# Most Italian Dramatic Mezzos Sing Bel Canto: Rare For Dramatic Sopranos



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am always amazed at how many of the great Italian Dramatic Mezzos sing Rossini and Bellini quite well: Stignani, Simionato, Horne, Podles ( contralto), Horne, Simionato and today Blythe and Borodina. It is almost expected. Conversely it is comparatively rare to find a true dramatic soprano who can do justice to Norma. There have been some, but it seems to me not as common as the situation with the mezzos. Perhaps it is because mezzo voices might be more common. Am I off base in this observation?


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I am always amazed at how many of the great Italian Dramatic Mezzos sing Rossini and Bellini quite well: Stignani, Simionato, Horne, Podles ( contralto), Horne, Simionato and today Blythe and Borodina. It is almost expected. Conversely it is comparatively rare to find a true dramatic soprano who can do justice to Norma. There have been some, but it seems to me not as common as the situation with the mezzos. Perhaps it is because mezzo voices might be more common. Am I off base in this observation?


you forgot Verrett 

I was just thinking the same thing the other day, but I disagree with your conclusion. I think dramatic sopranos just tend to get lazy and think they can make a career belting (wobbling....) out high notes. dramatic mezzos are more "I need jobs!" and are willing to do more.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Isn't it at all possible that the role of "Norma" for example, is so very difficult that not many dramatic sopranos can undertake it successfully and that is why it is rarely presented?
Now that we have Sondra Radvanovsky, who is able to do a fabulous job with the role, perhaps it will show up more often.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> you forgot Verrett
> 
> I was just thinking the same thing the other day, but I disagree with your conclusion. I think dramatic sopranos just tend to get lazy and think they can make a career belting (wobbling....) out high notes. dramatic mezzos are more "I need jobs!" and are willing to do more.


I think you nailed it. Mezzos have to work harder for jobs. HOW could I forget Verrett!!! She was one of the very, very best!!!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I think you nailed it. Mezzos have to work harder for jobs. HOW could I forget Verrett!!! She was one of the very, very best!!!


How about forgetting : Cossotto and Baltsa


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm a little unclear on who we should be comparing with whom. Who is a "true" dramatic mezzo or soprano? Were Stiganani, Simionato and Horne so classified? Callas and Sutherland? And aren't many of Rossini's leading female roles, particularly in his more popular works, for mezzo-soprano?

If there is in fact a numerical imbalance between large-voiced mezzos and sopranos effective in Rossini, my suggestion would be that "soprano" has been the vocal category most victimized by the "fach" system so beloved of some people (you know who you are), whereby "dramatic" sopranos came to be "typed" as Wagnerian or verismo specialists, and the bel canto repertoire (Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini), falling largely into obscurity except for a very few works, was largely consigned to "songbird" sopranos, i.e., high, light-voiced coloratura specialists. This did not happen, at least not to the same degree, with other voice types, including mezzos.

Prior to World War I, sopranos were not so rigidly classified by "fach," and big-voiced sopranos such as Lilli Lehmann, Lillian Nordica, Johanna Gadski, Rosa Ponselle and Frida Leider excelled in roles requiring great flexibility as well as dramatic power. Only in the subsequent era of specialized "fachs" would Maria Callas, who sang everything from Brunnhilde to Lucia, have come as a great surprise.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I'm a little unclear on who we should be comparing with whom. Who is a "true" dramatic mezzo or soprano? Were Stiganani, Simionato and Horne so classified? Callas and Sutherland? And aren't many of Rossini's leading female roles, particularly in his more popular works, for mezzo-soprano
> 
> I would personally consider Stignani, Simionato and Horne as well as Verrett to be first class dramatic mezzos because of their huge voices which they brought to bear on the role of Amneris. Callas and Sutherland were hard to classify, but excepting Sutherland's shrinking voice at the bottom, both sang the coloratura in Norma in exemplary fashion with dramatic soprano weight in the middle and the top of the voice.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A fine example of a soprano we know best for her her highly dramatic performances of verismo roles from the 1960s on, here lip-synching very effectively to a recording she made at an earlier point in her career:






Familiar only with her later work, i was quite stunned by the completeness of her technique. It wasn't that I had any reason to doubt her coloratura facility, but simply that her later specialization had never allowed me to hear it. Who knows how many singers are much more versatile - potentially or actually - than we know?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> A fine example of a soprano we know best for her her highly dramatic performances of verismo roles from the 1960s on, here lip-synching very effectively to a recording she made at an earlier point in her career:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Olivero must have had throat muscles of pure steel. Her voice had incredible strength and that coupled with the passion she threw into her work made her a superior soprano and the sine qua non of verismo singers.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Olivero must have had throat muscles of pure steel. Her voice had incredible strength and that coupled with the passion she threw into her work made her a superior soprano and the sine qua non of verismo singers.


Olivero had a special radiance and charisma, a fearless, larger than life quality that hearkened back to an earlier, Romantic age. If you've ever seen the movie _Camille _from 1936, you'll understand when I say that had Greta Garbo had been an opera singer, she would have played that scene very much as Olivero did. It's interesting that Callas said that Garbo's Lady of the Camellias was an inspiration to her. I can't help wondering if Olivero wasn't affected by it too.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Isn't it at all possible that the role of "Norma" for example, is so very difficult that not many dramatic sopranos can undertake it successfully and that is why it is rarely presented?
> Now that we have Sondra Radvanovsky, who is able to do a fabulous job with the role, perhaps it will show up more often.


Except that, compared to Callas and Sutherland, Radvanovsky's coloratura can be a bit vague. She isn't bad by any means, and probably a good deal better than anyone else with that size of voice at the moment, but nowhere does she display the staggering fluency and accuracy of Sutherland or Callas.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Except that, compared to Callas and Sutherland, Radvanovsky's coloratura can be a bit vague. She isn't bad by any means, and probably a good deal better than anyone else with that size of voice at the moment, but nowhere does she display the staggering fluency and accuracy of Sutherland or Callas.


Have you seen her 3 Queens lately?
We are in the midst of, not a fine singer, rather a great soprano that can take her place right next to the best of the best of the past.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Have you seen her 3 Queens lately?
> We are in the midst of, not a fine singer, rather a great soprano that can take her place right next to the best of the best of the past.


No, but I've seen clips on youtube, and I stand by what I said above. She has presence and a fine instrument, but her coloratura can be a bit sketchy.


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## mezzofiona (Apr 8, 2018)

OK first of all:
Horne was not a dramatic mezzo. She was a lyric mezzo who was able to sing some dramatic repertoire but by no means was she naturally born with a dramatic instrument. All her best recordings are of the lyric repertoire, the dramatic stuff was definitely not her forte (pun intended).

Same goes for Blythe and Podles. Just because they sing it well enough doesn't mean that's their fach and what they do best.

Secondly: Mezzo voices are definitely not more common. Most women are naturally born with a soprano voice. True dramatic mezzos are very rare.

I agree that many true dramatic mezzos can sing belcanto and coloratura well. I would count Stignani, Simionato, Cossotto, Verrett, Borodina among others. My theory (as a true dramatic mezzo) is that this is because we have to learn to navigate 3 registers very well. It takes a lot of work to have a powerful and beautiful lower, middle and top register (if you use that term) and the passsiagios in between. I would argue that a dramatic mezzo who is any good does more technical training than a dramatic soprano of the same calibre.

Also, almost all dramatic mezzo repertoire requires agility - Verdi arias and Carmen all have a bit of coloratura. Puccini didn't write for us. If a mezzo doesn't have agility you are screwed whereas a soprano can get away with a lot especially in Puccini and Wagner rep. Therefore a dramatic mezzo can usually sing very well a wider range of rep than a lyric mezzo... unfortunately these days singers are jacks of all trades and you have thin light-voiced lyric mezzos singing Eboli and Dalila when they really shouldn't...


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