A certain person called Amber is ruining my enjoyment of this wonderful piece of music! Why, I believe you need to get your ears tuned! If you like noises like somebody is clutching her windpipe, I suggest you try other singers, such as Lady Gaga but not limiting only to her! There's such a huge choice of othr singers, why don't you help yourself?
I don't think it was fair for Ainsley to ask Hayley and Katherine to sing together. Hayley's voice was bound to suffer in comparison to Katherine's as she is more a choir girl whilst K has the richer more mature voice. Having said that she took it in good part and made a sterling effort Bless.
I respectfully disagree. While both are talented Haley's voice is far more pure and unquestionably more feminine. Had you never seen either you would assume Katherine to be a big woman and Haley would more than likely come of as a little girl. Katherine's voice is indicative of most opera singers but Haley' s is extraordinary.
the voice that transits from normal singing to another angelic dimension is achieved by none other than Katherine Jenkins! no body could match her to that extend at this moment...
Anyone who thinks that Hayley Westenra has a nice voice should get their ears syringed. Her unnatural, shrill, warbling voice is nauseating. At 1.09-1.11 in this clip, her weird, falsetto top notes sound exactly like my washing machine on a super spin. In fact, all her high notes without exception sound like someone has their hands around her throat.....which is exactly what I want to do everytime I hear her awful voice.
Apart from the fact that examples of her singing on YT range from when she was 14 odd through to 21. What you say is objectively nonsense. She may not be the greatist singer on earth, but she is not that bad. I don't think you are a serious person, but some have said something similar when it turned out that their computer speakers weren't handling certain frequencies. I thought Hayley was "shrieking" at points, until I listened through earphones and decent speakers.
Dang! Our chances of hearing a truly great voice and truly great singing have been snatched away with Amber having removed the video of own "singing" (I use the word loosely).
I admit that I'm at a loss. I know that if Anna Netrobko sings Ave Maria she is a distinguished artist who doesn't sell very well, and so her version is classical and "High Art". If HW sings it she sells a millions and hasn't been trained at a conservatory so it is pop rubbish. But what if it is sung by Natasha Marsh or Jonathan Ansell? And what if it is sung by a 20th rate opera singer who has had training but is still not very good?
As far as I am aware, Anna Netrebko sells very well and Ave Maria isn't her thing anyway (even if she has sung it). She is massively talented and is getting all she deserves. HW and KJ are classical cross-over artistes who earn pots of money because they are media stars. No tv, no KJ. Her singing is very mediocre but she has a certain charm and is pretty.
LaMagnificat. You don't understand what I'm trying to say. You people never do. I could hate Watson, Jenkins, and all the rest and still take the same position. Can you understand that? The Art Music myth depends on the worst opera singer being able to sing, aria x, say, in a fashion monumentally and astronomically better than the best pop or crossover singer can sing it. And that is only one of the problems. The distinction between pop and classical vocalism is crumbling.
I do understand. Have you youtubed Aretha Franklyn singing Nessun Dorma? It's superb and I adore her for doing it. ArtMusic myth is a new one on me but then I'm just one of those people you despise. I am actually genuinely worried about the declining interest in classical music, the fact that audiences want quick and easy satisfaction and are prepared to accept these cross-over artists as the real thing (Hayley apart) when their abilities in my field of expertise are sadly wanting.
LaMagnificat, don't worry. Every generation there is this talk about a decline in interest in classical music. Early pop music was accused of pandering to the quick and easy satisfaction audiences wanted, but it didn't destroy classical music. Film didn't even destroy the theatre as they said it would. The people who enjoy the crossover artists are a different audience. "Easy Listening" or "Adult Contempory" being called "classical" (it is in a sense) won't destroy core classical music.
Sales of core-classical albums have decreased but this doesn't mean that fewer people are listening to classical music. Hayley singing Danny Boy won't destroy civilization as we know it, and the market for Il Divo is more like the people who used to throw there knickers at Tom Jones than those who are going to go to traditonal opera. Since Elvis the popular music world has been afraid to aim anything at the crowd who bought Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Nana Mouskouri by the trainloads.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but I do think fewer people are listening to contemporary music and core repertoire. Opera house/Concert Hall managements are seriously worried about who will replace current audiences, which averages age 60+. Ticket prices are not to blame; West End theatre tickets are the same price unless you want a posh seat.
I read an article about this in which the author argued, persuasively in my opinion, that the gray heads will be replaced by more gray heads. Classical concerts and opera have always tended to be the province of the older person. The audiences are getting older, but so is the population as a whole. 60 yr olds today are as fit as 40 yr olds in the 50s. That popular music is destroying classical has been said every generation for years. If it is genuinely "classical", it will survive.
I worry that we are in a highly visible media world now and programming is being forced to include the likes of Carmina bloody Burana as a sweetener. Anyway, that's another conversation.
In opera terms, Hayley - in her Pure Album days at about 16 - would have been a light lyrical soprano, I think (and "helium high" as one critic said). At 21 she has changed quite a bit - see the belfast 2008 videos. Her natural range has gone down quite a bit and her voice matured a lot. She still has a very pure linear sound. Hayley's voice is not the typical operatic voice, but she's not doing opera, and it has its own appeal.
Tell me sqid101, explain "in opera terms"? I am a professional opera singer and neither HW or KJ claim they are opera singers. Surely you mean classically trained..Hayley's voice cannot be defined in operatic terms..choirboy's maybe. That is not an insult.
I certainly agree that HW is not and has never said that she was an opera singer. She emphasised that again recently in a well-publicised interview. How the hell can she be defined in choirboy's terms? I thought the terms "soprano", "alto", mezzo-soprano", came from opera? She is obviously a soprano, and I would have thought had she gone on and studied opera as they wanted her to, she would have been a light lyrical soprano. Or the same catergory as Natasha Marsh, say.
The terms soprano, alto, tenor, bass come from choral singing which existed long before opera developed (around 1600). I think she sounds like a soprano choirboy. Who knows what she 'might have' sounded like had she continued. Maybe if Charlotte Church had continued, she would have become a dramatic soprano? Mezzo soprano, baritone, lyric or dramatic coloratura soprano are nineteenth century terms used by Verdi and Rossini etc.
I think she used to sound like a choirboy. Recently I've had a musician try to tell me she was closer to a mezzo-soprano and a reviewer of her piece on MOS described her voice as "deep". I would have said choirboys were like light lyrical sopranos, anyway. I agree we don't know how she might have turned out. She might be a mezzo by the time she's thirty. Her range has gone down. I concede I used the term lightly, loosely, off the top of my head - as a layman.
One more thing..generally speaking, reviewers don't know what they're talking about. They regularly contradict each other on the most basic facts and observations.
I agree about reviewers. I didn't say I agreed with either of the people I mentioned. I'm not arguing about HW's voice. I'm just observing that she is less like a choirboy than she used to be. That her voice has altered considerably since her "Pure" days is scarcely in dispute. The trouble is she varies from the high stuff to lower depending on what she's singing. I'm not sure what my sin has been. I suppose I mentioned Hayley and opera in the same post. Wash my mouth out with soap and water!
i must interject here..ur coversation is interesting(if u want to call 'tearing apart' young & talented singers ok) but how on earth could one (even an classical "expert" like urself) reduce HW's beautiful rang to that of a choirboy?
such a pure & piercing soprano (lyric in my opinion)voice..that it only lacks because of her nonexsistent training..
in musical ear can tell that she lacks training and relies soley on her talent but shouldnt she get credit for sounding SO great w/o the skill?
Actually, many people insist that she is or does sound "classically trained". There is a 16-year-old who claims to be "classically trained" on YT who keeps tearing the crossover singers to pieces. It depends whether you mean full operatic training or simply voice coaching. Hayley has not had the former but - and it's not unusual these days for popular singers from many genres - has had a lot of vocal training. For her to do operatic training would be absurd. It would be pointless.
The operaphiles are desparate to discredit these people. Just why, is not clear. Obviously they find them frightening or challenging in some way. The first fallacy is that opera vocalism is somehow "better" than other types of singing. More complicated perhaps, but "better"? Many still hold the view but it is not taken seriously in academia anymore or by most intelligent people. There was another argument recently in the local paper, which described Hayley on the front page as an opera singer.
Some purist wrote in response to the story calling her an opera star that she didn't have the power, skill, etc, etc, to reach those dizzy heights. The local journalists were all rolling about the floor of the Press building in fits of uncontrollable laughter. You see, they have all heard the local opera singers, and the notion that Hayley, Kathy, etc are inferior to such in any conceivable way is hilarious.
The newspaper had a lot of fun. They published letters from people like the one who said they did her no favours comparing her to the "warbling, waddling, shrieking, archaic prima donnas of opera and should be ashamed of themselves". The cartoonist did a cartoon of HW with a member of the audience saying "Of course Hayley's not an opera singer, she's listenable and not full of herself." Where NZ journalists get the idea that opera singers are "full of themselves" I'll let you guess.
At no point have I "torn apart" HW. Clearly you haven't read my posts properly. Why is likening HW to a boy soprano an insult? Wasn't a certain Aled Jones' voice beautiful?!
Likening her to a boy soprano has been done in an insulting way, whether you mean it that way or not. There are similarities. HW's voice has a pure linear tone, not unlike a choir boy, although one critic called her a "super-choir girl", which is less likely to be taken amiss. But it was much more true of the teenage HW than of the 21-year-old HW. Her range was bound to go down, and I thought she might lose what made her distinctive, but I don't think so now.
ps. J.S. Bach wrote ALL his sacred music for boy sopranos (and boy altos). If it's good enough for the father of European music then I presume it might be good enough for you? Perhaps you know better than Bach though
nope. no musical prodigy here & never proclaimed to be..
but what I do know is about the sexist & religious connotations associated w/ gender for centuries concerning facets of life including: theater, religion, music, rights (human, civil, property and personal), fashion, politics, etc..
hence the all sacred arias mentioned in your postshould I elaborate?
why did males lead all acting & singing parts? was bach traditional?
I said HW didn't have a typical operatic voice. Let's take NZ pop singer Bic Runga. If asked what sort of soprano she was, I'd say she was in opera terms a "light Lyrical" too. I don't mean by this that she is opera trained or even classically trained (in any sense). This is just the best way I can think of of giving any idea of what her voice is like. And I'm not necessarily saying there isn't more to being a light lyrical opera soprana than there is to what Runga does. I used the term loosely.
You sound aggressive, like you are defending something. I am not attacking, just trying to understand your terminology. I don't know Bic Runga's singing so I can't comment but I would re-iterate that Hayley's singing cannot be defined in any operatic terms,loose or otherwise. If you want to then that's your business.
I'm not being aggressive at all. You are the one that is being aggressive toward what was a concillatory post in which I explained my terminology and admitted that it may not be technically precise. What more can I do? I am trying to get away from Hayley because she upsets you all so much. I have assumed, PERHAPS WRONGLY, that all voices could be slotted into the operatic terminology - including my own singing in the bath, which I have assumed to be a powerful baritone.
Now you are being really aggressive! Hayley doesn't upset me in the least. I'm sorry if my information upset you, or is being enlightened a crime these days? Next you'll be ringing out the old adage that because I'm an opera singer I'm a snob.There is a lot of terminology that is confusing these days and I was trying to understand where you were coming from and what you knew. Peace and goodwill.
Well, something has upset you, that's plain. As far as your information is concerned, I'm not even sure what the hell it is you are saying. Being enlightened is certainly not a crime, but I don't associate a knowledge of the technicalities of opera with enlightenment any more than I'd associate a knowledge of the rules of rugby union football with it. I was assuming a light lyrical soprano was a soprano with a light and agile voice. Should I be thrashed for that?
Katherine is a mezzo-soprano, with a more typically operatic voice. Mezzo's are deeper. Katherine also has a very rich voice.
Hayley sounds different at different times, partly, no doubt since on these videos we are seeing her from the age of about 12 to 21. Check Hayley's concert at Belfast 2008 - search YT for "hayley westenra belfast" and look for the 2008 concert (ignore the first two videos one of which is mislabelled). Her voice is quite different there.
Why not? It's obviously garbage. A good substitute for Monty Python if you want a laugh at something ridiculous, but not to be taken seriously. I suppose I don't hate opera so much as the stuck-up, stupid little snobs that are opera fans. They all think they are better than and more intelligent than anyone else, even when they are patently clots or scarcely more than top end of normal. No, I don't hate it, I just think it is absurd, and hate the maliciousness and nastiness of it's cracked fans.
i agree with you that monty python is ridiculous yet funny, but you are being a bit harsh on people that like opera. not everyone who likes opera thinks highly of themselves, some people just think it sounds good, albeit a bit different,but there is no need to criticise people who like it just because they have different taste to you.
Maybe not everyone who likes opera is a prick, but a look around YouTube or the Opera fora shows a remarkable number of astonishingly obnoxious and arrogant people. And most of the purist critics don't seem much better.
neither Miss Jenkins or Miss Westenra are opera singers... they are pop singers that have the talent for opera, but they have a long way to go yet; they need more training, or stay in pop, where obviously, they are very good.
A Te Kanablah fan repeatedly refered to our home-town heroine as Westenblah and said she is a "fake" opera singer. I don't think you can be a fake something unless you claim to be that thing, and the press and the public being mistaken is not your fault. I pointed this out, whereupon the person told me - I quote verbatim - to go "play with yourself", and called me a "silly fucking cunt". So I responded in kind and went through my tags labelling Miss Westenra as a "Great Opera singer".
To be precise "operatic" is usually the adjective of "opera". Many at the Don Black Memorial felt that Jonathan Ansell's and Hayley Westenra's duet was "operatic" or more "operatic" than other songs performed. That is a valid use of the word even if it is incorrect. (Yes it can be both valid and incorrect!) But it wouldn't have been either valid or correct to say they were performing an opera. "Operatic" = in the style of opera.
It seems that the issue is confused by many young people defining "pop" as a specific genre of "popular music" rather than just as an abbreviation for "popular". I don't want to argue about whether this is right or wrong, but it's what they do, and so many of them don't see the likes of Misses Jenkins and Westenra as pop, even though they operate in the popular realm. Others argue that the distinction between pop and classical vocalism is crumbling. There is some evidence for this.
Well, this Ainsley character certainly has a stupid name. But is he anymore of a pain in the arse than your average opera fan? Take -- speaking figuratively -- that stupid fat bitch who runs that Jenkins hate site -- is even Anisley as obnoxious as her? I doubt it.
"As for operas, they are essentially too absurd and extravagant to mention. I look upon them as a magic scene contrived to please the eyes and the ears at the expense of the understanding."
Opera - "a bizarre thing consisting of poetry in music, in which the poet and the composer, equally standing in each other's way, go to endless trouble to produce a wretched result."
Kathy Jenkins has a beautiful voice that is grossly underrated by the purist nutters. I don't think it's biased to say that this clip doesn't show Hayley at anywhere near her best, though. (And she has altered considerably as she has gotten older.)
Katherine Jenkins is nothing but a classic fm con artist who has only been successful through millions of pounds worth of PR, marketing and plastic surgery rather than the existence of any musical talent. She is a useless lump of lard.
I am sorry, she is not a useless lump of lard, she can actually sing brilliantly and she has made her own way to the top. And what's this about plastic surgery?
The bit about plastic surgery is one of the repeated claims on the part of the opera community that proves a significant proportion of them are mad as hatters - literally psychotic. It is claimed that she has had a "boob job", some of them say that she has had two. This is repeated over and over on the opera fora and by opera fans generally. A common story is that part of her contract was that she have a boob job and lose weight. Totally absurd, but then opera fans are totally absurd.
The opera psychotics are also seriously saying that Kathy Jenkins didn't really get a scholarship to RADA at all, but that she got a letter for an instrumentalist of the same name or meant for someone called "Jenkinson". Completely stark raving mad - psychotic. As if the mistake would not have been rectified, if it had occurred (which of course it didn't), and she graduated with honours too. But rationality and facts are of no significance to psychotics and the opera community is full of them.
Yes, they all have tiny squeaky little voices. And poor voices too, though this clip isn't a very good example. Trained opera singers learn to voluntarily role up the ventricular folds at the top of he vocal cords and produce extra frequancies that the human ear is particularly sensitive to. This range is in the same range as the human scream which is why opera singers can be heard so well - they are not more powerful than other singers. It's crazy for popular singers to do this.
I know this is going to incite huge spouts of self-righteous rambling from you, Sqid101, but I must say it. Please do not call them opera singers. Thank you. I've said it. Night night.
LaFeeVerte1209, don't be rude. I am not self-righteous and I don't ramble. I am verbose, perhaps, but the difficulty I have with opera fans here is not so much that they disagree with me - perfectly acceptable - but that they don't even seem to understand my point of view.
It is precisely because of the rudeness, bullying, personal insults, lofty holier than thou attitute, and the "we are better and more intelligent than you" attitude of the purists that I have deliberately called them opera singers.
On another thread I have had a sensible discussion about this and I have put both sides of the argument. I was an impartial observer IMO, but am forced to take sides by some people's attitudes.
they have such different voices that go together so well, hayley has a light soprano and katherine has a very heavy mezzo. i dont see why people try to put katherine down when they dont even understand her voice or talent
Excellent, excellent! Their styles, although quite different, blend beautifully.
Ah! Westenra! Let us hope she has not been bitten by that foul beast of the night, otherwise her pristine singing voice will be rewarded with nothing but garlic cloves and a wooden stake (bravo to those who get the reference).
I don't think the human skull's bite will have any effect on Hayley. She spends all the time she does in Japan so she can keep well stocked up with True Blood A gold star for anyone who gets or discovers the reference.
This soprano friend of hers (she is very popular in Japan) is supposed to be responsible for her and Dame Kiri being at loggerheads. He somehow got hold of the designs of Dame Kiri's outfits and she suspects Hayley of helping him filch them.
"Then there was Dame Kiri. Marooned on the tacky set, she warbled Tonight in a manner possibly never foreseen by Sondheim and Bernstein: West Side scary. If Hayley Westenra was watching with a certain schadenfreude, who could blame her?"
"Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who has said unkind things about our Hayley (Westenra not Holt) and has slung off at Kiwis' love of wearing jandals, made the decision to slum it on DWTS and proved she can't do crossover.
She looked like a human skull who delivered Sondheim lines of which she knew nothing about the heart and soul. (She'd rather be fishing.)
And it wasn't Carl Doig's band's fault, either, for they are better than ever."
"Cross received 32 for her cha cha with 2006 winner Aaron Gilmore - but let's face it, she's had 32 years on the stage where to Kiri Te Kanawa's horror, she has used a microphone.
It was also crass bad timing by ole Kiri to make a cameo on the show in her raincoat so soon after allegedly denouncing our cute wee warbler, Hayley Westenra, as a fake and for using a microphone. That instrument Kiri sang into most wondrously last night wasn't a black ice cream by the way!"
Braindead mountebanks like Te Kanawa, Thomas Allen, etc, think they are special because they sing Pucinni or Mahler or whomever. They really think the greatness of the composers somehow rubs off on them and they too are great. In the opera world even the opera fans think they are somehow better than everyone else for listening to it...
But is Dame Kiri and the opera community who are the fakes; and it is Hayley and her ilk who have themselves in perspective.
bkalie, as I have mentioned before I have - just to confirm what is pretty obvious - asked other musicians about these singers. An intrumentalist acquaintance who himself prefers the operatic type voice and and has accompanied Weestenra and Te Kanawa, rates Westenra's singing of arias much higher than I expected. And while he doesn't like her voice that much, he certainly doesn't think it's 'tinny' beside these others.
Sqid101: Criticism from opera people like Kiri Te Kanawa reflects badly on them not on Hayley. These criticisms are boorish and smacks of elitism. Katherine's operatic voice (and Kiri Te Kanawa) does not sound good outside of her genre. For me Hayley is a lyrical soprano which I like much better because she's not a slave to any particular genre. She can do classical, theatrical, pop, folk, and even country songs well. This means her range is much broader than the typical opera singer.
Te Kanawa has been remarkably stupid. She doesn't seem to realise that times have changed and she can't do whatever she likes with impunity anymore:
Quote------------------------------------
"From the lofty heights of the opera world -- where doors are opened for you and diva behaviour (rudeness, self-obsession, demanding self-entitlement) is not only tolerated and accepted but actually admired -- it must be easy to look down on everyone else. And one gets the impression Dame Kiri does.
"Jobbing journalists who have had the misfortune of an encounter with her -- and I am pleased I never have, tetchy Neil Young was enough -- return to tell of being kept waiting for 90 minutes or more without explanation or apology, of dismissive answers and a generally superior air. That feedback is too common for it to be just rumour and innuendo.
Sqid101: This comparison of Hayley and opera singers, like Katherine, is nonsense. Opera singers are perfect within their genre, but when they step outside of it their operatic voice and heavy diction do not sound well. They are slaves to operatic songs and can't do anything else. Hayley on the other hand does very well in many genres. She is not the classical operatic singer but this does not diminish her amazing perfectly pitched voice.
The problem, Swanningaround is that the purist's view implies that the very worst opera singer singing Ave Maria is producing High Art, whereas the very best popera singer singing it is merely producing rubbish. But the public ain't gonna buy this, hence the purist's obsession with discrediting the poperas.
Let's get a couple of things straight. I have no problem with people liking opera. What I have a problem with is those who take a "holier than thou attitude" and who rubbish everyone who doesn't share their taste in music. I also find tiresome those who think they are so very clever, and affect an intellectually superior attitude when they are of little more than at the top end of normal intelligence.
The opera fans and purists claim that opera is High Art, but, popera and everything else is rubbish. Elsewhere this notion went out with the Ark, and I am saying that I don't accept it; and asking you to justify it.The astonishing thing on YouTube is not that the opera nuts disagree with me, but that few seem to understand what I'm saying. It's not a new question. The usual answers are to invoke tradition or the superiority of the great composers.
I'm not going to take your foolish insults on my own thread. I have not said or implied that I am the world's foremost authority on the subject, I am not pushing my opinions down your throats, and I don't understand your comments about my ranting about people's bios. I posted some extracts from an article that I thought relevant and interesting. That is not a five post rant, just the posting of what many find interesting. And do stop trying to be clever, it doesn't suit you.
but I agree that this is an unfair comment. Yes, it is a different approach to classical but different is not always wrong! And sometimes is is just jealousy because crossover artists have the potential to make more money than who simply do opera alone! What does annoy ME personally is when in newspapers etc, the singers are referred to as opera singers when they are not and do not sing in operas but that is by no means derogutory to them, just to the media. I have respect 4 ne 1 who loves music
I am not sure about Jenkins doing opera, but due to the snobbery etc it is often hard to crossover artists to cross back into the world of opera again but lets face it, she doesnt need to, she should sing what makes her happy and obviously people like her and she is successful at what she is doing. We cant deny however, the opinion of some people (not neccessarily mine!)I am just offering an alternative opinion, that people who study a classical craft and then crossover, are 'selling out'
I am not saying there is a hierarchy in music and well know that there can be a lot of snobbery etc in opera and classical music but the main thing is to be able to move people by music and yes, they both do that. Noone can deny both of the girls successes and that counts for a lot. I personally, like and respect many different kinds of music and the artists who communicate the means. When I said about the bios, I meant that I didnt know them well. No-one can underestimate the power of music!
and I dont think you have to defend the girls. We have to remember that once opera was pop music in their era! Katherine sings like a trained opera singer but sings different music, personally I think sometimes she IS a little too bellowy and I know what u mean but an opera singer of a high calibre singing at the ROH for example, wouldnt need to bellow and can have many different colours and textures in their voice. Both the girls are talented and I think you misunderstood me a little.
Hi again Sqid101 I still stand by my point that Hayley Westenra's voice is not what any classical singer would aspire to and i dont think its right to compare artistes like her and dame Kiri but obviously that does not make a trained classical singer any 'better' just different and at the end of the day its down to personal opinion. Hayley and Katherine both have the power to touch and move people with their voices and that has to be recognised but I do think there is no need to argue about it
Now you have explained yourself Lucy I don't disagree in essence with what you say. There may be a semantic problem here to in that what we mean by "classical" may be a bit different. I agree that Hayley's voice is not ideal for opera; although I thought there were some operatic roles where a light voice would be appropriate. I know it was suggested to her that she train for opera, but decided not to. She doesn't (usually) sing opera style using the diaphram, etc.
I'm not diving to the defence of anyone. The issue is whether we can legitmately argue that there is a hierachy in music with pop at the bottom, then jazz a bit higher, then classical, and then way, way, way, way, up almost out of sight there is opera. And is everything but opera and some classical "rubbish"? Is it impossible for "pop" music to be art?
There is a lot lot more I need to say to explain my position fully, but it would take about 15 posts (literally) -- Later perhaps.
Opera singers do a lot of work and deserve respect for that. But I'm sorry that doesn't make them superior artists or singers. It simply means that they have mastered certain techniques and perhaps have a level of knowledge of musical theory. I could swot up about the operas/composers well, but that wouldn't make me a good singer. I don't follow the bit in the middle of your first post about the bios and breaking into the business. I didn't think Jenkins wanted to do opera, I could be wrong.
Yes, Carolynhall, and opera itself has changed and evolved and the pop/popera style of singing used to once be common in opera. And it has never been "superior". A lot of the modern opera style came about as halls and orchestra's got bigger and the singers had to bellow and project. Ironically, the purists at the time hated it. The microphone allows a quieter more conversational type of singing. I much prefer it.
No No No Aprodite you surely don't know. Hayley - lovely sweet and a gorgeous singer is not an opera singer and never, never on a par with Dame Kiri. They are different - embrace that. We love the both of them but Hayley and Dame Kiri are poles apart!
Oh shut up with this stupid shit. Opera singers are not superior. they are just different. Give me one reason for them being superior. One single reason. Or take you insane rantings elsewhere.
Poles apart? So if a pop singer sings Ave Maria it can never be art on a par with an opera singer doing it? Why because the opera singer sings from the diaphram and projects and the popster doesn't? Give us a break.
The blasting of opera and the tortured forced delivery make it seem worse in most people's opinion.
You ar just parroting an opinion with no substance to it.
I shouldn't have been that rude, Carolyn, but that opera singers are somehow vastly superior is an idea that went out with Noah (and is being revived on YouTube and by Dame Kiri).
Katherine you are beautiful, sweet and a lady- you have everything! Hayley you are sweet and have a good voice but not as good as Katherine - rich, pure and golden
For me Hatley has a much clearer and purer voice. I think personally she is on a level with Dame Kiri and that is certainly an accolade we could all aspire to.
It is simply a matter of taste which you like. I know muscians and other classical fans who don't like Dame Kiri's voice much. That she is an opera singer in no way makes her superior. Many of those who say how great she is are simply saying it because it is the done thing. There is plenty of evidence for this.
For me Hatley has a much clearer and purer voice. I think personally she is on a level with Dame Kiri and that is certainly an accolade we could all aspire to.
You have got to be kidding! She is nothing like Dame Kiri who is a real operatic singer with operatic technique much closer to that of Katherines. Hayley has an OK sacred voice but technically not what a classical singer would aspire to at all.
Oh, no another one. Since when has opera been proved superior to any other sort of singing? You people are the fakes claiming to be somehow better than everyone else. This idea of a hierachy in singing went out years ago. Opera is not superior to popera and popera not superior to rock or rap. They are all forms of expression.
Surely you cannot deny that the decades, I repeat, decades of vocal training that opera singers have to do do in fact make them better singers than, for instance, Jay Z? If you can deny this then I wonder at your logic.
The opera fans and purists claim that opera is High Art, but, popera and everything else is rubbish. Elsewhere this notion went out with the Ark. I am saying that I don't accept it; and asking you to justify it.
I was studying logic when you were still sucking on your mommies teat LaFee. You haven't understood my argument and are using a fallacious argument by analogy.
According to the Independent's opera critic, Paul Potts training did him no good, btw.
Are you or are you not saying that only true classical singers can produce art? Are you saying that if a third rate opera singer sings Ave Maria that it is Art, but if Westenra or Potts, Church, or Jenkins sing it, it is just rubbish because they are just POP singers?
We may be getting nowhere because I think you are starting with the very assumption that I am questioning. But I don't think formal training automatically makes someone an artist.
Jay Z is a rap artist. I am not attacking anyone's 'artistry', I am merely saying that it is in fact possible to judge singing technique and performance without undermining the person in question as an artist (though how much of an artist Katherine Jenkins is is highly debatable).
I just found this other post LF. I agree with it as written. We can judge singing technique, but before we judge anything, we must have a standard to judge it by and an authority to justify that standard. Of course someone taking part in an opera will be judged by the standards of opera. All I am saying is that I don't accept that singing generally should be judged by those standards. If you disagree that is your right.
But... KJ and HW haven't been in an opera... like... ever. So why call them opera singers? Unless we are actually, for the sake of consistency, going to start calling everyone who sings a bit of opera an opera singer, then I really don't see the point. Common sense must have a bit of say in the matter.
Why call them opera singers? To piss off some people who have been unecessarily rude, perhaps (I don't mean you - I mean ones that were much worse).
And you're wrong, one of them has been in three operas, I believe. Ironically, it's HW who has been in three operas, but I don't really consider her an opera singer and nor does she. She never bills herself as one. I see for the Capitol Fourth thing in the US she has been downgraded from "classical superstar" to "international recording artist.
Don't worry about it. I did it as a joke to piss certain people off. I'll probably change it back, eventually. HW's opera appearances don't count either, I'm not serious about them, although technically she did appear in operas. But it was when she was a kid of about 9 and later as a chorister. But she decided against training for opera when she got a record deal when she was about 13.
Mind you, there a are still many in the public and the press who will go on calling the likes of KJ an P Potts opera singers. There is a stupid article in a New Zealand paper about Bocelli (I don't think he's been in an opera either) where he's called an opera star and the writer distinguishes between him and HW calling her popera. HW is a warbler of easy listening ballads with a smidgeon of crossover IMO, but the press and public usually go their own way.
LaFeeVerte, perhaps you are thinking that I am going all post-modern and saying that anything goes and everything is equal. No. I'm saying that there is no great division between Pop and Classical singers that makes them different in kind. There is a continuum, if you like. My singing in the bath, Russell Watson, and Bryn Terfel are all on the same continuum. We differ not in kind but in degree. In my scheme Terfel could rate higher than Watson, but not just because he is "classical".
"What no one discussed -- not that I read or heard anyway -- was just how much the Dame's comments were grounded in that notion of some hierarchy of the arts: you know, popular music is at the bottom, jazz (because it's more complex) a bit above that, classical music atop that and then somewhere in the rarefied air, almost too distant to see, is the wonderful world of opera."
"But more and more, music-lovers of many sorts are showing signs of resistance to the overly fruity, throbbing, blasting sound -that's how they hear it - of the stereotypical opera singer."
"But in the United States in the late 20th century, where more people probably love more different kinds of music than in any previous human culture, that highest standard need not - cannot - be verismo Italian opera of a century ago."
Actually, I lost some data in a hard disk crash, but GoKathyJ has a copy of this and I think it is somewhere on the Net still. Eventually we should get the rest up.
Strange that a cookery show produces such a stodgy debate. Katherine stated clearly that she would not join the conventional classical circuit until her voice was ready. Wise head, beautiful voice. I don't "get" Westenra. She seems to squeeze a head-voice over the sides of her tongue. Ruler on knuckles! Operatic singing, as opposed to opera, is new, starting from Pavarotti's World Cup. It raises the profile of some enjoyable singers. Let's rejoice in the +'s and be less snobby with the -'s.
I have just started my career as a singer, but do not class myself as an opera singer - at the moment, I am a singer, nothing more.
There is an expectation when someone calls themselves an 'opera singer' and I think far too many people call themselves that! I agree, there are many substandard 'opera singers' and they too should not call themselves by this name.
All i refer to is a marketing side of people using terms by which they do not truly understand the aesthetic.
Graeme, there is no parallel in the literary world to "classical music". There is serious literature and "entertainments" or popular literature. Classics are books that are models of their kind and have stood the test of time, but literary merit is not assumed. A list of classics would include books like Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Christo, which are both entertainments.
Hey, back up the truck. Are we talking about my calling them "classical" or someone else calling them opera singers? Westenra has never claimed to be an opera singer and is irritated when people do call her such (go to the BBC new site put her name in the search engine there an look for interviews with her).
There is an unbelievably stupid bio of her on AOL and other places that says she was both a member of the NZ Opera and NZ Royal Ballet. She and official bios have never said such a thing.
Sqid101. I wasn't referring to the 'greatness' of shakespeare or other writers, I was saying how they accept that they work in a different genre. Classicism is blindingly different to pop (and the beetles are amazing performers - but they accepted who they are and what their genre is). This is the point I am trying to make. I have no grief with people wanting to take music to the general public, however I do when they claim to be something that they are clearly not. ctd..
Graeme, I don't understand your talk of Shakespeare and other writers accepting "they work in a different genre". In his day Shakespeare was the most popular playwright of his time and - this is hilarious in this context - was attacked by the literary elite of his day as not being educated enough. He was referred to as an "upstart crow", who didn't deserve a place amongst the literati. They didn't have "genres" then.
Oh, I am not disagreeing with this. However, I would like Paul more if he did something new and original (even Hayley Westenra is more original than him) and if he didn't use that begging for attention ploy he enacts. And when he gets it through his head that he is NOT singing opera, as well. He is a very talented vocalist, and I look forward to him in the future when he settles himself within the crossover world.
I am still interested in Will Martin, BTW. Not too much info on him though...
What I meant by these singers screwing themselves over is the fact that although they can sing these arias they do not do it correctly and in the end they are going to damage their voices.
And yes, there IS a correct way to sing classically. However, that way of singing isn't correct for let's just say rap, or country for that matter. Now, for the most part a crossover artist doesn't need the most amazing technique to keep their voice, but the more the better.
They are labelled popular writers for a reason - and these girls are popular singers (to use the term attributing to popular culture).
I just believe that people should not be afraid to say that they are popera singers or popular singers rather than pretending to have studied an aestetic which never attains perfection and beauty from the masters like most other great artists strive to do. This is not snobbish, it is realism.
A certain person called Amber is ruining my enjoyment of this wonderful piece of music! Why, I believe you need to get your ears tuned! If you like noises like somebody is clutching her windpipe, I suggest you try other singers, such as Lady Gaga but not limiting only to her! There's such a huge choice of othr singers, why don't you help yourself?
aabbcc0837 5 months ago
I don't think it was fair for Ainsley to ask Hayley and Katherine to sing together. Hayley's voice was bound to suffer in comparison to Katherine's as she is more a choir girl whilst K has the richer more mature voice. Having said that she took it in good part and made a sterling effort Bless.
littlesmew 8 months ago
both sopran.....one falcon or dramatic sopranop and the other liggera
zasesdea 2 years ago
She's a mezzo, but able to sing soprano parts, like Mozarts "Laudate Dominum" :)
dreioktaven 2 years ago
Yes, Hayley is a soprano :)
theprimadonna 2 years ago
I respectfully disagree. While both are talented Haley's voice is far more pure and unquestionably more feminine. Had you never seen either you would assume Katherine to be a big woman and Haley would more than likely come of as a little girl. Katherine's voice is indicative of most opera singers but Haley' s is extraordinary.
Leadfingerses 2 years ago 5
Katherine clearly has the more rounded and controlled voice.
MegaBrits 2 years ago
no, she's just different
szatter123 2 years ago
hello everyone!!! please can you give my water is wide version a listen and please comment on what you think....thanks abi x
abiquinn 2 years ago
hayley and katherine rock!
chanmeows 2 years ago 3
the voice that transits from normal singing to another angelic dimension is achieved by none other than Katherine Jenkins! no body could match her to that extend at this moment...
psvision 2 years ago
VERY GOOD
2373ron 2 years ago
There you go, Soprano Boobs (Katherine Jenkins).
sdiwu2046 2 years ago
Could it have been any more planned!
Haha
Very nice though!
musical500 2 years ago
Shhhhhhhh! ;-)
Sqid101 2 years ago
Katherine is better!
VanesaWhite 2 years ago
I agree
petshopgirl72 2 years ago
Anyone who thinks that Hayley Westenra has a nice voice should get their ears syringed. Her unnatural, shrill, warbling voice is nauseating. At 1.09-1.11 in this clip, her weird, falsetto top notes sound exactly like my washing machine on a super spin. In fact, all her high notes without exception sound like someone has their hands around her throat.....which is exactly what I want to do everytime I hear her awful voice.
AmberGarcia99 3 years ago
Apart from the fact that examples of her singing on YT range from when she was 14 odd through to 21. What you say is objectively nonsense. She may not be the greatist singer on earth, but she is not that bad. I don't think you are a serious person, but some have said something similar when it turned out that their computer speakers weren't handling certain frequencies. I thought Hayley was "shrieking" at points, until I listened through earphones and decent speakers.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I think your problem is between your ears, Amber.
For those who wish to hear how it should be done properly (and get a good laugh into the bargin) you can hear Amber herself singing here:
watch?v=pj88Xqwj9gA
Sqid101 3 years ago
Dang! Our chances of hearing a truly great voice and truly great singing have been snatched away with Amber having removed the video of own "singing" (I use the word loosely).
Sqid101 2 years ago
I admit that I'm at a loss. I know that if Anna Netrobko sings Ave Maria she is a distinguished artist who doesn't sell very well, and so her version is classical and "High Art". If HW sings it she sells a millions and hasn't been trained at a conservatory so it is pop rubbish. But what if it is sung by Natasha Marsh or Jonathan Ansell? And what if it is sung by a 20th rate opera singer who has had training but is still not very good?
Sqid101 3 years ago
As far as I am aware, Anna Netrebko sells very well and Ave Maria isn't her thing anyway (even if she has sung it). She is massively talented and is getting all she deserves. HW and KJ are classical cross-over artistes who earn pots of money because they are media stars. No tv, no KJ. Her singing is very mediocre but she has a certain charm and is pretty.
Don't get me started on Russell Watson, aaaaargh!
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
LaMagnificat. You don't understand what I'm trying to say. You people never do. I could hate Watson, Jenkins, and all the rest and still take the same position. Can you understand that? The Art Music myth depends on the worst opera singer being able to sing, aria x, say, in a fashion monumentally and astronomically better than the best pop or crossover singer can sing it. And that is only one of the problems. The distinction between pop and classical vocalism is crumbling.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I do understand. Have you youtubed Aretha Franklyn singing Nessun Dorma? It's superb and I adore her for doing it. ArtMusic myth is a new one on me but then I'm just one of those people you despise. I am actually genuinely worried about the declining interest in classical music, the fact that audiences want quick and easy satisfaction and are prepared to accept these cross-over artists as the real thing (Hayley apart) when their abilities in my field of expertise are sadly wanting.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
LaMagnificat, don't worry. Every generation there is this talk about a decline in interest in classical music. Early pop music was accused of pandering to the quick and easy satisfaction audiences wanted, but it didn't destroy classical music. Film didn't even destroy the theatre as they said it would. The people who enjoy the crossover artists are a different audience. "Easy Listening" or "Adult Contempory" being called "classical" (it is in a sense) won't destroy core classical music.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I hope you're right
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
Sales of core-classical albums have decreased but this doesn't mean that fewer people are listening to classical music. Hayley singing Danny Boy won't destroy civilization as we know it, and the market for Il Divo is more like the people who used to throw there knickers at Tom Jones than those who are going to go to traditonal opera. Since Elvis the popular music world has been afraid to aim anything at the crowd who bought Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Nana Mouskouri by the trainloads.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I agree with most of what you are saying, but I do think fewer people are listening to contemporary music and core repertoire. Opera house/Concert Hall managements are seriously worried about who will replace current audiences, which averages age 60+. Ticket prices are not to blame; West End theatre tickets are the same price unless you want a posh seat.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
I read an article about this in which the author argued, persuasively in my opinion, that the gray heads will be replaced by more gray heads. Classical concerts and opera have always tended to be the province of the older person. The audiences are getting older, but so is the population as a whole. 60 yr olds today are as fit as 40 yr olds in the 50s. That popular music is destroying classical has been said every generation for years. If it is genuinely "classical", it will survive.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I worry that we are in a highly visible media world now and programming is being forced to include the likes of Carmina bloody Burana as a sweetener. Anyway, that's another conversation.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
The vast majority of classical musical is already dead, i.e. obscure and unplayed. As it the vast majority of literature and art.
JasonRadley 2 years ago
your all wrong, they are not "pop singers" they are classical singers
collegeofwestanglia 3 years ago
Nice... though I prefer the soothing voice of Hayley.
Snowflake641 3 years ago 2
Katherine Jenkins and Hayley Westenra are my favourite singers!!
Subscribe to me !!
dogmadd 3 years ago
Wow !! a very good song i love Ave Maria and Hayley Westenra 2 !!
thelastblodbender 3 years ago
Aw,thankyou.
I understand why now.
I knew Katherine was a mezzo soprano
but I was not sure what Hayley was classed as.
:)
applesareace 3 years ago
In opera terms, Hayley - in her Pure Album days at about 16 - would have been a light lyrical soprano, I think (and "helium high" as one critic said). At 21 she has changed quite a bit - see the belfast 2008 videos. Her natural range has gone down quite a bit and her voice matured a lot. She still has a very pure linear sound. Hayley's voice is not the typical operatic voice, but she's not doing opera, and it has its own appeal.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Tell me sqid101, explain "in opera terms"? I am a professional opera singer and neither HW or KJ claim they are opera singers. Surely you mean classically trained..Hayley's voice cannot be defined in operatic terms..choirboy's maybe. That is not an insult.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
I certainly agree that HW is not and has never said that she was an opera singer. She emphasised that again recently in a well-publicised interview. How the hell can she be defined in choirboy's terms? I thought the terms "soprano", "alto", mezzo-soprano", came from opera? She is obviously a soprano, and I would have thought had she gone on and studied opera as they wanted her to, she would have been a light lyrical soprano. Or the same catergory as Natasha Marsh, say.
Continued...
Sqid101 3 years ago
The terms soprano, alto, tenor, bass come from choral singing which existed long before opera developed (around 1600). I think she sounds like a soprano choirboy. Who knows what she 'might have' sounded like had she continued. Maybe if Charlotte Church had continued, she would have become a dramatic soprano? Mezzo soprano, baritone, lyric or dramatic coloratura soprano are nineteenth century terms used by Verdi and Rossini etc.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
I think she used to sound like a choirboy. Recently I've had a musician try to tell me she was closer to a mezzo-soprano and a reviewer of her piece on MOS described her voice as "deep". I would have said choirboys were like light lyrical sopranos, anyway. I agree we don't know how she might have turned out. She might be a mezzo by the time she's thirty. Her range has gone down. I concede I used the term lightly, loosely, off the top of my head - as a layman.
Sqid101 3 years ago
One more thing..generally speaking, reviewers don't know what they're talking about. They regularly contradict each other on the most basic facts and observations.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
I agree about reviewers. I didn't say I agreed with either of the people I mentioned. I'm not arguing about HW's voice. I'm just observing that she is less like a choirboy than she used to be. That her voice has altered considerably since her "Pure" days is scarcely in dispute. The trouble is she varies from the high stuff to lower depending on what she's singing. I'm not sure what my sin has been. I suppose I mentioned Hayley and opera in the same post. Wash my mouth out with soap and water!
Sqid101 3 years ago
i must interject here..ur coversation is interesting(if u want to call 'tearing apart' young & talented singers ok) but how on earth could one (even an classical "expert" like urself) reduce HW's beautiful rang to that of a choirboy?
such a pure & piercing soprano (lyric in my opinion)voice..that it only lacks because of her nonexsistent training..
in musical ear can tell that she lacks training and relies soley on her talent but shouldnt she get credit for sounding SO great w/o the skill?
luvpolitics 3 years ago
Actually, many people insist that she is or does sound "classically trained". There is a 16-year-old who claims to be "classically trained" on YT who keeps tearing the crossover singers to pieces. It depends whether you mean full operatic training or simply voice coaching. Hayley has not had the former but - and it's not unusual these days for popular singers from many genres - has had a lot of vocal training. For her to do operatic training would be absurd. It would be pointless.
Sqid101 3 years ago
The operaphiles are desparate to discredit these people. Just why, is not clear. Obviously they find them frightening or challenging in some way. The first fallacy is that opera vocalism is somehow "better" than other types of singing. More complicated perhaps, but "better"? Many still hold the view but it is not taken seriously in academia anymore or by most intelligent people. There was another argument recently in the local paper, which described Hayley on the front page as an opera singer.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Some purist wrote in response to the story calling her an opera star that she didn't have the power, skill, etc, etc, to reach those dizzy heights. The local journalists were all rolling about the floor of the Press building in fits of uncontrollable laughter. You see, they have all heard the local opera singers, and the notion that Hayley, Kathy, etc are inferior to such in any conceivable way is hilarious.
Sqid101 3 years ago
The newspaper had a lot of fun. They published letters from people like the one who said they did her no favours comparing her to the "warbling, waddling, shrieking, archaic prima donnas of opera and should be ashamed of themselves". The cartoonist did a cartoon of HW with a member of the audience saying "Of course Hayley's not an opera singer, she's listenable and not full of herself." Where NZ journalists get the idea that opera singers are "full of themselves" I'll let you guess.
Sqid101 3 years ago
At no point have I "torn apart" HW. Clearly you haven't read my posts properly. Why is likening HW to a boy soprano an insult? Wasn't a certain Aled Jones' voice beautiful?!
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
Likening her to a boy soprano has been done in an insulting way, whether you mean it that way or not. There are similarities. HW's voice has a pure linear tone, not unlike a choir boy, although one critic called her a "super-choir girl", which is less likely to be taken amiss. But it was much more true of the teenage HW than of the 21-year-old HW. Her range was bound to go down, and I thought she might lose what made her distinctive, but I don't think so now.
watch?v=kaMIly5G6xc
Sqid101 3 years ago
That remark was to you luvpolitics, and my last
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
ps. J.S. Bach wrote ALL his sacred music for boy sopranos (and boy altos). If it's good enough for the father of European music then I presume it might be good enough for you? Perhaps you know better than Bach though
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
nope. no musical prodigy here & never proclaimed to be..
but what I do know is about the sexist & religious connotations associated w/ gender for centuries concerning facets of life including: theater, religion, music, rights (human, civil, property and personal), fashion, politics, etc..
hence the all sacred arias mentioned in your postshould I elaborate?
why did males lead all acting & singing parts? was bach traditional?
luvpolitics 3 years ago
I said HW didn't have a typical operatic voice. Let's take NZ pop singer Bic Runga. If asked what sort of soprano she was, I'd say she was in opera terms a "light Lyrical" too. I don't mean by this that she is opera trained or even classically trained (in any sense). This is just the best way I can think of of giving any idea of what her voice is like. And I'm not necessarily saying there isn't more to being a light lyrical opera soprana than there is to what Runga does. I used the term loosely.
Sqid101 3 years ago
You sound aggressive, like you are defending something. I am not attacking, just trying to understand your terminology. I don't know Bic Runga's singing so I can't comment but I would re-iterate that Hayley's singing cannot be defined in any operatic terms,loose or otherwise. If you want to then that's your business.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
I'm not being aggressive at all. You are the one that is being aggressive toward what was a concillatory post in which I explained my terminology and admitted that it may not be technically precise. What more can I do? I am trying to get away from Hayley because she upsets you all so much. I have assumed, PERHAPS WRONGLY, that all voices could be slotted into the operatic terminology - including my own singing in the bath, which I have assumed to be a powerful baritone.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Now you are being really aggressive! Hayley doesn't upset me in the least. I'm sorry if my information upset you, or is being enlightened a crime these days? Next you'll be ringing out the old adage that because I'm an opera singer I'm a snob.There is a lot of terminology that is confusing these days and I was trying to understand where you were coming from and what you knew. Peace and goodwill.
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
Well, something has upset you, that's plain. As far as your information is concerned, I'm not even sure what the hell it is you are saying. Being enlightened is certainly not a crime, but I don't associate a knowledge of the technicalities of opera with enlightenment any more than I'd associate a knowledge of the rules of rugby union football with it. I was assuming a light lyrical soprano was a soprano with a light and agile voice. Should I be thrashed for that?
Sqid101 3 years ago
only if it turns you on I guess
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
I conceded long ago that I might be using the term in a technically imprecise way. That's what I meant by "loosely" and "layman's".
What do you want? A formal avidafit of retraction signed by three witnesses and a Justice of the Peace?
I would have been more impressed by your saying that Hayley doesn't upset you if you hadn't taken my jocular comment to that extent so seriously.
If I had described anyone other than Hayley in operatic terms, would you have still started barking?
Sqid101 3 years ago
...and I shall cease to make it mine!
LaMagnifica13 3 years ago
This is such a beautiful
piece of music they sing.
You can see the differences
in their voices,
Hayley has a hight,light voice
whilst Katherine has a deeper
almost stronger sounding voice.
However,they are both amazing,
applesareace 3 years ago
Katherine is a mezzo-soprano, with a more typically operatic voice. Mezzo's are deeper. Katherine also has a very rich voice.
Hayley sounds different at different times, partly, no doubt since on these videos we are seeing her from the age of about 12 to 21. Check Hayley's concert at Belfast 2008 - search YT for "hayley westenra belfast" and look for the 2008 concert (ignore the first two videos one of which is mislabelled). Her voice is quite different there.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I don't really hate opera. I do, on the other hand, hate Ainsley Harriet.
neilb13 3 years ago
Why not? It's obviously garbage. A good substitute for Monty Python if you want a laugh at something ridiculous, but not to be taken seriously. I suppose I don't hate opera so much as the stuck-up, stupid little snobs that are opera fans. They all think they are better than and more intelligent than anyone else, even when they are patently clots or scarcely more than top end of normal. No, I don't hate it, I just think it is absurd, and hate the maliciousness and nastiness of it's cracked fans.
Sqid101 3 years ago
i agree with you that monty python is ridiculous yet funny, but you are being a bit harsh on people that like opera. not everyone who likes opera thinks highly of themselves, some people just think it sounds good, albeit a bit different,but there is no need to criticise people who like it just because they have different taste to you.
holliecuk 3 years ago
Maybe not everyone who likes opera is a prick, but a look around YouTube or the Opera fora shows a remarkable number of astonishingly obnoxious and arrogant people. And most of the purist critics don't seem much better.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Dear:
neither Miss Jenkins or Miss Westenra are opera singers... they are pop singers that have the talent for opera, but they have a long way to go yet; they need more training, or stay in pop, where obviously, they are very good.
alejandra379 3 years ago 2
Dear,
A Te Kanablah fan repeatedly refered to our home-town heroine as Westenblah and said she is a "fake" opera singer. I don't think you can be a fake something unless you claim to be that thing, and the press and the public being mistaken is not your fault. I pointed this out, whereupon the person told me - I quote verbatim - to go "play with yourself", and called me a "silly fucking cunt". So I responded in kind and went through my tags labelling Miss Westenra as a "Great Opera singer".
Sqid101 3 years ago
Not "pop singers" but Operatic. Which is different to "Opera Singers". What is your definition of "pop"?
mpc999STEP 3 years ago
last time I checked, operatic singer and opera singer could be synonimous -did I write well?- If you want an example, Andrea Bocelli would be it.
Pop? In their style? I think of Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, the early Withney Houston...
alejandra379 3 years ago
To be precise "operatic" is usually the adjective of "opera". Many at the Don Black Memorial felt that Jonathan Ansell's and Hayley Westenra's duet was "operatic" or more "operatic" than other songs performed. That is a valid use of the word even if it is incorrect. (Yes it can be both valid and incorrect!) But it wouldn't have been either valid or correct to say they were performing an opera. "Operatic" = in the style of opera.
Sqid101 3 years ago
It seems that the issue is confused by many young people defining "pop" as a specific genre of "popular music" rather than just as an abbreviation for "popular". I don't want to argue about whether this is right or wrong, but it's what they do, and so many of them don't see the likes of Misses Jenkins and Westenra as pop, even though they operate in the popular realm. Others argue that the distinction between pop and classical vocalism is crumbling. There is some evidence for this.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Well, this Ainsley character certainly has a stupid name. But is he anymore of a pain in the arse than your average opera fan? Take -- speaking figuratively -- that stupid fat bitch who runs that Jenkins hate site -- is even Anisley as obnoxious as her? I doubt it.
Sqid101 3 years ago
'Opera - A load of old crap!'
me.
neilb13 3 years ago
Thank you, Neib13.
I have added your comment to my list of distinguished and highly intelligent people who have expressed a dislike of opera.
Sqid101 3 years ago
"As for operas, they are essentially too absurd and extravagant to mention. I look upon them as a magic scene contrived to please the eyes and the ears at the expense of the understanding."
- Lord Chesterfield
Sqid101 3 years ago
Opera - "a bizarre thing consisting of poetry in music, in which the poet and the composer, equally standing in each other's way, go to endless trouble to produce a wretched result."
- Charles de Saint-Évremond
Sqid101 3 years ago
Opera - "an exotic and irrational entertainment".
- Dr Johnson
Sqid101 3 years ago
both their voices r very different but beautiful, lol but it did sound random how their cooking then all of a sudden singing ave maria hehe
LoraineElizaSouza 3 years ago
This is kinda freaky; they're cooking like ordinary 'housewives' and suddenly they're asked to sing, and they decide on Ave Maria?
But anyhow, I love Katherine Jenkins; clearly her voice is richer than Hayley's.
bluetypewriter 3 years ago
Kathy Jenkins has a beautiful voice that is grossly underrated by the purist nutters. I don't think it's biased to say that this clip doesn't show Hayley at anywhere near her best, though. (And she has altered considerably as she has gotten older.)
Sqid101 3 years ago
Katherine Jenkins is nothing but a classic fm con artist who has only been successful through millions of pounds worth of PR, marketing and plastic surgery rather than the existence of any musical talent. She is a useless lump of lard.
sfp22 3 years ago
I am sorry, she is not a useless lump of lard, she can actually sing brilliantly and she has made her own way to the top. And what's this about plastic surgery?
katherinejenkins273 3 years ago
The bit about plastic surgery is one of the repeated claims on the part of the opera community that proves a significant proportion of them are mad as hatters - literally psychotic. It is claimed that she has had a "boob job", some of them say that she has had two. This is repeated over and over on the opera fora and by opera fans generally. A common story is that part of her contract was that she have a boob job and lose weight. Totally absurd, but then opera fans are totally absurd.
Sqid101 3 years ago
The opera psychotics are also seriously saying that Kathy Jenkins didn't really get a scholarship to RADA at all, but that she got a letter for an instrumentalist of the same name or meant for someone called "Jenkinson". Completely stark raving mad - psychotic. As if the mistake would not have been rectified, if it had occurred (which of course it didn't), and she graduated with honours too. But rationality and facts are of no significance to psychotics and the opera community is full of them.
Sqid101 3 years ago
she hasnt got much power to her voice i dont think and she seems to sing from the back of her throat.
bicgal 3 years ago
Excuse me, where are the OPERA SINGERS in this clip? They are just marketing neo-divettes, with poor untrained small voices!
condeceprano 3 years ago
Yes, they all have tiny squeaky little voices. And poor voices too, though this clip isn't a very good example. Trained opera singers learn to voluntarily role up the ventricular folds at the top of he vocal cords and produce extra frequancies that the human ear is particularly sensitive to. This range is in the same range as the human scream which is why opera singers can be heard so well - they are not more powerful than other singers. It's crazy for popular singers to do this.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I know this is going to incite huge spouts of self-righteous rambling from you, Sqid101, but I must say it. Please do not call them opera singers. Thank you. I've said it. Night night.
LaFeeVerte1209 3 years ago
LaFeeVerte1209, don't be rude. I am not self-righteous and I don't ramble. I am verbose, perhaps, but the difficulty I have with opera fans here is not so much that they disagree with me - perfectly acceptable - but that they don't even seem to understand my point of view.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Bugger, I hit the post button before I meant to.
It is precisely because of the rudeness, bullying, personal insults, lofty holier than thou attitute, and the "we are better and more intelligent than you" attitude of the purists that I have deliberately called them opera singers.
On another thread I have had a sensible discussion about this and I have put both sides of the argument. I was an impartial observer IMO, but am forced to take sides by some people's attitudes.
Sqid101 3 years ago
they have such different voices that go together so well, hayley has a light soprano and katherine has a very heavy mezzo. i dont see why people try to put katherine down when they dont even understand her voice or talent
tenor220 3 years ago
such very different voices, both beautiful.
samfreemanwatford 3 years ago 3
Excellent, excellent! Their styles, although quite different, blend beautifully.
Ah! Westenra! Let us hope she has not been bitten by that foul beast of the night, otherwise her pristine singing voice will be rewarded with nothing but garlic cloves and a wooden stake (bravo to those who get the reference).
TheShinyHeroOfCanton 3 years ago 3
I don't think the human skull's bite will have any effect on Hayley. She spends all the time she does in Japan so she can keep well stocked up with True Blood A gold star for anyone who gets or discovers the reference.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Great debate . It takes me back to the days of Mario Lanza in his pomp . I believe that he inspired Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo .
Rogere76 3 years ago
Some other Soprano Duets , etc
Very popular:
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Celtic Woman
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This soprano friend of hers (she is very popular in Japan) is supposed to be responsible for her and Dame Kiri being at loggerheads. He somehow got hold of the designs of Dame Kiri's outfits and she suspects Hayley of helping him filch them.
_AKuL4OkvuQ
a6b9xzS_rDo
And an Alto:
_4RskPhHSyo
Sqid101 3 years ago
NZ Listener:
"Then there was Dame Kiri. Marooned on the tacky set, she warbled Tonight in a manner possibly never foreseen by Sondheim and Bernstein: West Side scary. If Hayley Westenra was watching with a certain schadenfreude, who could blame her?"
Sqid101 3 years ago
Once reviews like this would never have appeared:
"Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who has said unkind things about our Hayley (Westenra not Holt) and has slung off at Kiwis' love of wearing jandals, made the decision to slum it on DWTS and proved she can't do crossover.
She looked like a human skull who delivered Sondheim lines of which she knew nothing about the heart and soul. (She'd rather be fishing.)
And it wasn't Carl Doig's band's fault, either, for they are better than ever."
Sqid101 3 years ago
Quote:
"Cross received 32 for her cha cha with 2006 winner Aaron Gilmore - but let's face it, she's had 32 years on the stage where to Kiri Te Kanawa's horror, she has used a microphone.
It was also crass bad timing by ole Kiri to make a cameo on the show in her raincoat so soon after allegedly denouncing our cute wee warbler, Hayley Westenra, as a fake and for using a microphone. That instrument Kiri sang into most wondrously last night wasn't a black ice cream by the way!"
Sqid101 3 years ago
Braindead mountebanks like Te Kanawa, Thomas Allen, etc, think they are special because they sing Pucinni or Mahler or whomever. They really think the greatness of the composers somehow rubs off on them and they too are great. In the opera world even the opera fans think they are somehow better than everyone else for listening to it...
But is Dame Kiri and the opera community who are the fakes; and it is Hayley and her ilk who have themselves in perspective.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Sqid101: One more comment. Listen to Hayley's and Katherine's "Amazing Grace", what does your ear tells you. I like Hayley's much better.
bkalei 3 years ago
Sqid101: Listen to your ears and forget the naysayers.
bkalei 3 years ago
bkalie, as I have mentioned before I have - just to confirm what is pretty obvious - asked other musicians about these singers. An intrumentalist acquaintance who himself prefers the operatic type voice and and has accompanied Weestenra and Te Kanawa, rates Westenra's singing of arias much higher than I expected. And while he doesn't like her voice that much, he certainly doesn't think it's 'tinny' beside these others.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Sqid101: Criticism from opera people like Kiri Te Kanawa reflects badly on them not on Hayley. These criticisms are boorish and smacks of elitism. Katherine's operatic voice (and Kiri Te Kanawa) does not sound good outside of her genre. For me Hayley is a lyrical soprano which I like much better because she's not a slave to any particular genre. She can do classical, theatrical, pop, folk, and even country songs well. This means her range is much broader than the typical opera singer.
bkalei 3 years ago
Te Kanawa has been remarkably stupid. She doesn't seem to realise that times have changed and she can't do whatever she likes with impunity anymore:
Quote------------------------------------
"From the lofty heights of the opera world -- where doors are opened for you and diva behaviour (rudeness, self-obsession, demanding self-entitlement) is not only tolerated and accepted but actually admired -- it must be easy to look down on everyone else. And one gets the impression Dame Kiri does.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Quote continuded----------------------------
"Jobbing journalists who have had the misfortune of an encounter with her -- and I am pleased I never have, tetchy Neil Young was enough -- return to tell of being kept waiting for 90 minutes or more without explanation or apology, of dismissive answers and a generally superior air. That feedback is too common for it to be just rumour and innuendo.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Sqid101: This comparison of Hayley and opera singers, like Katherine, is nonsense. Opera singers are perfect within their genre, but when they step outside of it their operatic voice and heavy diction do not sound well. They are slaves to operatic songs and can't do anything else. Hayley on the other hand does very well in many genres. She is not the classical operatic singer but this does not diminish her amazing perfectly pitched voice.
bkalei 3 years ago
I expect if we had Katherine sing for eurovision we'd have one hell of a chance of winning.
anthwhite91 3 years ago
The problem, Swanningaround is that the purist's view implies that the very worst opera singer singing Ave Maria is producing High Art, whereas the very best popera singer singing it is merely producing rubbish. But the public ain't gonna buy this, hence the purist's obsession with discrediting the poperas.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Carolyn,
Let's get a couple of things straight. I have no problem with people liking opera. What I have a problem with is those who take a "holier than thou attitude" and who rubbish everyone who doesn't share their taste in music. I also find tiresome those who think they are so very clever, and affect an intellectually superior attitude when they are of little more than at the top end of normal intelligence.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Carolyn
The opera fans and purists claim that opera is High Art, but, popera and everything else is rubbish. Elsewhere this notion went out with the Ark, and I am saying that I don't accept it; and asking you to justify it.The astonishing thing on YouTube is not that the opera nuts disagree with me, but that few seem to understand what I'm saying. It's not a new question. The usual answers are to invoke tradition or the superiority of the great composers.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Carolyn,
I'm not going to take your foolish insults on my own thread. I have not said or implied that I am the world's foremost authority on the subject, I am not pushing my opinions down your throats, and I don't understand your comments about my ranting about people's bios. I posted some extracts from an article that I thought relevant and interesting. That is not a five post rant, just the posting of what many find interesting. And do stop trying to be clever, it doesn't suit you.
Sqid101 3 years ago
but I agree that this is an unfair comment. Yes, it is a different approach to classical but different is not always wrong! And sometimes is is just jealousy because crossover artists have the potential to make more money than who simply do opera alone! What does annoy ME personally is when in newspapers etc, the singers are referred to as opera singers when they are not and do not sing in operas but that is by no means derogutory to them, just to the media. I have respect 4 ne 1 who loves music
lucy6892 3 years ago
I am not sure about Jenkins doing opera, but due to the snobbery etc it is often hard to crossover artists to cross back into the world of opera again but lets face it, she doesnt need to, she should sing what makes her happy and obviously people like her and she is successful at what she is doing. We cant deny however, the opinion of some people (not neccessarily mine!)I am just offering an alternative opinion, that people who study a classical craft and then crossover, are 'selling out'
lucy6892 3 years ago
I am not saying there is a hierarchy in music and well know that there can be a lot of snobbery etc in opera and classical music but the main thing is to be able to move people by music and yes, they both do that. Noone can deny both of the girls successes and that counts for a lot. I personally, like and respect many different kinds of music and the artists who communicate the means. When I said about the bios, I meant that I didnt know them well. No-one can underestimate the power of music!
lucy6892 3 years ago 2
and I dont think you have to defend the girls. We have to remember that once opera was pop music in their era! Katherine sings like a trained opera singer but sings different music, personally I think sometimes she IS a little too bellowy and I know what u mean but an opera singer of a high calibre singing at the ROH for example, wouldnt need to bellow and can have many different colours and textures in their voice. Both the girls are talented and I think you misunderstood me a little.
lucy6892 3 years ago
Hi again Sqid101 I still stand by my point that Hayley Westenra's voice is not what any classical singer would aspire to and i dont think its right to compare artistes like her and dame Kiri but obviously that does not make a trained classical singer any 'better' just different and at the end of the day its down to personal opinion. Hayley and Katherine both have the power to touch and move people with their voices and that has to be recognised but I do think there is no need to argue about it
lucy6892 3 years ago
Now you have explained yourself Lucy I don't disagree in essence with what you say. There may be a semantic problem here to in that what we mean by "classical" may be a bit different. I agree that Hayley's voice is not ideal for opera; although I thought there were some operatic roles where a light voice would be appropriate. I know it was suggested to her that she train for opera, but decided not to. She doesn't (usually) sing opera style using the diaphram, etc.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I'm not diving to the defence of anyone. The issue is whether we can legitmately argue that there is a hierachy in music with pop at the bottom, then jazz a bit higher, then classical, and then way, way, way, way, up almost out of sight there is opera. And is everything but opera and some classical "rubbish"? Is it impossible for "pop" music to be art?
There is a lot lot more I need to say to explain my position fully, but it would take about 15 posts (literally) -- Later perhaps.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Opera singers do a lot of work and deserve respect for that. But I'm sorry that doesn't make them superior artists or singers. It simply means that they have mastered certain techniques and perhaps have a level of knowledge of musical theory. I could swot up about the operas/composers well, but that wouldn't make me a good singer. I don't follow the bit in the middle of your first post about the bios and breaking into the business. I didn't think Jenkins wanted to do opera, I could be wrong.
Sqid101 3 years ago
She sings from the throat - not the diaphram.
Carolynnhall 3 years ago
Yes, Carolynhall, and opera itself has changed and evolved and the pop/popera style of singing used to once be common in opera. And it has never been "superior". A lot of the modern opera style came about as halls and orchestra's got bigger and the singers had to bellow and project. Ironically, the purists at the time hated it. The microphone allows a quieter more conversational type of singing. I much prefer it.
Sqid101 3 years ago
No No No Aprodite you surely don't know. Hayley - lovely sweet and a gorgeous singer is not an opera singer and never, never on a par with Dame Kiri. They are different - embrace that. We love the both of them but Hayley and Dame Kiri are poles apart!
Carolynnhall 3 years ago
Oh shut up with this stupid shit. Opera singers are not superior. they are just different. Give me one reason for them being superior. One single reason. Or take you insane rantings elsewhere.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Poles apart? So if a pop singer sings Ave Maria it can never be art on a par with an opera singer doing it? Why because the opera singer sings from the diaphram and projects and the popster doesn't? Give us a break.
The blasting of opera and the tortured forced delivery make it seem worse in most people's opinion.
You ar just parroting an opinion with no substance to it.
Sqid101 3 years ago
I shouldn't have been that rude, Carolyn, but that opera singers are somehow vastly superior is an idea that went out with Noah (and is being revived on YouTube and by Dame Kiri).
Sqid101 3 years ago
Yes Katherine has a golden voice
pearljadie 3 years ago
For me, both of them are great singers.
kyyhkg 4 years ago
Katherine you are beautiful, sweet and a lady- you have everything! Hayley you are sweet and have a good voice but not as good as Katherine - rich, pure and golden
Carolynnhall 4 years ago
For me Hatley has a much clearer and purer voice. I think personally she is on a level with Dame Kiri and that is certainly an accolade we could all aspire to.
Aphrodite2009 3 years ago
It is simply a matter of taste which you like. I know muscians and other classical fans who don't like Dame Kiri's voice much. That she is an opera singer in no way makes her superior. Many of those who say how great she is are simply saying it because it is the done thing. There is plenty of evidence for this.
Sqid101 3 years ago
For me Hatley has a much clearer and purer voice. I think personally she is on a level with Dame Kiri and that is certainly an accolade we could all aspire to.
Aphrodite2009 3 years ago
You have got to be kidding! She is nothing like Dame Kiri who is a real operatic singer with operatic technique much closer to that of Katherines. Hayley has an OK sacred voice but technically not what a classical singer would aspire to at all.
lucy6892 3 years ago
Oh, no another one. Since when has opera been proved superior to any other sort of singing? You people are the fakes claiming to be somehow better than everyone else. This idea of a hierachy in singing went out years ago. Opera is not superior to popera and popera not superior to rock or rap. They are all forms of expression.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Surely you cannot deny that the decades, I repeat, decades of vocal training that opera singers have to do do in fact make them better singers than, for instance, Jay Z? If you can deny this then I wonder at your logic.
LaFeeVerte1209 3 years ago
The opera fans and purists claim that opera is High Art, but, popera and everything else is rubbish. Elsewhere this notion went out with the Ark. I am saying that I don't accept it; and asking you to justify it.
I was studying logic when you were still sucking on your mommies teat LaFee. You haven't understood my argument and are using a fallacious argument by analogy.
According to the Independent's opera critic, Paul Potts training did him no good, btw.
Sqid101 3 years ago
LaFeeVerte. I have no idea who JayZ is.
Are you or are you not saying that only true classical singers can produce art? Are you saying that if a third rate opera singer sings Ave Maria that it is Art, but if Westenra or Potts, Church, or Jenkins sing it, it is just rubbish because they are just POP singers?
We may be getting nowhere because I think you are starting with the very assumption that I am questioning. But I don't think formal training automatically makes someone an artist.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Jay Z is a rap artist. I am not attacking anyone's 'artistry', I am merely saying that it is in fact possible to judge singing technique and performance without undermining the person in question as an artist (though how much of an artist Katherine Jenkins is is highly debatable).
LaFeeVerte1209 3 years ago
I just found this other post LF. I agree with it as written. We can judge singing technique, but before we judge anything, we must have a standard to judge it by and an authority to justify that standard. Of course someone taking part in an opera will be judged by the standards of opera. All I am saying is that I don't accept that singing generally should be judged by those standards. If you disagree that is your right.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Yes, I think you've made that clear in your previous posts, you don't need to say it all again.
LaFeeVerte1209 3 years ago
Well, it wasn't clear that it was clear.
Sqid101 3 years ago
But... KJ and HW haven't been in an opera... like... ever. So why call them opera singers? Unless we are actually, for the sake of consistency, going to start calling everyone who sings a bit of opera an opera singer, then I really don't see the point. Common sense must have a bit of say in the matter.
LaFeeVerte1209 3 years ago
Why call them opera singers? To piss off some people who have been unecessarily rude, perhaps (I don't mean you - I mean ones that were much worse).
And you're wrong, one of them has been in three operas, I believe. Ironically, it's HW who has been in three operas, but I don't really consider her an opera singer and nor does she. She never bills herself as one. I see for the Capitol Fourth thing in the US she has been downgraded from "classical superstar" to "international recording artist.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Don't worry about it. I did it as a joke to piss certain people off. I'll probably change it back, eventually. HW's opera appearances don't count either, I'm not serious about them, although technically she did appear in operas. But it was when she was a kid of about 9 and later as a chorister. But she decided against training for opera when she got a record deal when she was about 13.
Sqid101 3 years ago
Harumph. Okay.
LaFeeVerte1209 3 years ago
Mind you, there a are still many in the public and the press who will go on calling the likes of KJ an P Potts opera singers. There is a stupid article in a New Zealand paper about Bocelli (I don't think he's been in an opera either) where he's called an opera star and the writer distinguishes between him and HW calling her popera. HW is a warbler of easy listening ballads with a smidgeon of crossover IMO, but the press and public usually go their own way.
Sqid101 3 years ago
LaFeeVerte, perhaps you are thinking that I am going all post-modern and saying that anything goes and everything is equal. No. I'm saying that there is no great division between Pop and Classical singers that makes them different in kind. There is a continuum, if you like. My singing in the bath, Russell Watson, and Bryn Terfel are all on the same continuum. We differ not in kind but in degree. In my scheme Terfel could rate higher than Watson, but not just because he is "classical".
Sqid101 3 years ago
An interesting article:
"What no one discussed -- not that I read or heard anyway -- was just how much the Dame's comments were grounded in that notion of some hierarchy of the arts: you know, popular music is at the bottom, jazz (because it's more complex) a bit above that, classical music atop that and then somewhere in the rarefied air, almost too distant to see, is the wonderful world of opera."
Sqid101 3 years ago
Get with the 20th Century lucy.
"But more and more, music-lovers of many sorts are showing signs of resistance to the overly fruity, throbbing, blasting sound -that's how they hear it - of the stereotypical opera singer."
Sqid101 3 years ago
Do you disagree?
"But in the United States in the late 20th century, where more people probably love more different kinds of music than in any previous human culture, that highest standard need not - cannot - be verismo Italian opera of a century ago."
Sqid101 3 years ago
Argh!! Nooooo!!! I missed Hayley on Can't Cook, Won't Cook! When was this on TV? Does anyone have the full program of this?
sugarpuffsandwich 4 years ago
I have the full programme and was going to post it. It'll have to be in three separate bits though.
Sqid101 4 years ago
Sqid101 - 3 parts is fine. i'd love to see it all. if you could do that, that would be great! thanks.
sugarpuffsandwich 4 years ago
oh yes please!
jarnet1021 4 years ago
Well actually, the whole thing runs about 43 minutes... and YouTube allows videos only ten minutes long :(
I'll chop it into five bits rather than try to edit. The first episode is uploading now. With luck I'll upload the other bits over the next few days.
Sqid101 4 years ago
Actually, I lost some data in a hard disk crash, but GoKathyJ has a copy of this and I think it is somewhere on the Net still. Eventually we should get the rest up.
Sqid101 3 years ago
WOW it was un prepared on the spur of the moment and i loved it if it was prepared it would've been amazing
LingLingRox 4 years ago
omg the best!
ClaytonB5432 4 years ago
very beautiful :)
mysticalelf233 4 years ago
Strange that a cookery show produces such a stodgy debate. Katherine stated clearly that she would not join the conventional classical circuit until her voice was ready. Wise head, beautiful voice. I don't "get" Westenra. She seems to squeeze a head-voice over the sides of her tongue. Ruler on knuckles! Operatic singing, as opposed to opera, is new, starting from Pavarotti's World Cup. It raises the profile of some enjoyable singers. Let's rejoice in the +'s and be less snobby with the -'s.
1jammot 4 years ago
i like hayleys toning its unique and its what drew me to her, but different strokes for differnet folks
LingLingRox 4 years ago
I have just started my career as a singer, but do not class myself as an opera singer - at the moment, I am a singer, nothing more.
There is an expectation when someone calls themselves an 'opera singer' and I think far too many people call themselves that! I agree, there are many substandard 'opera singers' and they too should not call themselves by this name.
All i refer to is a marketing side of people using terms by which they do not truly understand the aesthetic.
Michaelgraynz 4 years ago
Graeme, there is no parallel in the literary world to "classical music". There is serious literature and "entertainments" or popular literature. Classics are books that are models of their kind and have stood the test of time, but literary merit is not assumed. A list of classics would include books like Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Christo, which are both entertainments.
Sqid101 4 years ago
Hey, back up the truck. Are we talking about my calling them "classical" or someone else calling them opera singers? Westenra has never claimed to be an opera singer and is irritated when people do call her such (go to the BBC new site put her name in the search engine there an look for interviews with her).
There is an unbelievably stupid bio of her on AOL and other places that says she was both a member of the NZ Opera and NZ Royal Ballet. She and official bios have never said such a thing.
Sqid101 4 years ago
Sqid101. I wasn't referring to the 'greatness' of shakespeare or other writers, I was saying how they accept that they work in a different genre. Classicism is blindingly different to pop (and the beetles are amazing performers - but they accepted who they are and what their genre is). This is the point I am trying to make. I have no grief with people wanting to take music to the general public, however I do when they claim to be something that they are clearly not. ctd..
Michaelgraynz 4 years ago
Graeme, I don't understand your talk of Shakespeare and other writers accepting "they work in a different genre". In his day Shakespeare was the most popular playwright of his time and - this is hilarious in this context - was attacked by the literary elite of his day as not being educated enough. He was referred to as an "upstart crow", who didn't deserve a place amongst the literati. They didn't have "genres" then.
Sqid101 4 years ago
Oh, I am not disagreeing with this. However, I would like Paul more if he did something new and original (even Hayley Westenra is more original than him) and if he didn't use that begging for attention ploy he enacts. And when he gets it through his head that he is NOT singing opera, as well. He is a very talented vocalist, and I look forward to him in the future when he settles himself within the crossover world.
I am still interested in Will Martin, BTW. Not too much info on him though...
Windgrace 4 years ago
What I meant by these singers screwing themselves over is the fact that although they can sing these arias they do not do it correctly and in the end they are going to damage their voices.
And yes, there IS a correct way to sing classically. However, that way of singing isn't correct for let's just say rap, or country for that matter. Now, for the most part a crossover artist doesn't need the most amazing technique to keep their voice, but the more the better.
Windgrace 4 years ago
They are labelled popular writers for a reason - and these girls are popular singers (to use the term attributing to popular culture).
I just believe that people should not be afraid to say that they are popera singers or popular singers rather than pretending to have studied an aestetic which never attains perfection and beauty from the masters like most other great artists strive to do. This is not snobbish, it is realism.
Michaelgraynz 4 years ago