Poll - Please give feedback, is my teacher right?

La donna e mobile and Il mio tesoro...
She is telling me that I sing the best when there is a great deal of coloratura in a piece, that I'm very good at coloratura. What do you think? Please leave a comment, after listening to all of this short video. It's different than what I have enjoyed singing in the past, and I want to know if I should change directions and sing these sorts of arias instead.

For those of you very familiar with my voice now, do I sound quite different here? How? Thanks in advance for the feedback and advice!

For information: I never sang La Donna before in my life, only heard it. I worked a little on Il mio tesoro about 2 years ago, but that is it. With practice could these be great arias for my voice?

Category:

Music

Tags:

• coloratura
• fioratura
• tenor
• opera
• aaron
• spinto
• dramatic
• helden
• lyric
• mozart
• verdi
• rigoletto
• don
• giovanni
• il
• mio
• tesoro
• la
• donna
• mobile

[XP11XP]

It's good for you to practise on this arias. A very (!) famous tenor once said something like "If you're going to sing heavy Wagner and Puccini, you've got to know how to sing Mozart".

This is only for the good, and I think the colaraturas is reasonably good. :)

Best regards

[aaronsande]

@XP11XP Thanks! With practice (which I didn't have before this lesson) they will improve further.

[jhvorotin]

You do have very good coloraturas, she's right. Congratulations for your progress. I'd say the Verdi aria is too hard for now because of its high tessitura and the Mozart's aria as well because of the length of breath. To sing an except in one thing, to sing the whole piece with consistent focus and energy is another.

[aaronsande]

@jhvorotin I should also add that in both of these cases I did sing the entire aria in this lesson, as I imagine is typical in voice lessons. The reason I posted excerpts is because we stop and start (which actually can be harder than just singing all the way through), and I didn't want to include too many of those halting moments.

[EdmundStAustell]

Not bad at all. Moving right along. Do please remember to sustain the support into and through the final note of a phrase. You tend to cheat the last notes, and there is a kind of sharp break-off, as though someone had shut off a recording suddenly. But yes, the coloratura is impressive. I especially like the cadenza in the Rigoletto. Just open your mouth, push like hell and go for broke on the B. The note is there!

[aaronsande]

@EdmundStAustell Thanks so much! You are absolutely right, I "relax" or get lazy at the end of phrases, especially when I'm running out of breath. I will continue to work on this...

[aaronsande]

@jhvorotin Thanks!

Verdi: more range than tessitura, but I think I can make it. I don't sing anything very well until I have practiced it...I'm a terrible sight reader and I have low confidence and a fear of the high notes, working on it. I think I do not have the breath for the Mozart but that can be developed, again with practice. I'm going to pick one of them for an audition, but that is 5 months away.

[aaronsande]

@AfroPoli Thank you! Good advice. Yes, I am shoving my upper passaggio notes into the back of my mouth, to avoid nasality (incorrectly) and for other reasons...I struggle with placement at my current level of development, but I'm working on it!

My question, actually, is whether it seems that arias with so much coloratura seem to fit my voice, or not. I realize that all decent singers should have some coloratura capability...

[aaronsande]

@Bivolari Thanks! I have been focusing on support for many months now, and it seems to be the key to singing with good technique, at least for me. I DO get my voice in the throat, you are quite correct. For a year now I've been going back and forth between nasal and too far back...it's a struggle to get the right placement that sometimes I win, sometimes not!

[AfroPoli]

...and yes, everybody who calls themselves "singer" should be able to sing coloraturas. Your teacher is absolutely right.