Marilyn Horne - "Divinites du Styx" from Alceste - Gluck

[presbyterosBassI]

French orchestra? Great horn vibrato. NOt everyone should sound like the Chicago Symphony.

[CTenor789]

As for transposition. I've seen full productions of Alceste performed at Baroque pitch. Needless to say, it's Marilyn Horne, she can do whatever the heck she wants :-)

[goodboysv]

does anybody may whote down the lyric please?

[AmericanEvita]

I like Marilyn Horne's bel canto repertoire but I've heard Divinites du Styx sung better. Listen to Shirley Verrett and Leontyne Price singing this - they are both phenomenal, giving the aria a more noble, serious, darker and deeper tone. When a mezzo sings this in a more contralto type of way it sounds really excellent.The orchestra here is playing too fast which also ruins the beauty of this aria. Horne is really more of a light-lyric mezzo di coloratura rather than a pure dark-hued mezzo.

[annabickel2]

@AmericanEvita

I disagree. Although Horne excelled in the coloratura repertoire she definitely did not have a light lyric voice. I think she is amazing here!

[immortellino]

GREAT HORNE!!!

[jvinikour]

Incredible performance. Jumping on the transposition bandwagon about a year too late, I hope that the detractors are at least aware that at Gluck's time, the diapason was nearly a full step lower than it ended up by about 1850 (as documented in Berlioz's letters). And, yes, Mme. Horne is just great, of course!!!

[Jeronimo406]

Great

[artdanks]

Well, transposed or no....it's awesome! If they only way the great Horne could perform it at that time was to transpose it, then I say...TRANSPOSE!!!! I'd rather hear her sing it step down than to not hear her sing it at all!!!

[mannail888]

Another great performance by the one and only Horne, yet as a side note, at that stage of her career the top register is not as free and easy as it was once used to be.

[lalagonegaga]

Erm, who actually gives a f*** about the whole step down? You're listening to a recording of one of the greatest singers who ever lived and you're complaining about the fact the aria was transposed? I pity you for not being able to enjoy this beauty...

[godivapaw]

I was not impressed with the whole step down...!

[naters81]

what do you expect. This aria was originally written for a soprano and Horne is clearly a mezzo. It would be unfair to expect her to sing it in the original key.

[naters81]

although on another note she had performed and recorded the aria in the original key when she was younger

[inter215]

Nice performance but one that has been transposed down a whole step from the original key. The top B flats are only A's here.

[tarstan]

A wonderful woman. I love her.

[vocalvideos]

Does anyone know when this was recorded?

[napat14]

1986.

[neochmia]

Oh actually, Eileen Farrell is unestimably great too. Another style, another way to sing, another voice naturally, but as convincing. And her french is even better !

[dajones32301]

Until now, I thought Callas sang the definitive interpretation of this song!

What an artist. I wish i could have seen her when she did master's classes at Florida State University. I live here and was unable to visit. I won't make that mistake again.

I hope the Kennedy Center people see fit to recognize the greatest mezzo of the latter part of the 20th Century. She carries Ebe Stignani and Marian Anderson's torch with equal dignity.