# Caballe''s Trills



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I have found them to be on the whole disappointing, but have discovered an exception. I have corresponded with people who say her best singing was back in the sixties. I have been listening to her absolutely incredible Rarities Trio Albums: Verdi, Rossini and Donizetti from 67. I am hearing lots of beautiful trills in this collection. Could it have been singing heavier works like Wagner and Turandot that effected her ability to sing trills??? I can't think of what changed. Her singing back then was breathtaking. I spoke with Terrence McNally of Lisbon Traviata fame and he said she had the most beautiful voice he ever heard live.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I don't know what happened to her trills, but I agree in finding those early recordings wonderful. I was in high school when the "Rarities" album was released, and I remember reading Conrad L. Osborne's review of it. Beverly Sills' Bellini and Donizetti collection came out at the same time, and Osborne reviewed the two recordings together. I can't remember what he said about Caballe except that he was positive, but I recall that he found Sills "lovable" and her trills "birdlike."


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know what happened to her trills, but I agree in finding those early recordings wonderful. I was in high school when the "Rarities" album was released, and I remember reading Conrad L. Osborne's review of it. Beverly Sills' Bellini and Donizetti collection came out at the same time, and Osborne reviewed the two recordings together. I can't remember what he said about Caballe except that he was positive, but I recall that he found Sills "lovable" and her trills "birdlike."


I would say why didn't you live down the street from me, but then that would mean you would have had to live in Mississippi LOL


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I see I reviewed the Rarities set on my blog in December 2019, and reading through it my review, I see I still found her trill the weak spot in her armoury.



> If she has a fault, it is that her trills are a little sketchy and occasionally one hears the slight suspicion of an aspirate, but the singing is surpassingly beautiful throughout its range, her legato excellent and the voice even from top to bottom.


Even back then her trills weren't consistent and I don't think they were ever a match for the likes of Callas and Sutherland.

It was singing *Lucrezia Borgia* at Carnegie Hall (stepping in at short notice for an ailing Marilyn Horne) that changed the course of her career. Before that you were more likely to hear her in Strauss or Mozart and in fact shortly after that Carnegie Hall sensation, she was singing the Marschallin and Countess Almaviva at Glyndebourne.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I would say why didn't you live down the street from me, but then that would mean you would have had to live in Mississippi LOL


It couldn't have been much worse than south Jersey. Or maybe it could have...


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Caballe was good at faking her trills, as she did the coloratura in the bel canto repertoire - the latter with liberal use of aspirates. Later, when she got sloppier, the trills became looser, not even resembling her earlier attempts. She got away with a lot, depending on which conductors she worked with, and her vocal state.

I haven't listened to the Rarities albums, but I vividly recall the gorgeous first selection of her RCA recital, the absolutely astounding Casta Diva, which for beauty of tone had no rivals in its day. But even then, the melismas were rushed. It made me wonder, do the markings denote a certain speed in the singing of the notes (let's say: eighths, sixteenths, etc.?) ca a a a asta a di i i i va? Can one singer rush through them and others savor them?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> Caballe was good at faking her trills, as she did the coloratura in the bel canto repertoire - the latter with liberal use of aspirates. Later, when she got sloppier, the trills became looser, not even resembling her earlier attempts. She got away with a lot, depending on which conductors she worked with, and her vocal state.
> 
> I haven't listened to the Rarities albums, but I vividly recall the gorgeous first selection of her RCA recital, the absolutely astounding Casta Diva, which for beauty of tone had no rivals in its day. But even then, the melismas were rushed. It made me wonder, do the markings denote a certain speed in the singing of the notes (let's say: eighths, sixteenths, etc.?) ca a a a asta a di i i i va? Can one singer rush through them and others savor them?


I listened to more of the Rarities albums on youtube today and she was noticeably better than a decade or so later, although she was unusually inspired in her L'Orange Norma from the 70's. Her trills were wonderful in Rarities collections.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

View attachment 160297


This album also specially: Depuis le jour"


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Rogerx said:


> View attachment 160297
> 
> 
> This album also specially: Depuis le jour"


Lovely, but I much prefer her live one from the 1979 Paris joint concert with Jose Carreras.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> Caballe was good at faking her trills, as she did the coloratura in the bel canto repertoire - the latter with liberal use of aspirates. Later, when she got sloppier, the trills became looser, not even resembling her earlier attempts. She got away with a lot, depending on which conductors she worked with, and her vocal state.
> 
> I haven't listened to the Rarities albums, but I vividly recall the gorgeous first selection of her RCA recital, the absolutely astounding Casta Diva, which for beauty of tone had no rivals in its day. But even then, the melismas were rushed. It made me wonder, do the markings denote a certain speed in the singing of the notes (let's say: eighths, sixteenths, etc.?) ca a a a asta a di i i i va? Can one singer rush through them and others savor them?


One of the best things about the bel canto style of vocal writing is the freedom it gives the singer. That definitely implies freedom of rhythm, and a singer's ability to get free of the metronome and bring out shades of expression by applying subtle rubati to the written rhythms is a test of her suitability for the repertoire. The application of rhythmic flexibility to the "little notes," which is what gives them expressive value, was one of the elements of musicianship in which Callas was absolutely supreme. Passagework and ornaments that with many singers sound bland or even mechanical sounded fraught with meaning when she sang them; I think it was Martina Arroyo (someone correct me if I'm wrong) who said that her scales seemed to have words. It's mostly a matter of rhythm.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> One of the best things about the bel canto style of vocal writing is the freedom it gives the singer. That definitely implies freedom of rhythm, and a singer's ability to get free of the metronome and bring out shades of expression by applying subtle rubati to the written rhythms is a test of her suitability for the repertoire. The application of rhythmic flexibility to the "little notes," which is what gives them expressive value, was one of the elements of musicianship in which Callas was absolutely supreme. Passagework and ornaments that with many singers sound bland or even mechanical sounded fraught with meaning when she sang them; I think it was Martina Arroyo (someone correct me if I'm wrong) who said that her scales seemed to have words. It's mostly a matter of rhythm.


Bravo! More than other opera genres bel canto is to me more like jazz in that the artist has much more freedom to make a piece her own, of course dependent on the cooperation of the conductor. Jane Eaglen wanted to sing a high D in her recording of the trio in Norma, but Muti said it was not in the score and didn't allow it. Callas and Sutherland fans would not have been happy with that judgement applied to their divas. Mostly you see lots of variation with regard to ornamentation from that period luckily.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> One of the best things about the bel canto style of vocal writing is the freedom it gives the singer. That definitely implies freedom of rhythm, and a singer's ability to get free of the metronome and bring out shades of expression by applying subtle rubati to the written rhythms is a test of her suitability for the repertoire. The application of rhythmic flexibility to the "little notes," which is what gives them expressive value, was one of the elements of musicianship in which Callas was absolutely supreme. Passagework and ornaments that with many singers sound bland or even mechanical sounded fraught with meaning when she sang them; I think it was Martina Arroyo (someone correct me if I'm wrong) who said that her scales seemed to have words. It's mostly a matter of rhythm.


Arroyo, I think you've correctly attributed the quote, hits the nail on the head. A perfect example for me is the cadenza at the end of Leonora's _D'amor sul'ali rosee_. Even with such great singers as Ponselle and Leider, it can feel that it is just that, a cadenza tacked on at the end of the aria, but Callas somehow makes it a musical expression of Leonora's thoughts, a sort of summing up of what has gone before.

Another example would be the melismas in Anna Bolena's _Al dolce guidami_. She sounds as if she is extemporising on the spot, the music coming from somewhere deep in her soul. It is one of the things that makes her unique, though Caballé comes very close in her 1970 recording of the aria. Incidentally Callas saw Caballé as her natural heir, not Sutherland.


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