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From: 100Singers
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  • In my next life I hope to be a true artiste the calibre of Montserrat Cabballe...she was born in the year I was and she has been a study in true, complete artistry....I hope she's still singing well in 10 more years....because she has used her voice without abusing it, it is still serving her. We're the grateful audience who marvel over her magnificent technique. Keep singing, dear Montserrat....I am!

  • Superb.TY 100 SINGERS FOR POSTING.

  • She has a wonderful voice & huge natural talent but uses her vocal splendour ahead of creating a specific character. When fired up she is compelling & exquisite, as in Norma from Orange. Yet she can be over-indulgent & surprisingly rough (Liu in concert). Sometimes in one breath she'll go for an extra phrase just because she can & then be left gasping, & here I lose interest. 100 Greatest? Undoubtedly, but as a sublimely gifted singer who puts voice before interpretation

  • Hers is still my favourite O Mio Babbino Caro (e.g posted by 30yearoldvirgin on youtube)

  • Magnifico! 

  • Caballe was an incredibly versatile singer who could pretty much sing anything. Wish you had chosen instead an aria with slow, long, drawn out phrases which she could spin with the most incredible legato and fiato like no one else. Who else sang pianissimos like her? I know, Ponselle, Milanov, the young Tebaldi, etc., all had beautiful pianissimi, but not like Caballe.

  • @troppofiato you're right, but you have forgotten Leyla Gencer ::))

  • SOBERBIA.INCREIBLE Y BELLA.ASI ES COMO ME GUSTA A MI CABALLE CON TODO SU PODER Y ELLA LO TENIA.INTELIGENCIA NO LE FALTABA Y VOZ TAMPOCO.LA PASION HUMANA LA LLEVABA DENTRO.POR ESO ESTABA EN LA CUSPIDE.EL CIRCULO DE LOS ELEGIDOS.

  • Not a personal favorite but an appropriate choice both for her technical skills and her role as a voice teacher - several singers have told me that they learn a lot about breath control fom what she has said and from listening to her recordings.

  • She is Georgeous, An Amazing voice from an amazing Woman. Montserrat and Pavarotti are the Best voices ever! Thanks god I saw her twice (three counting the Barcelona 92 Olimpic Games Openning)

  • Superb

  • I have heard the performance for In Questa Reggia with her and Jose Carreras, he was quite simply left in the shadow!

  • Montserrat has to be one of the greatest, not only just for her superb voice but for her passion and beautiful personality.....long may her piano notes float etherally skyward!!

  • How could she not be in this list ?

  • Super, wonderful Caballe

  • her singing left me breathless!!!! =D

  • Up there with the best ever!

  • Wow! Brava!

  • Very impressive singing....

  • me gusta mucho esta interpretacion pero me gusta mas callas aunq no hay que negar timbricamente la voz de caballe es muy hermosa, agil, potente. pero maria tiene ese algo que me llama mas la atencion ademas esta es una opera donde hay que lucir graves potentes y callas los tenia

  • She's simply amazing. Nobody has done what she can do. Remember those fiatos, larguettos and sustain notes that she use to sing. There's something magical in her voice and i think is just pureness....

  • caballe on rossini...kiss met!

  • (5) Finally, because I really need to go now - I wish to clearly distance myself from the assertion put forward by an enthused previous commenter, namely Caballe being 100 times better than Callas. Callas in my opinion was a formidable woman of extremely expressive voice (that I still have a hard time accepting being called "ugly") and extremely expressive appearance. Needless to mention her seemingly formidable coloratura skills. Regards.

  • I meant SIMILARLY formidable coloratura. It's astounding that someone who doesn't agree with what I have said in opposition to his commentary would give me a negative vote instead of disputing the content like an ilntelligent and cultured person. It would have been easier for me to give you a simple negative vote too, xaffndapp, but I really preferred making a point rather than egoistically and "authoritatively " stamping you "-1".

  • (4) This is why we find opera in the music store and not in the book store. And even if we forget all that: good you please support your statement with specific examples of the vocalisations Caballe does here neglecting the text? Caballe hear, on top of singing plainly "well", sings with freshness, joviality and appropriate nuancing to give us a real picture of the flourishinf youth she sings about.

  • (3) And while for Caballe it was probably more difficult to achieve legato in rapid passages, she certainly learned how to, and achieved on most occasions really impressive legato on long phrases. As for her vocalizing instead of singing the words - first - it's up to her which way she chooses. While I have nothing against the correct enunciation of a libretto, one would deviate from the truth if he states that people listen to opera mainly to appreciate the text.

  • If Caballe's triplets are less legati (which might as well be the case), I wouldn't say they are uneven. And then again, Callas' extremely rich, viscous tone is naturally prone to achieving legato in rapid divisions, contrary to Caballe's more piercing, crystalline tone. If you wish, it's the difference between different hardnesses of graphite pencils: your line will inveriably get less straight-looking the harder the pencil you use.

  • (1) When Callas decides to sing her triplets as mordented notes and Caballe choses to sing them as notes of equivalent value is their own choice, in function of either's technique! I really don't understand, I never will why someone who likes a specific singer needs to insult another singer to establish the other one's eminence. Or if not insult the singer, at least lower their merits... Noone has the right to say what Caballe can or cannot dream of...

  • simply the best

  • You can say, what ever you want, but Caballe was 100 times better than Callas. She had such a pure, correct voice and she was a great person! :)

  • sure, sure...

  • I'd be a little worried if you HADN'T put MC on this list. Thanks for posting!

  • @suffisance Mee too! I am so happy to see her here I growed up loving her to find out little by little here and there that some people make fun of me I mean people that you should consider their opinions regarding sopranos. I just love Montserrat!

  • wow!!

  • Perfect

  • a singing master class

  • And her triplets are unearthly, faster and more accurate than Callas's in the same aria. And Callas said triplets were the most difficult ornamentation to sing! Love you Montserrat!

  • I wish to turn your attention to my last commentary, which you inspired me to write and which i forgot to post as responses.

  • I don't know if she executed it or not THIS IS GREAT!!! To the previous detractor, talking pianissimi and diction abuse - where exactly do you see these things HERE? And now for the prase - where to start - perfect diction (she makes one cut in the libretto, but that's no diction issue), perfect coloratura, perfect timing, perfect shading, perfect everything! And as far as diction goes - notice something - do you hear the little rolling -r's on here high C's? How many times have you heard this?

  • But she IS Montserrat m-f-ing Caballe!

  • i know! it sounds gansta doesn't it? i really think she is gorgeous but she of course is aware of who she is too and so she takes too many liberties i dislike, if you speak spanish search "me llaman la primorosa" with her and you'll see what i mean. it is a zarzuela, in her native language for god's sake and you are lucky if you can catch more than seven words throughout the whole song

  • If we are talking flagrant disregard of libretto, I think her Paris In Questa Reggia available on Youtube is exemplary, along with some of her "Pace"-s, but, as I have written below, HERE she enunciates rather precisely. I really wouldn't like to bother readers with repetitions, but, again, I say: only thing missing here are the verses "i muti abitator" and "il tempo vorator", sung to the same notes. This is a CHOICE though, and I daresay it gives a certain unity in a rather ornate passage.

  • Comment removed

  • Caballe's performance is nothing but a singing lesson. She shows her absolute command of the intricacies of Bel canto.

  • An unlikely looking but very great all time diva! Brava! TY.

  • pues por supuesto no podia faltar una de las voces mas hermosas y finas de la opera¡

  • The best soprano that ever walked this earth.

  • The best sopran ever. Diosa!

  • I've always been a fan of hers, but had difficulty with some of her choices vocally and her technique on high notes that aren't her famous ppppppp notes (which are quite wonderful). This recording is earlier and hides some of the difficulties she faced throughout her career.

  • She is good. Whether she is good enough to knock out singers like Schwarzkopf, Janowitz and Sutherland - I'm not so sure.

  • swanningaround don't you realize you are very ridiculous? Elizabeth Schwarzkopf has a small, flawed and small voice and Schwarzkopf is mannered, artificial.She was married to the owner of a record company, that's the explanation of her recording career

  • To vergoti20: Thanks for your clear words, and in my opinion you´re quite right! I don´t dare to say this about Schwarzkopf in public, but I share your point of view. Schwarzkopf without Legge? Unthinkable! Her own words in interview: "Ich war eine Soubrette!"

  • I know Schwarzkopf is an acquired taste, but have you tried her Fiordiligi under Karajan? It's so effortless and pure. And Legge fell in love with her AFTER her contract, not before. That said, she was probably overrecorded - Jurinac, Grummer, and Seefried were all just as good if not better. But she was a great artist and I adore her.

    As for the other singers mentioned, they could not act! Particularly Sutherland.

  • personally i think fiordiligi is one of schwarzkopf's worst undertakings. over inflected to the extreme and she is totally overparted. i think she is nearly unrivaled in german opera and operetta though. her agathe, rosalinde, marschallin, and even elsa and elizabeth are wonderful. not to mention donna elvira and others too.

  • I find her over inflected (and quite shrewish) in the later Bohm recording, but for Karajan she just is Fiordiligi. From a technical standpoint there may be better (Bartoli, Grummer, Roschmann), but I'm definitely a fan. Oh, and Caballe's Fiordiligi is also very nice.

    ES' Rosalinde and Donna Anna are very good indeed. Haven't heard the others all the way through.

  • well if u like her fiordilidgi then i certainly wont hold it against you. im a huge sass and gencer fan and there is plenty to pick at there. by the way, caballes fiordilidgi is one of the most elegant, classy, and beautifully sung accounts of the role i have ever heard.

  • What a voice!! For a large woman, she also had a very elegant grace about her.

  • To magicflute3: Well, everything is allowed. I´ve also included some singers here, I don´t like, but I have to overcome my personal antipathys, when it is a great "artist". So, your public opinion is a brave one I think.

  • Well, am I allowed to say I never liked Caballè? With all her perfection and exquisite voice, to me she is a perfect bore, no matter which role she sings. This lack of personality, maybe intelligence,is a very heavy "minus" that I cannot overlook---sorry--

  • There are those who dislike Caballe, as is the case for every singer. I think the issue might be a certain "sameness" that is characteristic of her beautiful tone, no matter which role she sings. She has not been successful in every role in her huge repertoire. Personally, however, I love her tone and technique most of the time, particularly in the music of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini. Try one of her performances of "Pace, Pace Mio Dio" from Verdi's Forza del Destino on YT.

  • I never found her without personality. Her interpretation of Mimi on the Solti Boheme is quite moving; she isn't the greatest singing actress, but for me she is more than adequate - unlike, say, Sutherland.

  • la mejor soprano de todos los tiempos, la mejor embajadora de catalunya en el mundo, y poco reconocida en su tierra

    Brava Caballé

  • It is probably very difficult to choice which aria should be selected for Montserrat! I did not know this execution of hers, so thanks a lot!!!

  • sorry for my bad english: it was not "execution", I meant "performance".

  • lol well, some would say she actually "executed" the aria lol! i'm kidding she did great

  • fue interesante su modo de cantar muy al principio de su carrera, con el tiempo, desaparecio esas cualidades que hizieron de ella una soprano interesante en el panorama internacional de su época.

    Su pronunciación se hizo ininteligible, sus gravas forzados, sus agudos chillados , y en general, se puede decir que cayó en un narcisismo presente en muchas de sus encarnaciones. Me parece mas intersante el canto de Lorengar, de los angeles, gulin por ejemplo,eran mejores aristas.

  • Bueno eso de los agudos chillados lo dirá usted, si que se nota que pierde cualidades en el transcurso de su vida, impresionantemente más rápido de lo que debiera viniendo de una soprano de su clase pero también es debido a que cantó mucho lo que no le era bueno, y eso paga factura en agudos, calidad vocal etc, que se lo digan a carreras y a domingo, todos cantan lo que les ponen y lo que les gusta sin importar el instrumento vocal,Kraus sí fue listo y conservo su voz hasta morir.

  • She is greatest soprano that ever lived!

    The goddess of opera!!

  • That's a huge statement, with which I can't agree with. There is no "greatest soprano that ever lived", and thank god for that. The music world would a big bore if everyone held to that opinion. Caballe had a unique, glorious, lovable voice, but no singer is the greatest singer that ever lived.

  • It was also sublime,divine,the most ethereal sound beyond imagination.

    Her voice in it's prime was total purity.The most otherwordly piano notes,the most superb tone,the most incredible breath control and legato.

    Eternal Caballe!!!

  • Yes, that's absolutely true.

  • Very good

  • Fantastic!

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