Mirella Freni "Oh Dieu! que de bijoux" Faust

[DavidoffGustav]

my favorite is that her voice always has color to her retirement

[2loperadeparis]

very good french language indeed !

[kamikazekate]

Sublime

[MastersoftheOpera]

Mirella Freni is my favorite Marguerite. She has a strong, dramatic voice but she is able to ACT with her voice. Her lyric voice is expressive and a huge voice is not a bad thing to have at all. Her French diction is very good, so I don't know why people say it isn't. Maria Callas sang this aria quite well - and she was not French. Kiri Te Kanawa, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe, Beverly Sills and many other non-French sopranos sing this well. Opera has no nationality. It is universal.

[jukka5520]

@MastersoftheOpera

I must agree, this is best dramatic scene. Maria Callas is of course godess, but this she didn't act. I prefer Mirella Freni.



[applesakana123]

えんぎがすごい！

[minkoss]

I am french and I did understand every words... I think she's perfect and I just love her heavy voice! She's my favorite soprano with Price!!!

[vincik80]

impareggiabile mirella freni........

[timopragod]

You know, give me singing like this with questionable French ANY day... yes, we are coached to death, and generally people have "proper" diction nowadays, but we'd be hard pressed to find this kind singing today. Are there some wonderful voices out there...? Of course! But, now we have very few sopranos with this kind of vocal security.

[GermanOperaSinger]

She's my grandfather's favorite soprano, a great voice...charming actress and musician...apparently her French is bad, but I don't really care because my dumbass can't speak the language and wouldn't know anyways.

[amneris54]

la plus grande marguerite ou presque ,,,,,,,,

j'dore

[Jmooreluv]

It's sooo perfect! Just a flawless voice! And she's adorable in this.

[natashathweatt]

i like when she sings italian A LOT better...shhe has a great voice, nonetheless

[forpusaymara]

All right, i do not understand one word of her recitiativo... hopefully the aria is easier to understant...

This means nothin, she's great though !

[ebaytimr]

Superb, indeed!

[Arsamene87]

Infinitamente grande!

[tamerlano]

I LOVE how she sings this, even if the french is pretty bad. Just listen to the perfectly turned trill at the beginning -- perhaps the most often botched trill in all the soprano rep. Even sopranos with great trills have been knownb to fuck this one up.

[CONTESTAR]

This is an easy trill in middle voice starting directly without breath to waste or fast pacing ( e.g. compare with the trill towards the end of "dove sono").

You probably heard too many sopranos who cannot trill. They weren't bothered by this one. They just didn't know how.

That said, I agree with your opinion on this interpretation of the aria. I have to add -with a smile- that her italian is pretty bad too. That didn't stop me from buying tons of her recordings and screaming "brava" to her...

[CONTESTAR]

This is an easy trill in middle voice starting directly without breath to waste or fast pacing ( e.g. compare with the trill towards the end of "dove sono").

You probably heard too many sopranos who cannot trill. They weren't bothered by this one. They just didn't know how.

That said, I agree with your opinion on this interpretation of the aria. I have to add -with a smile- that her italian is pretty bad too. That didn't stop me from buying tons of her recordings and screaming "brava" to her...

[dennisdeem]

her Italian is pretty bad?!? you do know that she IS Italian and that native speakers on the operatic stage, more or less, SET THE STANDARD in terms of the singing languages. Study up. Good to see that you still love her, though. She's remarkable.

[CONTESTAR]

dear dennisdeem if you study up a bit more you will notice that very often the standard in a language is set by non native speakers (think of french and Gedda or Kraus). It is not a sacrilege to say that a native speaker doesn't articulate enough... as long as you can appreciate that sometimes amazing singers didn't articulate much but still gave us sounds to dream for...

[latraviata1853]

Have you ever really listened to Kraus' French? All in all, it's not bad, but some of his vowels are way off. Native speakers, especially Italian ones, have always set the standard for the diction of their languages. It's a simple fact.

[CONTESTAR]

not bad!?

Kraus made history in French repertory.

I see this discussion leads nowhere. Enjoy your music and thanks for sharing opinions.

[Orbazzano]

Grandissima! La più grande Marguerite di sempre!

[marishawma]

A consumate singer and fine actress.