# An Operatic Take on Streisand



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Although she is not supposed to be a trained vocaiist, when it comes to breath control and pure legato singing that also combines very clear enunciation of words,La Streisand seems on the level of a classical artist. The voice placement is different of course, but in my opinion she does a beautiful job singing lieder on her Classical Barbra Album. My favorite was In Trutina from Oedipus Rex 



 I much prefer early Streisand ( up to the album People) to her later work. Does anyone have an opinion you'd like to share. Delete this if this is the wrong forum. I just don't think you'd get a classical perspective on the pop forums.If anyone is interested she does a good comic take on an opera singer and sings up to an A5, much higher than her belting notes. This was on the Belle of 14th St. My sister, an opera singer, felt she could have had a career in opera if she had pursued the training. I am not certain what her voice would be classified as. When young she had the bright placement of a soprano but her range was that of a mezzo.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

To me Streisand's voice is a spectacular vocal pastiche but her inherent nasal sound precludes that of an opera singer for me. Whether, with the right training, she could change that, or would even want to, I don't know.
I'll take her for what she really is and not try to squeeze her into another category.
(I already have enough agita worrying about the changes that Kaufmann allowed to take place for his "normal" sound.)


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I'm not a singer at all, so I can't judge, but I especially like her performances of Beau Soir, Pavanne and Apres Une Reve.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Some of Streisand's classical forays are pleasantly pretty, but lacking in intensity. I don't think opera would have suited her - and certainly not as well as what she actually did. With her combination of range, power, breath control, expression and diction (not to mention acting ability), she's one of the few pop singers I can stand, although I rarely do. For me "Funny Girl" pretty much sums her up. Leave the French chansons to Teyte and Souzay.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

She has her fans:



> For Orff's "In Trutina," Streisand, using the fastest vibrato in the west and the most impeccable intonation this side of Maria Stader's prime, provides a reading second to none in terms of vocal security while stripping this rather vapid air of its customary theatrical accouterments. More to the point, perhaps, she turns in the only current version possessed of exactly the right Book of Hours-like accommodation to the text.


Source:
http://barbra-archives.com/bjs_library/70s/high_fidelity_1976.html


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GreenMamba said:


> She has her fans:
> 
> Source:
> http://barbra-archives.com/bjs_library/70s/high_fidelity_1976.html


You can always rely on Glenn Gould.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Thanks guys! I was getting ready to pull this thread as it had seen so many views and no comments. Only a small handful of pop singers voices wow me like opera singers do, and Streisand, particularly when she was young, and Garland are the best of the lot IMHO. I finally found the clip I wanted from THe Belle of 14th Street of her doing a comic take on an opera singer where you can hear hints of what her top would be like if she opened it up. She is singing Liebestraum closing on a lovely A5: 



. She could have been a good opera singer but she chose the right path.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Best thing since Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I saw them live. She sang in the original key!!!!! Very few countertenors sing as high as C6. I love MVGB!!!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I just nicked the L.P from my parents from Streisand, now I am curious.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

She's ok for a pop singer but I am not a fan. She'll be forgotten soon enough.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Morimur said:


> She's ok for a pop singer but I am not a fan. She'll be forgotten soon enough.


She's the only pop singer to have number one selling records in 5 different decades. Not a small accomplishment in a youth oriented industry. She also had a classical album Classical Barbra which sold well with a ravishing version of Beau Soir by Debussy among a collection of lieder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rnjl-s8dPs:.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Best thing since Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh.


(spraying coffee all over my monitor!)


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Morimur said:


> She's ok for a pop singer but I am not a fan. She'll be forgotten soon enough.


Hahahahaha!!! :lol: That was a joke of course, right?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> Hahahahaha!!! :lol: That was a joke of course, right?


I predict , pretty serious .


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Morimur said:


> She's ok for a pop singer but I am not a fan. She'll be forgotten soon enough.


I _highly doubt_ she'll be forgotten! On the contrary, I think she'll go down in history as one of the greatest popular singers of all time.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Barbra Streisand (I don't care for her style much of the time), but I'd never deny that her voice is superb. You have to remember, too, that she began as a Broadway musical theatre performer (_I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Funny Girl_) which is more or less different from a "pop singer." She's great on the _Funny Girl_ cast album; my mom saw that show on Broadway and still talks about Streisand in it. Incidentally, I remember reading where someone with expertise remarked that Streisand -- whose voice falls basically into the mezzo range -- could probably have had an operatic career had she trained for opera.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> I _highly doubt_ she'll be forgotten! On the contrary, I think she'll go down in history as one of the greatest popular singers of all time.
> 
> Incidentally, I remember reading where someone with expertise remarked that Streisand -- whose voice falls basically into the mezzo range -- could probably have had an operatic career had she trained for opera.


The complaint that contemporary opera singers tend to sound anonymous would not have applied to Streisand. Her unique vocal timbre might have made her quite distinctive (along with her profile, of course).


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Like Callas, Barbra Streisand is a unique and very special talent in a category all her own. She's not likely to be forgotten very easily!!!!!!


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> The complaint that contemporary opera singers tend to sound anonymous would not have applied to Streisand. Her unique vocal timbre might have made her quite distinctive *(along with her profile, of course).*


That's another thing: I've never understood why so many people say she's "ugly." She has beautiful coloring, and I _love_ her profile. But then, I've always had a "thing" for the high-bridged nose. For example:









Felix Mendelssohn









Adrien Brody


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> That's another thing: I've never understood why so many people say she's "ugly." She has beautiful coloring, and I _love_ her profile. But then, I've always had a "thing" for the high-bridged nose. For example:
> 
> View attachment 86807
> 
> ...


I agree. What is this thing about noses? Cute little button noses are for babies!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I grew up in Mississippi and I never knew any Jewish people. She has a very Jewish look, something you rarely saw where I grew up and in the 60's rarely saw on TV. Many Jewish performers had their noses fixed then and now so you didn't see many women who looked like that. I loved her exotic looks. I've always thought she was a very striking woman.I got married a thousand years ago andmy wife looked similar to Streisand with eyeliner but with a smaller nose;-) I made her wear Streisand wigs. I married a drag queen... just kidding.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I grew up in Mississippi and I never knew any Jewish people. She has a very Jewish look, something you rarely saw where I grew up and in the 60's rarely saw on TV. Many Jewish performers had their noses fixed then and now so you didn't see many women who looked like that. I loved her exotic looks. I've always thought she was a very striking woman.I got married a thousand years ago and my wife looked similar to Streisand with eyeliner but with a smaller nose;-) I made her wear Streisand wigs. I married a drag queen... just kidding.


Kind of RUPAUL?


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I grew up in Mississippi and I never knew any Jewish people. She has a very Jewish look, something you rarely saw where I grew up and in the 60's rarely saw on TV. Many Jewish performers had their noses fixed then and now so you didn't see many women who looked like that. I loved her exotic looks. I've always thought she was a very striking woman.I got married a thousand years ago andmy wife looked similar to Streisand with eyeliner but with a smaller nose;-) I made her wear Streisand wigs. I married a drag queen... just kidding.


At the risk of sounding insensitive, I think it's a shame if someone feels she needs rhinoplasty to "fix" her "Jewish nose."

By the way, many non-Jews have the high bridge too. For example, here's Ralph Fiennes:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> At the risk of sounding insensitive, I think it's a shame if someone feels she needs rhinoplasty to "fix" her "Jewish nose."
> 
> By the way, many non-Jews have the high bridge too. For example, here's Ralph Fiennes:
> 
> View attachment 86817


Fine nose for good taste my nan always says .


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> At the risk of sounding insensitive, I think it's a shame if someone feels she needs rhinoplasty to "fix" her "Jewish nose."
> 
> By the way, many non-Jews have the high bridge too. For example, here's Ralph Fiennes:
> 
> View attachment 86817


Certainly Callas had a nose as large as Streisand"s and she was considered a beautiful woman.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

I am happy for you you got a good response depite the obvius trolling. 

I'm not sure why but I can only take Streisand and Garland in very small doses. It seems to me their personalities are so large they almost overpower the songs, like modern Jonny One Notes. That said when I do hear one track by them its wonderful.


I wish there were G&S patter songs for women, but that old misogynist Gilbert wouldn't have allowed them. I'd dearly love to hear Barbara as a truly Modern Major General.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Certainly Callas had a nose as large as Streisand"s and she was considered a beautiful woman.


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I have never listened to Barbara Streisand but the thought of if she had become an opera singer is interesting.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Belowpar said:


> I am happy for you you got a good response depite the obvius trolling.
> 
> *I'm not sure why but I can only take Streisand and Garland in very small doses. It seems to me their personalities are so large they almost overpower the songs, like modern Jonny One Notes. That said when I do hear one track by them its wonderful.*
> 
> I wish there were G&S patter songs for women, but that old misogynist Gilbert wouldn't have allowed them. I'd dearly love to hear Barbara as a truly Modern Major General.


I can relate to what you're saying. Personally, I prefer Garland to Streisand and could listen to copious amounts of her singing; however, the thing that sometimes makes me uncomfortable while listening to her (Garland) is not so much that she had a very troubled life as the fact that you can at times hear the effects of this on her singing. For example, even early in her career there were times when her vibrato seemed to overwhelm her voice or when she sounded more or less drunk. In short, she was a _great_ talent but I tend to wish she had gotten help, lived more moderately, and been more in control of her art. But that's a topic for another thread.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> I can relate to what you're saying. Personally, I prefer Garland to Streisand and could listen to copious amounts of her singing; however, the thing that sometimes makes me uncomfortable while listening to her (Garland) is not so much that she had a very troubled life as the fact that you can at times hear the effects of this on her singing. For example, even early in her career there were times when her vibrato seemed to overwhelm her voice or when she sounded more or less drunk. In short, she was a _great_ talent but I tend to wish she had gotten help, lived more moderately, and been more in control of her art. But that's a topic for another thread.


Garland was interesting in that she was in reality a tenor as far as her range was concerned, although I have heard a short clip of her singing when young where she assumed an operatic like sound and sang up to a G5. Her high notes were the same as Pavarotti's in all her big ballads.... A,B,C... almost never a D. There was a dramatic intensity and fullness to her sound that was somewhat operatic in quality which is almost never heard in other pop singers. Streisand had more colors to her voice, but Garland had a fuller more overwhelming sound. What they both had was a unity in their voices from the bottom of their range to the top and you never got a shifting of gears. They both combined great legato with crisp enunciation, the words never getting lost in their singing. Garland was at her best on her TV show that ran for one year. After that her voice started getting frayed at the edges. When she was at her best she was the most exciting pop singer of all time. Hands down. Take a look at this from her TV show: 



 Come Rain or Come Shine. Garland could give me chills when singing pop music, something normally that only happens with opera greats. Her high notes covered me in gooseflesh over and over.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> I can relate to what you're saying. Personally, I prefer Garland to Streisand and could listen to copious amounts of her singing; however, the thing that sometimes makes me uncomfortable while listening to her (Garland) is not so much that she had a very troubled life as the fact that you can at times hear the effects of this on her singing. For example, even early in her career there were times when her vibrato seemed to overwhelm her voice or when she sounded more or less drunk. In short, she was a _great_ talent but I tend to wish she had gotten help, lived more moderately, and been more in control of her art. But that's a topic for another thread.


Poor Frances Gumm was on uppers, downers and God knows what else even as a youngster, thanks to all the unscrupulous people who made her a "star." A great voice and a great talent, but that "living on the edge" quality in her singing that some find exciting disturbs me, sometimes projecting a feeling of underlying desperation even in music that doesn't suggest it. It took me a while to get used to her and see how great she was. Babs was always serenely in control, but she moves me less than Garland.

Let's not even talk about Liza the Wobbler. "Like mother, like daughter"? Not.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

SeattleOperaFan, there's a very informative, interesting chapter on Garland in the classic Henry Pleasants book _The Great American Popular Singers_, if you can get hold of it.

Woodduck, I think of Liza as sort of like Ethel Merman: a clear, trumpet-like timbre that tends to lack softness. As for "like mother, like daughter" -- if you listen to this recording of Liza at age 19 (the musical being Kander and Ebb's _Flora, the Red Menace_, her Broadway debut), there are several moments where she _really_ sounds like her mother. This, by the way, is my all-time favorite song from a musical:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> Woodduck, *I think of Liza as sort of like Ethel Merman*: a clear, trumpet-like timbre that tends to lack softness. As for "like mother, like daughter" -- if you listen to this recording of Liza at age 19 (the musical being Kander and Ebb's _Flora, the Red Menace_, her Broadway debut), there are several moments where she _really_ sounds like her mother. This, by the way, is my all-time favorite song from a musical:


I think of Ethel Merman as sort of like an elephant in heat.

Liza does that song very well, but I can hear why the vibrato just got wider and wider. It's the sort of belting from the chest which I've heard called, picturesquely, "tonsil-tossing." Not my thing, basically.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I think of Ethel Merman as sort of like an elephant in heat.
> 
> Liza does that song very well, but I can hear why the vibrato just got wider and wider. It's the sort of belting from the chest which I've heard called, picturesquely, "tonsil-tossing." Not my thing, basically.


We'll have to agree to disagree regarding Merman. I think her voice was, basically, wonderful, especially in the 1930's when she was in musicals like _Anything Goes._ and in the 1940's when she starred in _Annie Get Your Gun_. Her style of singing was not even close to "classical" (as Henry Pleasants pointed out in his book), but she could definitely sing and had a great sense of rhythm. A famous Broadway composer (Cole Porter, I think?) commented on her "time-stealing" (_rubato_) technique.

*Edited to add:* In the Liza recording, I think she sounds most like Judy when she sings the word "scream" in the first section, and then when she sings the phrase "When it all comes true," at the start of the actual song. By the way, I notice that her softer tones in the recording have a really nice "focus" to them.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Judy Garland Is Sacrosanct!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:angel:


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

In case you are interested here is my latest video on why I prefer Streisand's early vocals best.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> In case you are interested here is my latest video on why I prefer Streisand's early vocals best.


I barely can hear your voice S.O.F. I have my speakers on highest volume.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Pugg said:


> I barely can hear your voice S.O.F. I have my speakers on highest volume.


After an HOUR of looking I found a way to fix the sound. Will post new link when uploaded.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Pugg said:


> I barely can hear your voice S.O.F. I have my speakers on highest volume.






Pugg, I think this volume will be better for my speech on why I prefer early Streisand.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Pugg, I think this volume will be better for my speech on why I prefer early Streisand.


Give it a spin later, thanks in advance.


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