A Singer’s Guide to Voices: Soprano Pt2
In Part 1, I dispelled my demons about the soprano voice, and then introduced you to the finest Early Music sopranos I know and have worked with. Obviously, in a survey of this kind, I will inevitably miss out some singers who should be included, and whose omission is shocking. For this I can only apologise and say that I mean no offence to the excluded. Perhaps they can write in and lodge their claims! My purpose with these articles is to write largely about singers I know, have worked with or have heard in the flesh. Clearly, this limits my survey to the years in which I have been active either as performer or audience member, and, although I am reasonably old now, after a career spanning 40 years, there are many of the greats of the past who I only know from recordings, like Maria Callas, Astrid Vartnay and Kirsten Flagstad.
I would like to single out one extraordinary older generation singer, however, for two reasons – firstly that she was Scottish and secondly that she was one of the most influential singers of the 20th century. I refer of course to the phenomenal Mary Garden, who was born in 1874 in Aberdeen, and died in Inverurie in 1967. She packed a lot into that intervening 92 years, moving as a child to America and returning to Europe as a singer. In her mid-30s she took Paris by storm, performing regularly at the Opéra-Comique, having notable affairs with conductors and impresarios, and creating roles in new operas. None was more important than her creation of Mélisande in Debussy’s ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’, a sensation in so many ways, and the role for which she will always be remembered. Readers may know that this opera is my favourite of all, and that singing the role of Arkel, the blind ninety-year old King of Allemonde was the pinnacle of my career, in Aldeburgh, Strasbourg, Holland Park and Garsington. Mary Garden must have been quite extraordinary as Mélisande, as contemporary accounts tell of her amazing empathy with the character of this strange waif-like creature who causes such mayhem in the world created by Maeterlinck and Debussy. Mayhem also describes the relationship between Maeterlinck (the Belgian writer whose play Debussy set to music) and Debussy around the premiere. The writer insisted that his companion, Georgette Leblanc, should sing Mélisande, but Debussy was equally insistent that Mary Garden should create the role. A huge public row took place with Maeterlinck going to Debussy’s house and threatening violence if Garden sang, and finally refusing to be associated with the opera. Only in 1920 after Debussy’s death, did the Belgian writer admit that he was wrong, and that Debussy had been a “thousand times right!”
Mary Garden went on to create several other roles (Massenet’s Chérubin being the most notable), and she must have had an extraordinarily flexible voice, as she sang Richard Strauss’ Salome many times, a role of Wagnerian proportions, requiring a great amount of welly in the singing, to use a technical term! She moved to America at the request of Oscar Hammerstein to sing in the Manhattan Opera House, and became famous all over again, also singing in Chicago where she appeared in such roles as Carmen and Tosca, as well as many Massenet parts. All the while, she continued to sing Mélisande around the world. If you go on to YouTube, you will find an extraordinary television interview with Mary Garden, in which, with her Aberdeen accent still recognisable, she tells many fascinating tales of her life, and you can also hear her singing excerpts from Pelléas, with Debussy playing the piano! After retiring from the stage, she worked as a talent scout for MGM, and finally returned home to Scotland, spending the last 30 years of her life in Inverurie. It was partially to celebrate Mary Garden that Scottish Opera chose ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ for its inaugural season in 1962. There is an interesting connection with me, as my first proper teacher, Laura Sarti, sang the role of Geneviève in that 1962 production.
I met another great British soprano of the older generation in 1980, when I was awarded second prize at the Royal Overseas League Singing Competition by the amazing Dame Eva Turner. She was 88 when I met her, and a pocket battleship, with an accent that somehow mixed Manchester (where she was born) with Milan (where she was a star). One of the greatest dramatic sopranos of all time, she was present at the premiere of ‘Turandot’ in 1926 and sang the title role for the first time later that year. By 1928, she was singing it at Covent Garden, along with Aida and Santuzza in the same season, and became synonymous with the role. She recorded it in 1937, and it is quite remarkable, displaying power and ease in full measure. Frankly, there is no recording to touch it. Do try to find it! She was also one of the 16 singers who sang in the first performance of Vaughan Williams’ beautiful ‘Serenade to Music’ in 1938, which is also available on a recording made at the time, conducted by Henry Wood.
Mention of dramatic sopranos leads me to attempt an explanation of the various types of soprano who we can listen to. It is perhaps the voice category with the biggest variation in sound, range and character, and it may be useful to help my readers understand, if I can show you something of that variety here. I have written about screeching, yelling sopranos at the beginning of this look at the voice, but we can assume that, from here on, only non-screamers will be discussed!
In general, we can say that, in addition to the early music soprano which I wrote about in Part 1, there are five categories of soprano: Soubrette, Coloratura, Lyric, Spinto and Dramatic.
These categories are not written in stone, and singers can, and often do, move between them, but for our purpose today, we can make it quite simple.
A Soubrette is usually a younger singer, with a light voice, typically playing a humorous character, and singing in a smallish theatre. Cute, pert, yet knowing, the soubrette often finds herself outwitting a dim, older male character, usually in order to get off with a younger, often unsuitable, lover, almost exclusively a tenor. Her comical carryings on are the mainstay of many a plot, and, frankly, as a bass and often the dupe of these girls, a bloody nuisance. Her singing is pleasant, but rarely showstopping, but she is a regular protagonist in many a German or Italian opera, and she needs to be a good actor as well as a decent singer. Typical soubrette roles are Despina (Cosi), Susanna (Figaro), Zerlina (Giovanni), Nannetta (Falstaff), Norina (Pasquale) and Adele (Fledermaus).
The Coloratura Soprano is a different creature, and a voice type that I generally fail to warm to. Dubbed the canaries by more cruel people than me, they possess a formidable technique, a huge range, not necessarily great acting ability and a stillness at the core which allows them to take centre stage for some time, often singing the same words over and over again. They will typically possess bigger voices than the soubrettes and can dominate big theatres with their forward projection and bright high tessitura. Often, they will be expected to sing long, complicated arias, regularly portraying characters on the edge of sanity or even, over the edge. Fans of this voice type can be extremely enthusiastic and will often travel far just to hear them. Most Bel Canto operas feature a coloratura soprano, and the operas of Rossini, Bellini, early Verdi and Donizetti are typically excellent vehicles for these singers, and they can make a lot of money. I mustn’t dismiss them as vacuous bores, because they are supreme technicians and often fine actors, and many of the roles are wonderful, but I’m afraid they, on the whole, fail to float my boat. Again, it’s probably my problem rather than theirs! Roles such as Lucia (di Lammermoor), Gilda (Rigoletto), Zerbinetta (Ariadne), Donna Anna (Giovanni), Olympia (Hoffmann), Maria Stuarda and the Queen of the Night (Flute) fall into this category. I will admit that the Queen of the Night is a wondrous role, if well sung, and listening to Lucia Popp on the old Klemperer recording is magical. I must also say that the only time I heard Joan Sutherland sing live, at Covent Garden in the 70s in some Bellini opera, I was bowled over by the sheer bravura of her singing, and remember, in particular, the utter perfection of her tuning, even in the most complicated music. The music left me cold, but the performance was stunning. Hers was a big voice too, filling Covent Garden with ease, and one was mesmerised by this very tall woman, with an enormous head, singing like an angel. She was partnered by the exquisite Spanish tenor, Alfredo Kraus, and it was one of my most memorable nights in the theatre - minimal acting, long periods of coloratura singing to no obvious dramatic purpose, but still a visceral and thrilling experience.
Moving on, we come to the Lyric Soprano, who is probably my favourite. Possessing a warm, bright voice which can ride over a decent sized orchestra, the lyric plays some of the most tragic and moving characters in opera, like Mimi, Pamina, Tatyana (Onegin), the Countess in Figaro, Liu (Turandot), the Marschallin (Rosenkavalier) and Micaela (Carmen). Great exponents in my lifetime have been Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Galina Vishnevskaya and Mirella Freni, three of my very favourite singers, and two of whom I knew and worked with. At this point, it is probably worth introducing the Spinto Soprano, who is basically a heavier version of the Lyric. Now, spinto in Italian means pushed or forced, but we should not be worried that these voices will be ghastly and squally, only that they are able to ride over a bigger orchestra with a certain amount of ease. The big Verdi and Puccini roles such as Aida, Leonora (Forza), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Tosca, Manon Lescaut, and even Desdemona (Otello) can be categorised as Spinto. Less dramatic Wagner roles, such as Elsa, Elisabeth and Sieglinde fall into this sub-section. The great black American sopranos, like Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman and Martina Arroyo were excellent examples of spinto sopranos, as was Renata Tebaldi. Angela Gheorghiu in more recent times could be categorised thus.
Finally, there are the Dramatic Sopranos, legendary characters in the theatre, with their spears and horned helmets, their huge voices and overwhelming personalities. Largely, but not exclusively, Wagnerian heroines, these ladies are the loudest singers in the world. Standing next to them is an experience never forgotten, and, if well trained, they can produce the most thrilling sounds imaginable. They are not usually the fat ladies of satire, but often are at least pretty tall, although, as I mentioned earlier, Eva Turner, one of the best of all time, was only about five foot nothing! Typically though, they are tall and usually have pretty large heads, whence comes the resonance. These voices can soar, often as far up as top C, over even the biggest of orchestras, and their rarity value also earns them the biggest bucks!
I have been fortunate in my lifetime to hear some of the best Dramatic sopranos, perhaps none greater than the amazing Birgit Nilsson. In 1974, I managed to get a ticket for a performance in the Edinburgh Festival of Strauss’ ‘Elektra’, given by the Royal Swedish Opera, in the King’s Theatre, with Nilsson as Elektra. This is one of Strauss’ most demanding roles, with a huge orchestra playing in the pit. Of course, the King’s is a relatively small theatre, seating some 1,350 people, and I could only afford a seat right at the back of the highest circle, so I was as far away from the stage as it was possible to be, albeit in an auditorium a quarter the size of the New York Met. Well, dear reader, I was pinned to the back of my seat, as the most phenomenal soprano of her era poured out waves of brilliant, pure sound. Her voice has been likened to an aural version of a laser beam, and I reckon that is a pretty good analogy. She possessed a big voice which was channelled down a comparatively narrow tube of sound to the listener, with unerring precision and accuracy.
We had also been lucky in Scotland around that time to hear the Austrian soprano, Helga Dernesch, singing Isolde, Brünnhilde and Fidelio with Scottish Opera. She was only in her early 30s, but had been discovered by Herbert von Karajan, who had recorded these roles with her, and I have never worked out how we were able to afford her at Scottish Opera. Her big, gleaming voice was a remarkable instrument, not as direct as Nilsson, but capable of sending out glorious layers of sound.
A few years later, at Covent Garden, I heard the Welsh dramatic soprano, Gwyneth Jones singing Brünnhilde. Hers was simply the biggest voice I have ever heard, sometimes a little unwieldy, and taking time to get going, but what a sound! These ladies had an enormous reservoir of pure decibels at their disposal, and it was extraordinary. I sang once with the great Rita Hunter, who, bless her, was the archetypal Fat Lady, needing two chairs onstage to accommodate her. We sang together in Schőnberg’s mammoth work, ‘Gurrelieder’ in City Hall, Birmingham, with Simon Rattle conducting. It was one of the most exciting concerts of my life, although, as the terrified Peasant, I had little to sing. My friends Ian Caley and Christine Cairns were also singing, and the lead tenor was superb, but I remember especially Rita, in one of the last performances she ever gave. No actress, and, as I say, a big lady, she would not have been able to make a career these days, but she was something special.
Next time, I’ll look at some of the finest sopranos I have heard or worked with.
