mmbriggs's channel

the met audience seems to disagree with you!

there is one uncharacteristic moment here, where sills does step out of character and seems almost mortal! she did this role art wolf trap because she wanted to have a full video and audio record of it through the pbs live broadcast, and she seems determined to nail the last high note, which she...

@petelovesbevsills

i've never doubted that donizetti did hear this--every time she sang it!

@primohomme

there is no evidence that rossini, bellini or donizetti, made a distinction between great voices that could do the whole arsenal of bel canto music, and how they interpreted the music--thus phrasing and how their singers acted on stage. all you have to do look at the scoring to und...

@mmbriggs

the last sentence should have stated that pitch was at least a tone lower in the 19th century, the point being that todays elfat is really a bel canto era dflat so that 20th century singers do is sing the roles up from the pitch indicated. how do we know this, among other things bel...

the only screaming i hear, is that of the shrill claque that seems to determined to put down one of the greatest voices in opera history! scream--sills never screamed, and having heard this performed again and again in her nyc opera production, i can only pity you folks for not hearing her bolen...

@MrLupo23

its not that easy! lucia is not usually sung in the original key anyway, as that would place it too high for the added eflat. also modern pitch is higher than 2 centuries ago, so our eflat is not the lower eflat of donizetti's day. so one would be correct in saying that sutherland has...

macneil does not have a wobble here

a tremolo is not a wobble and a tremolo is not singing defect

vibrato is an important part of the modern technique that evolved in the mid 19th century, when pure head voice was abandoned to a fully supported tone, and it is vibrato which enriches the modern s...

but should not say spargi damore pianto, which is the cabaletta

tebaldi has had too many facelifts here and it has done something to her humanity!

or perhaps she was always a witch! i can't recall another great diva being so nasty--or nasty at all--in for a master class, epsecialy knowing--as here--there is a cameral rolling!

see horne, nillsson, callas, s...

its interesting to hear this performance, because in the private video of this aria, sills takes a very quick breadth near the end of her incredibly long and wonderfully ornamented, roulade that stops the flow in the middle of a descending scale. here she takes the same roulade on a single brea...

not in best voice here. it sounds like its just an off day, or an off moment in her still sturdy vocal arsenal of the 1980's. at her best, caballe always fully supports her piano singing and has an efforlesss passaggio. here however, her forte and mezzo forte singing sounds strident and woo...

i was at this bolena at avery fisher hall, and it was not 1989 it was c1985. the cabaletta is taken down a half tone, to provide a singable unwritten high climax ending here, whereas sills on record attempts an awkward added high f sticking to the original key. callas ended down, without ...

wonderful, but about the time the great one no longer had the supesonic eflats that were unlike anything we have heard before or since. but sutherland remained the great one until she stopped singing, because so much of stupenda was left until the end.

there is a one nut flub on the last bit of staccait with the short roulade, no matter, but im sure bonynge scolded her for that one!

levine knows every note of the aria? and what do other conductors do, conduct from a cold reading of the score? the question is, what kind of interpreter and mucisian levine is? do we put him in the same league as toscanini, bernstein, von karajan--no we don't and the reason is, he doesn't...

incredible! thats all one can say--at 74 not even pons is supposed to be able to sing and end with the tope note, as easy as pie!

peters is to be greatly admired here, for having worked out her own vocal demons that began to appear in the mid 1960's. there were vowel issues, and trouble with her famous high notes, especially her eflats. but, as seen here, she became a greater artist in her later career, and retooled tec...

some things are lovely, but like netrebko and dessay she has a squeezed top that takes a lot of manipulation and very artful attacks to decompress. all three singers have an upper extension that is seems to be lodged in the back of the throat and never finds a forward projection into the upper...

@junktank and you are so right! anyone who doesn't get corelli doesn't know anything about great singing!

bravo franco!

the stupid part about all this booing is that why in the world would fleming add hight notes, that she doesn't have in her voice and aren't required for this role! sure sutherland and then sills added a climactic high note at the end, but they also didn't add the high notes that fleming adds and...

aggeed this is an alternate to the pirate concert track that was availabile at the operaphile record store in nyc on 8th street c1968 when it seemed that these pirates were being allowed to help promote sills and such colleagues ass caballe, horne, etc, in promoting the careers, while record comp...

all the critics of sutherland--its like telling someone why you don't like a steinway, or mozart or the sistine ceiling? whatever planet you are living on---do they have opera houses and have you heard sutherland live--ever--or in her prime--let alone the miracle of her voice in later years. n...

the greatest mezzo we have ever heard! she doth teach the cello's to sound bright!

greatness x 2 = sutherland and horne!