Karita Mattila sings the finale of Salome

[LohengrinT]

Extremely interesting sense of drama/phrasing, nevertheless her voice does not really help her first class musical/dramatical intentions

[semprecallas]

Is the video ever gonna come out?

[Brahms777]

I'd like to hear her in the Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire...I think she'd be ideal for this Masterpiece.

[TheOnlyOriginalKebim]

her german's very well. and his made me realise how disguisting this is...

[LeNozze44]

How many 14-year-olds do you know that can sing like this?

[nohpiano]

the great recording by Welitsch with Reiner is still my fave - she sounded so young and clear and almost girlish , but god , that just made it that much creepier, esp when she went down to that low Tode....

[Phillipa1]

The voice is perfect for the opera.

[jolucascan]

Muy buena interpretación. Este año la veremos en España en Kata Kavanova

[birgitnilsson]

@jolucascan

no será "Kabanova"?

[jolucascan]

@birgitnilsson Es, sin duda, pero no soy tan listo como para no cometer nunca un error al escribir, birgitnilsson que Dios confunda

[Pagudo]

@jolucascan This flawless comment is how a slap in the face for bad-mannered people how bitgitnilsson

[LohengrinT]

@Pagudo

just slap them in the face you well mannered person looooooooooooooool

[Pagudo]

@LohengrinT Oh, well ... LohengrinT the drag Queen of bad-mannered in YouTube :-I

[joeysteph2]

Saw her singing last night at the Met. truly daring and

commanding and fabulous.

[ElliePearl]

I've entirely changed my mind. At listening to this for a second time I think that she sounds great.

[aquax9]

has hailstormand heard Klytemnaestra's Nightmare Narrative from "Elektra"? I only played clarinet for four years as sum total of my musical knowledge but it seems atonal in the extreme to me, but maybe it isn't. Love that massive, jarring chord before Herod's order... thank you Homoclassicus!

[yes4albert]

Having become almost numb from what now passes as great singing and artistry in some of the Met broadcasts,(sorry), I remember hearing this one back in '04 and being MESMERIZED by her singing. That wonderful feeling of experiencing something glorious. The voice, the singing, the interpretation...all spectacular. Her Salome is fantastic. She is an artist. Brava, diva.

[Hailstormand]

I've never heard the finale played by the orchestra that way - I meant the horns being more prominent than the rest of the instruments. It made me realise how close Strauss might have been to becoming atonal.Otherwise the woman sings rather fine.

[ElliePearl]

We were going to hear this woman at the Met's Manon Lescaut, but she was sick and the double was terrible... and this recording wasn't good at all, either, oh my god, that tenor singing Herod is bad too... But at Lescaut the tenor Marcello was amazing... woooo!!

[SVENSKSOPRAN]

I don't know...should we really compare everybody with Birgit? Doesn't seem fair, first of all Karita does NOT have the same voice type, second, look at Birgit's structure...that jaw is bigger than anything I have ever seen!

[meriomeri]

Sutherland

[birgitnilsson]

@meriomeri

bravo!

[aquax9]

Wow. Look, the most i'll cede is that her voice might be a little bit of an acquired taste...But at the end of the day this is a bright, well-supported soprano sound that can match not only the size of the theatre but the devil himself in the pit - I love Valery Gergiev but f&*%k me if i had to sing over his orchestra! Have the ambulance waiting

[verysmo]

This is phenomenal singing I think. The voice doesn't have lots of edge but it is so free and ringing and drips of sex. Quite thrilling in it's own way.

[wenarto]

thank you, this is amazing, is much much better than mine :-)

[subwaysleuth]

I saw her in this at The Met and it was no less than astounding! And provocative.

[Dymension]

Interesting, my friend who is an Opera agent saw her in both the Salome and Fidelio and was completely dismayed...

[domi2020]

This is an amazing Salome. It is true that Mattila does not have the steely brilliance of Nilsson- who has?? but she packs a punch in this erotically charged performance. The high notes are big and gorgeous and for those lucky ones that were in the audience- it must have been a history making moment. Strauss asked for the impossible but Mattila delivered the goods. Does anyone know if there was a TELECAST of the performance???

[ilmaestro18]

How/Where did you get this recording? Was this by any chance related to the telecast that later got scrapped for financial reasons?

[Homoclassicus]

Unfortunately it wasn't. I splitted this excerpt from the complete broadcast recording of the performance.

The telecast is still a mystery for all of us ... I can't believe such a historic performance (it was one of the greatest successes of the Met in the last years) won't be released because of merely financial reasons ...

[janejones11]

The interpretation is interesting but not to my taste. I don't think her voice is heavy enough for this ultra-dramatic role Also,her high notes sound effortful and strained and her sound is a bit thread-bare. In fairness, I've heard positive things about her acting in the role which might have made up for these flaws.

[Andante735]

Stupid, stupid person you are. Move on to something you have more knowledge of. Singing obviously one of them.

[HerrWozzeck]

And who the hell are you to be saying this, I might ask? It's a pretty good performance, if you ask me. True, I've heard slighty better performances (Monserrat Caballé did a wonderful job in the Liensdorf recording of Salome), but this is sufficient enough.

[Andante735]

On second thought, stupid is too much of a compliment in your case- you're downright deaf and brainless. Go crawl back under the rock you were born in.

[BeauTenor]

Actually, Salome is not the province of HochDramatische sopranos (unlike Elektra), and Strauss didn't intend it to be. He wanted a voice with power and a big arch to sustain the long, phrasing, but he also intended for her to sound more girlish than dramatic, which is why big lyric or spinto voices can sing the role sucessfully. Mattila has an unsual timbre, but she's certainly not "threadbare".

[janejones11]

Didn't Strauss comment that the role should be sung by a soprano with the voice of an Isolde in the body of a 15 year old? Also, isn't the soprano singing over a 100-man orchestra. Maybe it doesn't have to be sung by a hochdramatische, but the voice needs to be a large, powerful instrument. In any event, we will have agree to disagree about her timbre. To my ears it does not have a rich, steady core to it. I have not heard her live, so maybe she comes across differently in the house. ?

[BeauTenor]

Oh I have no idea, never having heard her live. But, a dear friend in NYC has seen her as Salome and Leonore (Fidelio), and has reported that it's a big ass voice. Even though I like the voice, I have always thought it lacked a sharp "leading edge". Her voice always sounded...voluminous to me, but it doesn't have much metal, to be sure. Maybe that's what you're hearing as the lack of a steady core, and I can see exactly where you're coming from.

[63Attila]

It is my understanding that at some point for dramatic reasons he had written an impossible part to be realized by a soprano who was to look like a 15 yr old and sing over his orchestra.

I do not know how far he got or if he even started,but he wanted to rewrite the orchestration in order to accomodate the voice and looks of the beautiful lyric soprano. Elizabeth Schumann.

[unclealand]

Stay hungry.