wiped the floor with her.


It's probably heresy to say so, but I like Theodossiou on DVD in the role.

N.


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I'd agree, but there are others (Caballe, Sutherland, Verret and, more recently, Radvanovsly) who have made more than just a good stab at the role. Sass didn't satisfy in any part of it. Baltsa pretty much wiped the floor with her.


those are precisely the singers I had in mind, with the addition of Marisa Galvany, and, surprisingly, Ghena Dimitrova.


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Fritz Kobus said:


> I hope I am mistaken, but apparently Agnes Baltsa is a prime candidate for the,
> 
> Boxless Musicians - notable artists who still don't have complete recordings box-sets
> 
> thread.


She recorded for all sort of company's, so little chance for box sets I assume .


----------



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Here is my favorite clip of Agnes Baltsa, which I believe sums up her dramatic sound:






She's also a very effective Venus opposite Domingo in the Sinopoli recording of _Tannhauser._


----------



## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Agnes is more than an excellent singer: She is Great! She is the best Carmen I have seen. Rich voice, athletic figure, Mediterranean temperament. A complete operatic package.


----------



## Tonievieter (May 7, 2020)

I don't know what happened here, but BalalaikaBoy you've expressed precisely what I've been trying to say about Agnes Balsta for a great many years.
I'll also say: that singer's never boring. It's striking how, after listening to other mezzos in an attempt to find one whose interpretation of any given piece of music I might enjoy as much as her own, looking elsewhere not least because the shortcomings of Baltsa's voice are sometimes a bit too evident, I almost systematically get bored and, upon returning to her, I systematically find her the best.
As to sopranos, perhaps you or someone could help me figure out why I seem to always come back to such different, almost opposite singers as Schwarzkopf, Popp and Gheorghiu? It's likely just a matter of taste and so not prone to rationalization. But in case someone sees any commonality between all those singers, I'm all ears (or, as it turns out, all eyes).


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Tonievieter said:


> I don't know what happened here, but BalalaikaBoy you've expressed precisely what I've been trying to say about Agnes Balsta for a great many years.
> I'll also say: that singer's never boring. It's striking how, after listening to other mezzos in an attempt to find one whose interpretation of any given piece of music I might enjoy as much as her own, looking elsewhere not least because the shortcomings of Baltsa's voice are sometimes a bit too evident, I almost systematically get bored and, upon returning to her, I systematically find her the best.
> As to sopranos, perhaps you or someone could help me figure out why I seem to always come back to such different, almost opposite singers as Schwarzkopf, Popp and Gheorghiu? It's likely just a matter of taste and so not prone to rationalization. But in case someone sees any commonality between all those singers, I'm all ears (or, as it turns out, all eyes).


She is not a soprano but anyway welcome to the forum .


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Tonievieter said:


> As to sopranos, perhaps you or someone could help me figure out why I seem to always come back to such different, almost opposite singers as Schwarzkopf, Popp and Gheorghiu? It's likely just a matter of taste and so not prone to rationalization. But in case someone sees any commonality between all those singers, I'm all ears (or, as it turns out, all eyes).


Schwarzkopf, Popp and Gheorghiu are all wonderful. Many other great sopranos, such as Rene Fleming, Roberta Peters, Anna Moffo, and the list goes on and on, as it does for mezzos. My preference generally is toward mezzos so in something like Barber of Seville I get to choose since Rosina can be either. Currently listening to Barber of Seville featuring Agnes Baltsa--wonderful!


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Baltsa is a really fine singer but a mezzo I would have thought


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

*Agnes Baltsa (Grieks: Αγνή Μπάλτσα) (Lefkada, 19 november 1944)*


Happy Birthday Miss Baltsa


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I'd agree, but there are others (Caballe, Sutherland, Verret and, more recently, Radvanovsly) who have made more than just a good stab at the role. Sass didn't satisfy in any part of it. Baltsa pretty much wiped the floor with her.


I thought I'd never see a good Norma as none were really around when I was attending opera till Jane Eaglen made her US Debut in Seattle 20 odd years ago and she was vocally spectacular with the size, beauty and flexiblity the role required plus the high D in the trio. I will never ever forget it. I and the Seattle audience were completely blown away. When she switched to a mostly Wagner repertoire her voice became less effective in the role. I missed out on all the great one's mentioned,alas... Callas, Sutherland, Caballe. Verrett was actually really quite wonderful in the role when I heard her on the radio. I wouldn't have stuck up my nose at Dimitrova either.


----------

