Fedora Barbieri sings "O Don Fatale" from Verdi's Don Carlo

[luigceru]

La Barbieri resta una grande artista ma credo che il suo talento trovi terreno d'elezione in altri ruoli. Anche l'altra registrazione di quest'aria presente su youtube lascia un po' perplessi: gli acuti sono presi alla "speraindio" e nei gravi c'è la tendenza al parlato.

[luigceru]

Credo che il metro di giudizio tra presente e passato utilizzato da chi rimpiange il secondo sia decisamente iniquo. Se uno dei cantanti di oggi si fosse azzardato ad apportare anche solo alcune delle modifiche ad un brano come avviene qui, verrebbe subissato di critiche e tacciato di inadeguatezza in nome di un passato glorioso in cui regna solo la perfezione.

[Tenortalker]

Barbieri must have been truly special and committed in her singing for those who heard her live to remember her with such adulation. Simionato is admired, refered to with affection, but Barbieri is adored even without the top notes! Would Verdi have forgiven her the omited notes given her conviction and honest approach - we will never know. Ferrier managed to take her voice to the High A with gentle coaching - was Barbieri's problem nerves as well as technical limitation? I wonder!

[TerrancePogue]

Looking at the score and speaking to mezzos this role is a true dramatic mezzo.... its just this aria which has a few high notes but the rest of the role is regular mezzo range

[Wolfcrag85]

In the recording of Don Carlo from Florence with Cerquetti, Lo Forese, Bastianini, Siepi and Neri (1956), she could still reach the top notes. From there onwards, forget it.

[Zva26]

Walter Legge (the famed musicologist and husband of soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf) referred to this role as a graveyard for mezzos. A very famous and legendary mezzo (I forget who) is quoted in a book saying that, "Eboli is a dramatic soprano role, or for a dramatic mezzo with a very extended upper range". Many heavier sopranos, such as Callas, Nilsson, Dimitrova, and others sang this aria as well. For Nilsson, those top notes were child's play.

[ebecalleri]

Grandissima artista!

[carlo331]

Già nel '58 non aveva gli acuti...

[denissettantotto]

secondo me, senza acuto finale .... non è "o don fatale" ...se fate attenzione salta anche l'acuto nel secondo "ti maledico".....ma resta sempre uno dei grandi mezzo s.

[Zva26]

Fedora Barbieri didn't sound very comfortable with those top notes even in 1950, when she made her Met debut. Nature played a cruel trick on her. She was more a contralto than a mezzo, and her highest comfort note was about a G above the stave. She could, however, go down into the basement notes with no problems whatsoever. I admired her a lot, but this performance of "O Don Fatale" is pretty bad.

[operafan85]

Is this from the legendary Giulini - Visconti "Don Carlo" from Covent Garden?

[45antar]

These cuts sound really strange today. But I like her dramatic sense

[lantis323f]

Il Do bemolle che fine ha fatto??? -.-

[mariasarda]

A great artist....

[ezayi]

To me, If someone, after having so many years of glory changes notes to accommodates herself in a role, then is better to stay home and enjoy whatever fame and respect she or he deserves for all those years of wonderful singing. This was just unacceptable. This is just simply playing egocentric, just because they think they can. Sorry, I liked her a lot but this is just awful!

[BDSCalgary]

I do agree, though, with the comment that the difference in tuning is no real excuse for cutting so many (or all but A flat in the veil song) higher notes. That simply would not be tolerated today. She should have transposed the pieces so she could give the impression of singing the high notes (and why not, all tenors do for Trovatore, one hardly ever hears a high C when we think we are hearing one; B flat is more common now).

[BDSCalgary]

Anyone who thinks that the tuning is NOT noticeable is really fooling themselves. They sound completely different! Verdi's pitch sound very low compared to today. And a voice singing at that pitch actually sound LOUDER, FULLER, WARMER, and freer than at A-440 and most especially at A-450. Singers are NOT being picky. If a High C is your limit, tuning it differently can make or break your performance. And all vocal "breaks" fall in the wrong place when teh diapaison is too high. That is the facts

[BDSCalgary]

Verdi's diapaison was A-430 and that is what he demanded. He even refused to allow his operas to be performed in places that raised the Diapaison to A-440. Standard pitch is A-435, concert pitch is A-440. Though the math makes the differences seem small, they are very noticeable. I have pianos tuned in my home to A-430, A-435, A-340, and A-450 (a requirement for rehearsing when singing in various places -- I have sang for 35 years now).

[BDSCalgary]

This recording comes with a conversation with Lord Harewood. He is quite clear that Barbieri had nothing but difficulties with this role. He called her a contralto (a thing that causes real arguments today). The part didn't suit her. But Eboli is NOT really all that high, excepting some notes in the most famous arias. However, even in the essembles her higher notes were cut. Today this would not be tolerated. Even Horne was condemned for transposing (actually using Verdi's own alternate keys).

[basselyrique]

She wouldn't have been pardoned at La Scala for these cuts. They're not written options and Verdi DID write the high notes in the score! She has a remarkable ability to descend into the chest voice at a very high range, on the other hand this is the key to the lack of the top. Listen to Simionato who never ceded to the use of vulgar chest sound but had an unified instrument from the top until the bottom, with low AND high notes.

[Greatfan]

There are many points here. Of course nobody would accept this today, however people accept voiceless singers provided they have the notes and are muscia: Post Card Opera I call it, because you can see PEOPLE AND A LANDSCAPRE ...it but cannot HEAR anybody ! On the other hand it is probable that THE NAME BARBIERI made them applaude her. Had she been a lesser ' name ' they would have booed. And 3rd, the tuning was lower when Verdi composed Don Carlos.-

[AmatureComposer]

The tuning thing is nonsense. I heard it many times and it has no logical basis. The tuning was 438 (today it is 441) while half a tone lower should be 415, therefore you will probably not recognize the difference between the verdi pitch and today's. It's not an excuse for omitting so many high notes.

[ilprincipedipersia]

I heard barbieri at the Met as late as 1956 as Amneris and she and milanov brought the house down. The times I heard her the highs were there. This siad the voice was short to the top. In timbre she sounded like a drama mezzo live. Her voice lacked the dense quality of either Madeira or Ferrier. High notes or no she was a presence live and that is why this performance in London got the applause it did. She was something else

[Greatfan]

I suspected what you wrote. I guess it is an exaggeration,but I could not tell.I read a lot. If thenumbers you give are correct, which I am sure , then the difference is almost insignificant. However, a voice with rutilant top like Nilsson complains of the Philarmonic Vienna tuning saying it is tough for it is a bit higher. I really do not know. Half a tone is too much....

[AmatureComposer]

Singers like to complain.

Nilsson complained because it sounded to her out of tune, not because it was too difficult for her to sing a bit higher.

It's a real problem if you are used to one pitch and then they play at a different one.

I don't know why every orchestra chooses a different pitch. It disturbs me as well.

At least where I live, all the orchestras keep using the same pitch.

[Greatfan]

Well, I would likely give credit to great singers when they complain, because the task is risky and if you must sing a bit higher the effort in all the notes is harder to cope with. 4 dollars is a small amount in one day, but to spend 120 dollars more per month is a different thing. If you sing just a bit higher in a role with, say, 4000 words the result in muscular demands can be terrible. In her book she says she sounded low in position. It was the larynx way of protecting itself, I say.

[kgarmaker123]

well, No high notes, doesnt surprise me, she is a contralto, not a mezzo .

[yglofmi]

Did Verdi really write those high notes? I've always found that C flat too high for a mezzo, but I have not the score to verify that.

[AmatureComposer]

He did. You can check in IMSLP. It's not the only high note in Verdi's music for mezzos. Amneris gets to sing it at the end of act 2 (Aida). Perziosilla and Azucena both have a high c natural in their parts. If you divide the female voices to high (soprano) and low (alto) and you consider mezzos as alto then you should consider this aria as a soprano aria and Eboli as a soprano role.

[yglofmi]

Thank you. I looked for some information about that and was surprised to see that the first Eboli in Don Carlos Italian version was Giuseppina Pasqua, the first Mrs. Quickly in Falstaff.

[AmatureComposer]

This is quite interesting. There are some 20+ years between these operas, so she probably became older and lost some of her high notes by Falstaff.

[yglofmi]

Now I found a poster announcing 7 performances of Aida at La Fenice, with Pasqua as Amneris, in September 1881. The cast: Emma Turolla (Aida); Giovanni Sani (Rhadames) and Gottardo Aldighieri as Amonasro. Maestro Franco Faccio. If she was in good voice to sing Amneris we don't know.

[BonomiFansClub]

In reality in the score of Verdi is writing do flat. Not the only thing that the Barbieri changed in the aria. In reality does a personal version in the high notes.

[yglofmi]

Thank you. To be true, I am not so crazy about high notes, I prefer good phrasing and good interpretation. And when I hear mezzos singing this aria, I find it too tense, in the limits of the singer's possibilities. I like Barbieri, even without high notes. But thank you again.

[emilytransex]

e uno skifo questo o don fatale...senza gli acuti!!!!! la voce della barbieri x carita e stupenda ma gli acuti???? e meno male ke qui era giovane..mah..!

[AmatureComposer]

There is one c-flat and three b-flats and she sings none of them!

It is always nice to hear her big voice, and her phrasing is interesting too, but this is a role she really shouldnt have taken.

It's not the age that matters (she is only 38 here).

Barbieri was a great alto that for the first two decades of her career could handle SOME mezzo roles successfully, like Azucena and Amneris. Even in her prime she was more comfortable with lower parts, such as the mezzo in the requiem and Ulrica.

[kmillard]

Agreed. She was also terrific as Bullion in Adriana Loucovreur, but it was a bitter disappointment to turn this on and hear all the high notes passed on since I have never heard that done before. Contemporaries such as Elena Nicolai and Ebe Stignani have recordings with them easily handling the upper notes and even Eva Podles, a true contralto, took all the top notes in her performances in Philadelphia.

[iskenderuna]

I agree! There is no way an audience in Vienna, at the Met, not to mention La Scala, would accept a version like this today, with all Verdi's top notes decapited. Cant really understand how Giulini or Covent Carden sanctioned this. Nevertheless, it is interesting to hear that such "recomposing" seems to have been perfectly acceptable then. Barbieri live, in her prime and in the right repertory must have been quite a knock-over!