# Sopranos with chest voice



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

In the modern era, even most mezzos don't have a satisfactory use of chest voice. Traditionally, from bass to leggiero soprano, all voices developed a strong, fierce chest register.

Julia Varady 





Saioa Hernandez





Maria Callas 





Elena Souliotis





Elvira de Hidalgo


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I assume you are referring to voices of today, (being that voices with chest voices of the past are myriad), so I will offer a true beauty of a chest voice today -- Anita Rachvelishvili. They don't come that good! 
Christine Goerke (soprano) is another with a fine chest voice.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sharon Maxwell low F interpolated in Suicidio.


----------



## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

I would say that Anita Rachvelishvili has a nasal voice, not a chest.


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> I assume you are referring to voices of today, (being that voices with chest voices of the past are myriad)


not necessarily, but you're right about the last point.



> so I will offer a true beauty of a chest voice today -- Anita Rachvelishvili. They don't come that good!
> Christine Goerke (soprano) is another with a fine chest voice.


Christine Goerke is on/off. it's good when she uses it though. Anita sounds a bit crushed and nasal imo.


----------



## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

Saioa Hernandez is brilliant!


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

IgorS said:


> Saioa Hernandez is brilliant!


She really is. I'm also experiencing a growing appreciation of Julia Varady for the same reason.


----------



## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Back in the day, even the lightest, most agile of sopranos had a solid chest voice that they used when needed.


----------



## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)




----------



## Macbeth (Sep 6, 2017)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I'm also experiencing a growing appreciation of Julia Varady for the same reason.


She got me hooked long ago, being one of those rare sopranos who sing "with guts". I've always found odd that she's not more widely known, but someone told me she had a fame for being not super-reliable, as this person had attempted to see her onstage three times, and in all of these occasions she had cancelled. It might had been a coincidence, but... three different times!
I've got those recitals published on Orfeo, Puccini, Verdi 1 & 2, Wagner and Strauss (don't know if I'm missing some, was there one in russian?). These are good but I have to say that her accent is very apparent in italian and her lisp really, really bothers me, which is really noticeable in studio recordings.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Macbeth said:


> She got me hooked long ago, being one of those rare sopranos who sing "with guts". I've always found odd that she's not more widely known, but someone told me she had a fame for being not super-reliable, as this person had attempted to see her onstage three times, and in all of these occasions she had cancelled. It might had been a coincidence, but... three different times!
> I've got those recitals published on Orfeo, Puccini, Verdi 1 & 2, Wagner and Strauss (don't know if I'm missing some, was there one in russian?). These are good but I have to say that her accent is very apparent in italian and her lisp really, really bothers me, which is really noticeable in studio recordings.


I think most of her career was in middle Europe and never became well known in the States. It was a beautiful voice with a strong lower voice.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Dimitrova was a powerful dramatic soprano, but her voice was so huge she was one of the very best Amneris in her day. Top to bottom... enormous. With coloratura to boot.


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Eva Podles Eva Podles


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

nina foresti said:


> Eva Podles Eva Podles


She's no soprano, not by a mile.


----------



## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

nina foresti said:


> Eva Podles Eva Podles


She is a contralto. But still, her chest voice isn't very strong. Better than other modern singers. But no wow.


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Oops I didn't realize it was only sopranos we were referring to. Then scratch Rachvelishvili and add an Olivero.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Oops I didn't realize it was only sopranos we were referring to. Then scratch Rachvelishvili and add an Olivero.


I hope you aren't trying to suggest that one Rachvelishvili is equal to one Olivero. I believe the current rate of exchange is at least 1,000 Rachvelishvilis to the Olivero.

N.


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> I hope you aren't trying to suggest that one Rachvelishvili is equal to one Olivero. I believe the current rate of exchange is at least 1,000 Rachvelishvilis to the Olivero.
> 
> N.


Unless I am misunderstanding you (probably am) one is a soprano and one is a mezzo. Apples and oranges.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Unless I am misunderstanding you (probably am) one is a soprano and one is a mezzo. Apples and oranges.


That's an interesting point, can one _really_ compare different singers of two different voice types? I would say that you can. Irrespective of the voice type the talents and skills that make up a great singer are the same. For example you can compare Sutherland's diction with Reizen's or her vocal flexibility with Ramey's although sopranos and basses are worlds apart.

It's true that you can't compare them in the exact same arias, however you can compare singers in Lieder (e.g. Schwarzkopf's, Wunderlich's, Baker's and Fischer-Dieskau's _Morgen_ by Strauss). I think it is therefore more than possible to compare different singers of different voice types.

N.


----------



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> That's an interesting point, can one _really_ compare different singers of two different voice types? I would say that you can. Irrespective of the voice type the talents and skills that make up a great singer are the same. For example you can compare Sutherland's diction with Reizen's or her vocal flexibility with Ramey's although sopranos and basses are worlds apart.
> 
> It's true that you can't compare them in the exact same arias, however you can compare singers in Lieder (e.g. Schwarzkopf's, Wunderlich's, Baker's and Fischer-Dieskau's _Morgen_ by Strauss). I think it is therefore more than possible to compare different singers of different voice types.
> 
> N.


Even though that's stretching it and a bit off the beaten path, I do say that I agree with you in some cases.


----------



## Macbeth (Sep 6, 2017)

nina foresti said:


> one is a soprano and one is a mezzo. Apples and oranges.


What? Sorry but no way, it's not like those are two completely different things at all, it's that there's no gap between mezzo and soprano, but a rich variety of in-betweens. And this is true for all adjacent voice types, plus in fact in the past classification of voice types would refer more to the timbre, rather than the range. Not to mention all parts that are not so clearly defined. Adalgisa for example is supposed to be a soprano actually, even if tradition has impossed mezzos in order to create a contrast with Norma, which in the other hand is a soprano sfogato, who were, according to period descriptions, mezzos or _even_ contraltos, who could reach soprano tesitura. My all-time favorite soprano Callas is a clear example of a hybrid voice, and in fact she seemed to have a fear of being classified as mezzo, which would have given to her "enemies" (she called them that) some ammunition to call her a fraud. In this sense, it's very eloquent that note from Walter Legge in which he states, regarding Carmen, that she was reluctant to perform it (or was it recording it when he wrote? writing by heart here) because she did not wish to be identified as a mezzo. And I want to believe that this is also the reason why late in her career, among those plans that never materialized, she gave instructions specificaly not to be paired together with Shirley Verrett (this would have been so hurtful to Verrett, had she ever known, given how much she admired Callas). And in fact Verret sang both Adalgisa _and_ Norma during her career, along with other soprano roles as Lady Macbeth and Tosca. Before Callas, if we listen to Ponselle's Villa Pace late recordings (made at home long after her retirement), she sounds very contraltoish.
I would say that Jessye Norman is also partly mezzo, and that is one of her greatest assets.
The mezzo-contralto frontier is even more diffuse.
And among male voices, Caruso's timbre is strongly baritonal. Even more so Jonas Kaufmann nowadays. And that does not mean they are not tenors.


----------



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Tuoksu said:


> Back in the day, even the lightest, most agile of sopranos had a solid chest voice that they used when needed.


I LOVE Mister Opera's channel so much. He is savage! :lol:


----------



## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I LOVE Mister Opera's channel so much. He is savage! :lol:


Not "Mister Opera" anymore. He (they?) changed the name.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Lest we forget, the soprano with the biggest chest voice ( other than perhaps Ponselle) was Jessye Norman. In this recording of the Erlkonig she sounds like the baritonal father completely. I wish I still had a live recording from Oedipus Rex when she was young where her low notes sounded like an earthquake. What DID I do with that recording? Her video version when she was slender paled in comparison.


----------



## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I LOVE Mister Opera's channel so much. He is savage! :lol:


Yes me too. He's all Opera needs today. People are forgetting what singing should sound like..


----------



## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

Tuoksu said:


> Yes me too. He's all Opera needs today. People are forgetting what singing should sound like..


Unfortunately, he is fighting what seems to be the lost cause.


----------

