# Norma at the Met



## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Sondra Radvanovsky as Norma, Kate Aldrich as Adalgisa, James Morris as Oroveso, Aleksandrs Antonenko as Pollione, and Riccardo Frizza conducting.

Ouch. It wasn't too good. I had a brief moment about halfway through when I was afraid the experience was going to put me off Norma forever. 

This was the first opera I really fell in love with and became obsessed with. I listened to the whole thing daily through the spring and summer of 2008, before it ever occurred to me to move to NYC. Even now it seems like almost the perfect opera to me: the overly dramatic situations I associate with "real" opera, together with a cast of characters that all seem like real people (well, right up to the point Norma takes responsibility for what she's done. That's where we sport off into la-la land.) The obvious plot holes don't bother me; they're not even relevant. And after I got here, every year, when the Met would send emails out asking what you thought and giving you a list of potential thoughts to select from, there would be a section at the end where they would ask if you had any nonscripted thoughts. I would always put in "Norma, Norma, Norma!!!" I am punished.

Everyone was trying so hard. It's really a shame. Every once in a while the performance rose to a level of engaging the audience, but it wasn't very often. But you really cannot fault anyone on effort, I don't think.

The sets are definitely part of the problem. Not sure what the set designer was going for, but what they arrived at was something that looked like it was taking place inside the mouth of a giant that had been burned to the ground. A jagged row of blackened stumps on a black background, the moon in the distance. When Norma was at home, instead of blackened stumps, she had a black slate quarter-wall. Ugly. Unrelieved. The costumes had some color to them, but it didn't help much. I got the impression that the original purpose was to be entirely colorless, and someone had come along after and said, no, we've got to have some color; throw in the costumes from this other thing; and so the point of not having color was lost, and the color itself didn't help. A lose-lose situation.

Then it didn't help that the first act and a half seemed designed to compel the performers to demonstrate what park and bark really means. There was movement, but it didn't seem like it. Congested sleepwalking stasis. And when Antonenko and his Flavio came on, they started off like a couple of Charlton Heston impersonators. "I love you, man!" their body language screamed. They held a manly pose here, then they held a manly pose there. Yeah, OK. I love you too. Now dance.

Antonenko probably sang the best of the four principals. He seemed - I'm no expert, so I'm venturing out onto a dry limb here - seemed to have been working hard to create a rounded, Italianate tone. He was almost there, too. Missing a few pieces, but still working on it. I was just glad he wasn't a shouter. We had a Russian tenor last year who seemed to believe that singing loudly was the primary requirement. Antonenko is Latvian in origin, so not really Russian, but I was worried. No worries. He sang pretty well. He got a bit lost in the part-singing, but that's really the least of my complaints.

Morris is now a tenor, unfortunately. He still can sing low notes, but you know how people can listen to two different guys sing exactly the same note and tell that one is a baritone and the other is a tenor? It was like that. Folks, he's Roberto Alagna with a bad wobble. That is not what you want from Oroveso.

Radvanovsky provided some of the high points. Her acting occasionally got a scene going; her singing was occasionally up to the job. Not in general. I had not realized how much harder Norma is than Fiordiligi. Susannah Phillips tossed off Fiordiligi so capably a week ago, and here Radvanovsky, a much more experienced and much better thought-of soprano, struggled with every note.

Aldrich was really surprising. I saw her bio, thought she'd probably be pretty good, as I had the feeling that Adalgisa is a role that makes anyone that sings it sound good. Not Aldrich. She was gasping like Hvorostovsky. All those wonderful arias that give a good singer the chance to step up and own a role: all whiffed. She attempted high note after high note and just made it clear she wasn't that high.

And Frizza clearly didn't have a unified idea of what he wanted from the orchestra. Every once in a while one of his tempos brought it all to life, but most of the time I was wondering what he was up to with this fresh new tempo. To me this is probably the oddest part of the whole thing: Norma has been done quite effectively on recordings. There are plenty of ideas out there to copy off of and make a plan for bringing it all together. He may have had one, but it didn't show. And he didn't even have to sing!

Garrgh. Well, Eugene Onegin in a couple weeks. We'll see.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Haha, I think you should be a professional reviewer. Suspense.... Hilarity... Manly poses...:clap:


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I'm sorry to hear you found the performance mediocre. As you can tell from my username, I love Bellini and try to see his operas whenever I can; he wrote so few of them and they're performed relatively infrequently, so I figure I should take every chance I get! I've seen NORMA twice "live," both in excellent productions. The second one was last March at Washington National Opera, with Angela Meade and Dolora Zajick.

It's too bad the sets were so weird. The ones for Washington Opera were minimalist as well, and I honestly don't think that works for Bellini. In my view, sets for Bellini's operas should be as lavish and beautiful as is his music; an idealized beauty would be far better than minimalism.

But what really bothers me is when older opera lovers seize on a performance like that as "evidence" that singing today is not as good as it was in the past. Reading books like "The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera" and "The Grand Tradition" makes it clear that there has _always_ been mediocrity in opera.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

remember what Callas said? Norma is hard. Bellini is hard. When you said it was Radvanovsky I thought _I'm not sure about this_. I've only seen her in Il Trovatore which I couldn't finish but that wasn't her fault (it was Verdi's). I thought she was good there. However this is a bit different. I'm actually not holding my breath for a proper Norma these days because I'm a little circumspect about current sopranos handling Bellini. If anyone has seen a good one please let me know who to look out for. Aldrich I really liked as Orisini in Lucrezia Borgia but then was disappointed every other time and stopped trying with her. Don't forget, though, that although a mezzo role, Adalgisa is written pretty much as high in tessitura as Norma. So gasping isn't surprising. Hard stuff, you know?

sorry you had a bad time!


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

*Deggial:* The soprano I saw as Norma at Virginia Opera, Fabiana Bravo (what a name! ), was marvelous. I was also impressed by Angela Meade last March. People seem to enjoy bashing her -- I don't know why. But I definitely agree that Bellini is hard. It seems to me that if you're going to sing his operas _really_ well, you almost have to specialize in them.

Edited to add: It would seem to me that today's singers would be better equipped for Bellini than some of the ones just before the advent of Callas. On recordings I've heard Ezio Pinza and Zinka Milanov in Bellini and, though they were both great singers, they just didn't sound right. Of course, I would have loved to hear Rosa Ponselle's Norma! That would have been superb.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Oh well, perhaps later performnces will improve . Met performnces tend to be somewhat ragged and tentative
on the first performnce of a run of any given opera, but usually improve considerably., I agree - Bellini is hard 
to bring off live .


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> *Deggial:* The soprano I saw as Norma at Virginia Opera, Fabiana Bravo (what a name! ), was marvelous. I was also impressed by Angela Meade last March. People seem to enjoy bashing her -- I don't know why. But I definitely agree that Bellini is hard. It seems to me that if you're going to sing his operas _really_ well, you almost have to specialize in them.
> 
> Edited to add: It would seem to me that today's singers would be better equipped for Bellini than some of the ones just before the advent of Callas. On recordings I've heard Ezio Pinza and Zinka Milanov in Bellini and, though they were both great singers, they just didn't sound right. Of course, I would have loved to hear Rosa Ponselle's Norma! That would have been superb.


actually Meade isn't bad. I didn't know she gets bashed but doesn't every singer?  cheers for the tip on Fabiana Bravo, I'll check her out.

I see what you mean about today's singers and in theory, yes. I just think Norma is such a tricky role, necessitating a dramatic soprano with an excellent command of coloratura, plus the specific Bellini demands, which isn't that easy to find (mind, I don't think there have been that many sopranos who did justice to Norma even in the past). But specifically nowadays I sometimes feel like sopranos waltz through Bellini on their way to Verdi and Puccini and don't stop to give Bellini the attention to detail his music deserves.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well,_ Norma _was also my first real operatic love, back in the spring of 1976... And still my favorite opera, after all these years.

The role is written for a soprano "drammatico d'agilità", a rare vocality, now as in the 1830s. A voice like Callas, is near to the ideal for Norma, the only possible improvements being a more beautiful timbre and more homogeneity of the voice between the low and high notes (this last one, a very difficult undertaking for this kind of fach).

Clearly, if we would need to wait for a true "drammatico d'agilità" to sing Norma, there would be pretty few performances. The role can be approached from other vocalities, and can be approached very well, like Sutherland, Caballé, Cerquetti,... did.

Ms. Radvanovsky, that sang the role for the first time in Oviedo, is a true dramatic soprano, with a big voice, but also able to sing pianissimi and filati (not always perfect, true), though her vibrato can bother some fans. However, she is a nice option to sing Norma. Not a historical Norma, but a good one, in my view. Of course, I'm talking in general terms, as I haven't listened to that particular performance in the MET, and any singer can have a bad day.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

schigolch said:


> Well,_ Norma _was also my first real operatic love, back in the spring of 1976... And still my favorite opera, after all these years.
> 
> The role is written for a soprano "drammatico d'agilità", a rare vocality, now as in the 1830s. A voice like Callas, is near to the ideal for Norma, the only possible improvements being a more beautiful timbre and more homogeneity of the voice between the low and high notes (this last one, a very difficult undertaking for this kind of fach).
> 
> ...


With all respect, you seem to be ignoring the overwhelming contemporary evidence that Joan Sutherland was a true "drammatico d'agilità", though she was generally listed as a coloratura because of her roles. Her voice was positively enormous and was hired as a dramatic soprano by Covent Garden and sang Aida there before moving on to Lucia. She didn't use her chest voice like Callas did ( and her longevity proved she made a good decision) but her lack of temperament for Norma doesn't detract from her being the ideal type of voice for the role. Just listen to the MASSIVE sound she produced on her high notes in the '64 Norma, which are positively inhuman in size. Don't forget the fact that her Turandot recording is consistently considered one of the best offerings out there for that role. Turandot! She doesn't sound like a spinto as the icy princess! By no means. All contemporary accounts attest that the sound produced from her enormous jaw was astonishing and came at you from all over the house.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

She was indeed an astonishing singer, the owner of a huge voice and a wonderful Norma. I don't even need 'contemporay accounts' to testify about those facts, I have listened to her live in the theater . However, her low notes were never those of a true "drammatico d'agilità'. 

Other roles for "dramattico d'agilità' or 'soprano assoluto' include Médée, Armida, Gemma di Vergy, Anna Bolena...


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

My significant other was at that performance too. He was wowed by Radvanovsky's dynamic control, wowed by Antonenko in general, and felt Aldrich had a hard time making herself heard.

This sounds like the same production I saw from the Family Circle with Guleghina (circa 2007 when FC tickets were $15!). As I recall, yes it was a bit static and monochrome, but it also felt appropriate for the tale of a druid priestess.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

schigolch said:


> She was indeed an astonishing singer, the owner of a huge voice and a wonderful Norma. I don't even need 'contemporay accounts' to testify about those facts, I have listened to her live in the theater . However, her low notes were never those of a true "drammatico d'agilità'.
> 
> Other roles for "dramattico d'agilità' or 'soprano assoluto' include Médée, Armida, Gemma di Vergy, Anna Bolena...


I can see how you would say that. She certainly didn't have Maria's chest notes. Since she began as a mezzo I suspect her apparent weakness around middle C was more from care for the voice than lack of a capacity to produce a dramatic lower voice sound.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

mamascarlatti said:


> Haha, I think you should be a professional reviewer. Suspense.... Hilarity... Manly poses...:clap:


lol glad YOU enjoyed it.... :lol:


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Bellinilover said:


> I've seen NORMA twice "live," both in excellent productions. The second one was last March at Washington National Opera, with Angela Meade and Dolora Zajick.


What did you think of Meade? I love Zajick, but I've yet to see Meade do anything good with a real audience as opposed to an audience of judges.



> It's too bad the sets were so weird. The ones for Washington Opera were minimalist as well, and I honestly don't think that works for Bellini. In my view, sets for Bellini's operas should be as lavish and beautiful as is his music; an idealized beauty would be far better than minimalism.


Well said! I for one would be more than grateful to see the experiment attempted. Well, I Puritani is coming up in the spring; we'll see how that goes.



> But what really bothers me is when older opera lovers seize on a performance like that as "evidence" that singing today is not as good as it was in the past. Reading books like "The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera" and "The Grand Tradition" makes it clear that there has _always_ been mediocrity in opera.


Still waiting on that book...


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

deggial said:


> remember what Callas said? Norma is hard. Bellini is hard. When you said it was Radvanovsky I thought _I'm not sure about this_. I've only seen her in Il Trovatore which I couldn't finish but that wasn't her fault (it was Verdi's). I thought she was good there. However this is a bit different. I'm actually not holding my breath for a proper Norma these days because I'm a little circumspect about current sopranos handling Bellini. If anyone has seen a good one please let me know who to look out for. Aldrich I really liked as Orisini in Lucrezia Borgia but then was disappointed every other time and stopped trying with her. Don't forget, though, that although a mezzo role, Adalgisa is written pretty much as high in tessitura as Norma. So gasping isn't surprising. Hard stuff, you know?
> 
> sorry you had a bad time!


I didn't actually see what Callas said about it ... but if she said it was hard, I think I understand that a bit better now! Honestly, I thought Radvanovsky's Leonora was really pretty good. And I've heard you have to have one of the best singers in the world for THAT role. No, I don't doubt Radvanovsky is an awfully good singer. I'm not going to take against her - wish I'd been able to see Dessi do it live! I saw her on opera in cinema and it wasn't bad at all.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

superhorn said:


> Oh well, perhaps later performnces will improve . Met performnces tend to be somewhat ragged and tentative
> on the first performnce of a run of any given opera, but usually improve considerably., I agree - Bellini is hard
> to bring off live .


So you think if I get a ticket for the last show it'll be better? Hmm...


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

schigolch said:


> Well,_ Norma _was also my first real operatic love, back in the spring of 1976... And still my favorite opera, after all these years.
> 
> The role is written for a soprano "drammatico d'agilità", a rare vocality, now as in the 1830s. A voice like Callas, is near to the ideal for Norma, the only possible improvements being a more beautiful timbre and more homogeneity of the voice between the low and high notes (this last one, a very difficult undertaking for this kind of fach).
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reassurance. It's always good to be reminded of these things! Maybe I will try a later performance and see how that goes.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> My significant other was at that performance too. He was wowed by Radvanovsky's dynamic control, wowed by Antonenko in general, and felt Aldrich had a hard time making herself heard.
> 
> This sounds like the same production I saw from the Family Circle with Guleghina (circa 2007 when FC tickets were $15!). As I recall, yes it was a bit static and monochrome, but it also felt appropriate for the tale of a druid priestess.


Now that you mention it, I have to admit that I was impressed by Radvanovsky's ability to make her voice louder and softer while holding a single note - there's a term for that but I've forgotten it. Supposed to be extremely difficult, but she did manage it well.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

here is the bit of the interview in which she briefly talks about the difficulty of singing Bellini (starts at 1:17):


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

guythegreg said:


> there's a term for that but I've forgotten it


Messa di voce

X-pants


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

*Guythegreg:* Angela Meade's voice projected beautifully in the opera house at the Kennedy Center. It's a big voice and it has a noticeable vibrato, a bit on the "slow" or "wide" side, but regular and even. I wouldn't say it's as graceful a voice as Sutherland's, and I don't know whether it's a particularly Italianate sound; I didn't notice, or don't remember, whether she used any of the "Italian" devices like portamento. I'd say she was a much more than adequate Norma. To be honest, I was more focused on the superb and seasoned Zajick, as she's arguably the most famous singer I've ever heard live in the opera house (I did hear Lawrence Brownlee in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, but Zajick has been around much longer).


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

As commented before in the thread, here is a example of a messa di voce, as requested by Bellini on the word 'ciel', marked as <> in the score, at the end of "Casta Diva". This is indeed a very difficult feat for a singer. Change the volume, but keeping constant the pitch and ideally other features as well.

This is Leyla Gencer trying, around 6:20.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

^ cheers, mate, you're always informative :tiphat:


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Well, with Maria Callas dead and gone, it can't be any good...

Kudos to the Met for producing it, though. I wish they had included it in their "Live from the Met"--I might have gone to see it.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Celloman said:


> Well, with Maria Callas dead and gone, it can't be any good...


These "Callas did it, not to be staged anymore EVER" are so much all around that I'm starting to think that back in time, when _Norma_ was new opera, people were like this too and they said "why Pasta attempts to sing it when Callas is going to set the ultimate standard 100+ years from now! Norma is for Callas only... what? Bellini wrote the role for Pasta? What idiot, only Callas can sing it, didn't he know?!"


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Bellinilover said:


> *Guythegreg:* Angela Meade's voice projected beautifully in the opera house at the Kennedy Center. It's a big voice and it has a noticeable vibrato, a bit on the "slow" or "wide" side, but regular and even. I wouldn't say it's as graceful a voice as Sutherland's, and I don't know whether it's a particularly Italianate sound; I didn't notice, or don't remember, whether she used any of the "Italian" devices like portamento. I'd say she was a much more than adequate Norma. To be honest, I was more focused on the superb and seasoned Zajick, as she's arguably the most famous singer I've ever heard live in the opera house (I did hear Lawrence Brownlee in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, but Zajick has been around much longer).


Thanks. Maybe I'll give her another try. My experience has been that the purity of tone you want is always lacking, with her; like every note is a wolf tone. And maybe some people hear that and some don't, or maybe it bothers some and not others. We'll see!


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## margaretlb (Mar 4, 2013)

Well, you've piqued my interest! I'll be attending later this month and have been looking forward to my first Norma. I'm sorry to hear that the production is so drab - is it as bad as Tosca  Still, I haven't attended a live Bellini opera so I'm pretty excited in spite of the sketchy reviews so I'll just remember what schigolch wrote and appreciate the performance as the best on offer.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

The modern day Norma performances not only have almost impossible task of finding female voice/character for Norma but often the big let down is modern Polliones cannot compare to Del Monaco or Correlli......

Young Sutherland with her clean vocal still intact had the huge voice but never the temperment for this dramatic character, she played the regal majestic Norma......Callas was fire and ice and had the full measure of this part, the warrior priestess ready to lead her people against the Roman Eagle yet break our hearts with her love and compassion.

The section right after "casta diva" ceremony is a microcosm of emotion for Norma "ah bello a me ritorna" that shows why Callas is so admired,* is there any doubt that Roman blood will flow with the fire in her eyes when Norma's voice thunders from the temple*.....then tenderly she remembers the early carefree days of her romance and how happy she was, Callas is just a natural for this role


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

The best modern production I have seen of Norma is the Fiorenza Cedolins, but unfortunately a weak Pollione.......


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

My favorite Norma of recent times is the Greek soprano Dimitra Theodossiou. There are a couple of DVDs in the market:










This one from Macerata in 2007, with the welcome addition of Daniela Barcellona as Adalgisa (the Pollione is Carlo Ventre, in the same vocal category as the late Vincenzo La Scola).










And this one from Catania in 2005, again with Mr. Ventre, but with Nidia Palacios (a beautiful woman, but not really Adalgisa) instead of Barcellona.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Bellinilover said:


> *Guythegreg:* Angela Meade's voice projected beautifully in the opera house at the Kennedy Center. It's a big voice and it has a noticeable vibrato, a bit on the "slow" or "wide" side, but regular and even. I wouldn't say it's as graceful a voice as Sutherland's, and I don't know whether it's a particularly Italianate sound; I didn't notice, or don't remember, whether she used any of the "Italian" devices like portamento. I'd say she was a much more than adequate Norma. To be honest, I was more focused on the superb and seasoned Zajick, as she's arguably the most famous singer I've ever heard live in the opera house (I did hear Lawrence Brownlee in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, but Zajick has been around much longer).


Zajick is something, for sure. Maybe it's time for me to give Meade another try! Thanks for the details.


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

"Seasoned Zajick"... I like that. Has a ring to it, aside from being true.

Norma was as difficult to cast, if not more so, in the Golden Age of Opera. In 1918 Gatti-Cassazza and Caruso finally found someone who could sing Leonora in Forza del Destino, Rosa Ponselle, and were able to restage the opera after many years. This was a singer whom Tullio Serafin included among the only three "vocal miracles" he'd ever met. The other two were Caruso and Titta Ruffo. 

Ponselle triumphed as Leonora, and was ambitious to play Norma too, but G-C made her wait until he felt that her voice was mature enough and her technique solid enough that she could assume the role. She received extensive vocal training for years, mainly for this role. For G-C, it seems, staging Norma with the right coloratura was a Holy Grail pursuit. So, nothing new...


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Revenant said:


> This was a singer whom Tullio Serafin included among the only three "vocal miracles" he'd ever met. The other two were Caruso and Titta Ruffo.


what did he actually mean by it? I'm asking because I find both Ponselle and Ruffo's voices extremely annoying.


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

deggial said:


> what did he actually mean by it? I'm asking because I find both Ponselle and Ruffo's voices extremely annoying.


Might be a bit difficult to ask Tullio concerning the precise meaning to that famous statement as he is long dead. If I remember the quote correctly, he said (and I perforce can only paraphrase) that he knew many fine singers, but only three vocal miracles. I think we may safely assume that he regarded these three to be on a higher plane than any other of the many singers with whom he worked or otherwise knew firsthand. We could perhaps attribute his statement to the different eras - different aesthetics syndrome. Or whatever. He didn't find them annoying but sublime, obviously. And I happen to agree with him.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

I thought the quote elaborated further. We may never know...


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

deggial said:


> I thought the quote elaborated further. We may never know...


That is right. An enigmatic statement left to us vague and incomplete. But some people do glose that these were all big voices able to sing notes that escaped other singers. Perhaps theatre-worthy voices that were not too frequently properly captured by the recording technology of the day. In a radio broadcast in the 1930s, the audio technicians placed Ponselle well recessed from the pick-up so her powerful voice wouldn't boom through. I read that years ago in James A. Drake's centennary biography of Rosa Ponselle. So as not to stray too much from the theme of this thread, I'll add that the cover of that book shows her as Norma, iirc.

Then again, there is the opinions that Leonard Bernstein and also Maria Callas, a famous Norma, had of Rosa Ponselle.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

The voice of Ponselle was very well captured in record, as there are many examples of that. We have a thread here at TC devoted to the career of Ms. Ponselle, centered mainly in the roles she sang: http://www.talkclassical.com/14611-first-thread-singer-depth.html

An old friend of mine, attended some performances of Ponselle singing Norma in New York, and he told me some twenty years ago, when he was in his late eighties or early nineties, that he was thrilled by the experience, but his impression was not surprising, as he basically had the same opinion about anything else sung by Ms. Ponselle. 

The Ponselle's recordings of Norma are basically the "Casta Diva" aria and the duet "Mira, o Norma". Well, Ponselle was indeed a vocal monster, with such a beautiful and imposing voice. Her low notes were simply egregious. And she was able to manage, up to a point, the coloratura. At least, to manage the way other dramatic sopranos have been able to manage since. Those are the reviews at her debut:

http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/PonselleNorma.htm

My personal feeling is that she had the tools to sing a wonderful Norma, let's say the way Anita Cerquetti sang Norma. But she was a more accomplished Verdi soprano.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I listened to Sondra Radvanosky sing Norma live on Sirius last night. She was simply wonderful! Well acted and well sung with a very beautiful voice and technique. She even had a wonderful High D at the end of the Act II trio. I would have to say if was one of the best I have heard overall. It is wonderful to know that we have a truly first class Norma in 2013, which is on par with saying an era has a first class Bruinhilde.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Saw this last week.

If it helps Greg, I'm pretty sure the stumps were meant to be a druid stone circle ala Stonehenge. Not quite full scale, but not the Spinal Tap 18" version either. 

Aside from the child killing scene, I don't think Norma gives a stage director much to work with, but yeah, this staging was particularly uninspiring. The chorus direction seemed to be: _shuffle on from stage right in amoebic disarray, stand and take up as much of the stage as possible in ameoba formation, shuffle off stage left, amoebically. _

I did think that whatever drama was missing from the stage was definitely present in the voices though. I too, was prepared to check out when the wheels come off the libretto in the second act but the compelling vocalism Radvanovsky and Antonenko really sold the drama for me.

FWIW: I was (an appropriately silent) party to a discussion of Radvanovsky's Norma by two folks who know a whole lot more about singing than me and they both agreed she was _the_ Norma of our time.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> Saw this last week.
> 
> If it helps Greg, I'm pretty sure the stumps were meant to be a druid stone circle ala Stonehenge. Not quite full scale, but not the Spinal Tap 18" version either.
> 
> ...


Well put ... "shuffle on in disarray," exactly! :lol:

Following advice by yourself, superhorn, schigolch, seattleoperafan and others, I've gone ahead and got another ticket. We'll see. Well, and we shouldn't forget the Fundamental Theorem of Opera, either. I've forgotten the exact mathematical expression, but I seem to recall it has the value of the money you would have spent on a performance decreasing asymptotically over time following the conclusion of the performance, and the value of the performance you missed increasing at the same rate, the ratio between the two amounting to regret, or something like that. So I'll give it another try. God knows when I'll have another chance, right?


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

guythegreg said:


> God knows when I'll have another chance, right?


you know, in hindsight I changed my mind about some performances as well. Although I wonder if there isn't a bit of nostalgia involved. However sometimes it's true that we can misjudge a performance, based on some stuck up ideas with which we go into the hall. But memory is so unreliable...


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

guythegreg said:


> Well put ... "shuffle on in disarray," exactly! :lol:
> 
> Following advice by yourself, superhorn, schigolch, seattleoperafan and others, I've gone ahead and got another ticket. We'll see. Well, and we shouldn't forget the Fundamental Theorem of Opera, either. I've forgotten the exact mathematical expression, but I seem to recall it has the value of the money you would have spent on a performance decreasing asymptotically over time following the conclusion of the performance, and the value of the performance you missed increasing at the same rate, the ratio between the two amounting to regret, or something like that. So I'll give it another try. God knows when I'll have another chance, right?


Hehe... I don't know the details of that formula but yes, I've certainly suffered from its effects. To help you put things in perspective, we haven't had _any_ Bellini in Chicago since 2002 and counting, so count your blessings and live it up!

I take it you'll be seeing Angela Meade's Norma. We'll all be curious for your comparision. The good news is that your Adalgisa will be the wonderful Jamie Barton, who likely has the vocal heft to match the rest of the cast.


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## margaretlb (Mar 4, 2013)

Well, I am guilty of a cardinal sin. I actually left during the intermission. Although Sondra R. sounded beautiful, the rest of the cast left me flat. Or maybe they would not have if the orchestra didn't drown them out entirely! Too, too loud. It's hard for me to believe that I actually couldn't bring myself to stay for the second act (considering it's only an hour long and would have finished just past 10:30), but all I could think of was getting out of there and going for a nice dinner. I've never left mid-opera before...not even during Les Troyens on New Year Day which was such a depressing, drab way to spend the evening. Oh well...dinner was excellent


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I just listened to the Met Live on Sirius with Meade and Jamie Barton in Norma. WOW!!!!! WOW!!! Beautiful singing and characterization. Meade like Radvanovski also took the optional High D at the end of Act II and both rocked it.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Alex Ross sure liked the pairing:



> Angela Meade and Jamie Barton both delivered tremendous performances in last night's Norma at the Met, causing some old-school pandemonium in the house. Meade sang with a degree of dramatic involvement that I hadn't yet seen from this greatly gifted soprano. It was a considerable advance on her Caramoor Norma, which was already very fine. I suspect that she will be even stronger on Monday, her only other night in this run; in "Casta diva," she seemed a little on edge and short of breath. Soon enough, she settled in, and by the end she had taken full, fiery command of the stage. As for Barton, she is a fresh wonder of the opera world, possessing a voice of preternatural beauty and power. She has a remarkable ability to keep the vocal line afloat amid pauses for breath; she'd swell on a note, take a breath, and then resume at even greater volume, tricking the ear into thinking that the phrase had never been broken. To see these young artists reveling together in their voices makes you believe unswervingly in the future of the art.


http://www.therestisnoise.com/2013/10/old-gods-awaken.html


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## messadivoce (Apr 18, 2014)

Aramis said:


> These "Callas did it, not to be staged anymore EVER" are so much all around that I'm starting to think that back in time, when _Norma_ was new opera, people were like this too and they said "why Pasta attempts to sing it when Callas is going to set the ultimate standard 100+ years from now! Norma is for Callas only... what? Bellini wrote the role for Pasta? What idiot, only Callas can sing it, didn't he know?!"


Well when Ponselle revived Norma at the Met it was a big deal because it was the first time since Lilli Lehmann sang it there. Then years later, Callas praises Ponselle. Now everyone praises Callas. It's just a cycle fans go through until the next huge star is born. I say give it like 10-20 years and then everyone is going to be talking about someone else's Norma  Then again, with all these recordings so easily available, Callas has a huge following that I don't see dying down so fast lol


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

If you look back to the last 30 years, I don't think there are many people claiming that there are 'huge' Normas being sung. Sure, there are some nice performances, but nothing really "huge".

Most critics and fans consider that the 3 greatest Normas on record are Ms. Callas (born in 1923), Ms. Sutherland (born in 1927) and Ms. Caballé (born in 1933). Singing Norma is very difficult, and while we can consider that Lilli Lehmann's or Rosa Ponselle's Normas were of historical caliber, we don't really have a proof. Sure, we have some small fragments from both singers:
















But they are clearly not something we can really use as a basis for a fair judgment, not even in the case of Ms. Ponselle.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I saw 2 excellent Norma's here in Seattle. The first was Jane Eaglen's North American debut with Suzanne Metzner as Adalgisa. Before she began singing lots of Wagner, Jane was really, really good as Norma with surprising agility for such an enormous voice. The other was Christine Goerke as Norma and Ewa Podles as Adalgisa. Goerke, who is singing dramatic soprano now, certainly had a big voice ( best high D I have heard live and quite enormous) and Podles, while not being convincing in the part of the young Adalgisa, displayed Golden Age singing at it's best.


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