appreciating opera, part II
The highest to the lowest, glass-breakers to earth-rumblers: female voice types explained.
by patricia hammond | april 1999
(Click here to read March 1999's article about the male opera voice types.)
"Soprano" is one of the most subjective terms I can imagine. What other word can encompass Birgit Nilsson, Kathleen Battle and Maria Callas, other than perhaps "woman"? Imagine someone who loves one of these singers trying either of the other two?
Subdivision of sopranos, and other female voices, into distinct types is definitely needed. It is no replacement for describing the individuals themselves, of course, but something to go on, anyway.
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To start with the lightest, sweetest, and airiest: the light ("leggiero" in Italian) coloratura soprano. These ladies were idolized once upon a time, and audiences went simply to watch them show off how high they could go.
Even Hollywood took notice. Lily Pons ("That Girl from Paris") and Miliza Korjus ("The Great Waltz") were stars on stage and screen, although their careers focussed on the former. A feature of these light voices is a capacity for flexibility, which can be developed to a virtuoso level of intricate and elaborate ornamentation ("coloratura"). Fast scales, arpeggios, rapidly repeated high notes, trills and other bird-like vocal tricks were written into arias and songs by various sympathetic composers, or added later by the singers. |
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Rossini, whose vocal music is already difficult enough without interpolations, told the great diva Adelina Patti in 1862 that he couldn't recognize his own compositions, she had changed them so much to show off her own abilities.
In the Baroque, arias were usually written with the assumption that the singer would make them more difficult when the first part of the aria was repeated. However, it is no longer acceptable to render a composition unrecognizable, but to ornament the piece in the style of the composer where it is appropriate in its historical context. |
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| Every vocal category is capable of coloratura; there are even basses who can sing intricate fast passages (Pol Plançon in the early 1900s, David Thomas today) though they are very rare. Generally, the higher and smaller the voice, the more flexible. It is probably due to the increasingly large halls singers must perform in (compare the old Metropolitan Opera House with the new one) that there aren't nearly as many Miliza Korjuses around anymore. The most impressive light coloratura sopranos seem to be Early Music specialists, who almost never perform in the huge opera venues. Sample some of the recordings of Emma Kirkby, Catherine Bott and Julianne Baird to see what I mean. As for the traditional, old-fashioned operatic light coloratura soprano, in addition to Pons and Korjus, try Luisa Tetrazzini and Nellie Melba from the first two decades of this century, Maria Ivogun from a little later, Toti dal Monte from the 20s and 30s, Rita Streich from the 50s, Edita Gruberova from the 70s and 80s, and Sumi Jo today. |
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| A soprano who has the lovely, sweet high notes but doesn't go so often for vocal fireworks, opting instead for flowing lines and smoothness of tone is called a light lyric soprano. Even their lowest notes (which often aren't very low) are sweet. Names for this category are Lucrezia Bori, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Irmgard Seefried, Sena Jurinac, Elly Ameling, Kathleen Battle, Sylvia McNair and Christine Schäfer. |
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| The lyric soprano has more volume, darker low notes and a greater variety of vocal colours. They are excellent for playing ill-fated heroines such as La Traviata and Mimi in La Bohème, because they sound sweet, but have the ability to convey tragedy. Examples of lyric sopranos are Geraldine Farrar, Alma Gluck, Ninon Vallin, Victoria de los Angeles and Gundula Janowitz. |
| Then we reach the lyric spinto category, where sopranos who would otherwise be lyrics add weight to their voices to make a larger sound, greater intensity, and stronger low notes. It is still a clear sound, or should be if she's any good, but one that can swell out into real drama and vigor. To name spintos is to really stick one's neck out. I remind people that this is my list: Claudia Muzio (my favorite), Renata Tebaldi, Anita Cerquetti, Leontyne Price, Magda Olivero, and most recently, Julia Varady. |
| Dramatic sopranos have even bigger voices, a darker, richer quality, low notes of impressive weight and high notes that soar. They are usually capable of singing Wagner. Some exceptional women in this category are Rosa Ponselle, Leonie Rysanek, Maria Callas and, if you can listen to a recording from 1902, Emmy Destinn (she's great). There are "hybrid dramatics" such as Joan Sutherland, a slightly lighter dramatic with coloratura, and Monserrat Caballé, a sort of lyric-dramatic. |
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Sopranos who specialize in Wagner tend to sing little else these days, for the simple reason that the ladies equipped for these physically demanding vocal marathons are so rare; Wagnerian Soprano Jane Eaglen is booked years in advance. These sopranos tend to have a steeliness to their voices that cuts through the thickest of orchestral textures. The lower notes have warmth and depth, but often seem small next to the immense power and "ring" of the top of the voice. One critic said of Birgit Nilsson:
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Toti dal Monte, a light coloratura active in the 1930s and 40s, recorded this "Mad Scene" on two sides of a 78 rpm record, and her girlish, almost vibratoless sweetness is coupled with just enough edge to make it an eerie experience. Kind of like a doll carrying a gory hatchet. Dramatic soprano Maria Callas had enough skill in coloratura to steer through the intricacies with aplomb, but the darker coloring in her voice enabled her to present a psychological and emotional portrayal of great depth. Joan Sutherland, a kind of Dramatic-Coloratura also, did the same, although the voice isn't quite as dark, she isn't as insightful intellectually, and the emphasis is more on beauty of tone.
It's easy to own more than one, or even several, different recordings of the same opera, if it's a favorite.
Despite a lack of floating high notes, mezzos (short for Mezzo-soprano: "half-soprano") have always had a following. A great number of people have never enjoyed that edge-of-the-seat feeling that sopranos offer sometimes. Frequently mezzos have a lot of personality and impress by their vivid communicative gifts.
There's a stereotype of mezzos being more personable and approachable than sopranos, and there are certainly examples of this. When Kathleen Battle and Frederika von Stade get on stage together, there's no doubt which one you'd rather have as a roommate. Maybe this is because the lower female voices get stuck with so many "sidekick" roles in opera: sisters, aunts, servants, mothers, even little boys.
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Light Mezzos tend to have a sweet, mellow sound and sing a lot of Mozart, Rossini and French repertoire. They often sing Bach and Handel, especially now that smaller ensembles are being used for these composers and are less difficult to sing over. Frederika von Stade, Lorraine Hunt, and Teresa Berganza are three very fine light mezzos.
Mezzos are richer in tone, and have a heavier approach to high notes. They are more suited to playing the later operatic roles, and along with light mezzos, parts originally written for castrati, sometimes called "trouser roles". One can see mezzos playing the part of a boy, an emperor, a warrior or a god. But directors, in their search for dramatic realism, are giving these parts to countertenors more often these days. In the Classical and Romantic eras, after the countertenor was long gone, composers occasionally wrote "travesti" roles: parts where women are deliberately chosen to play a male character. Niklausse in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffman" and Prince Orlofsky in R. Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" are a couple. These can also be called "pant roles". Two great prototypical mezzos are Janet Baker and Anne-Sophie von Otter. Risë Stevens was the reigning Metropolitan Opera mezzo in the 1950s, and even made a movie for MGM with Nelson Eddy. Mezzos with particularly large voices are able to do Wagner in addition to all the other stuff, and Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender and Marjara Lipousek are all not only able to sing Wagner, but intimate German art song as well. While on the subject of mezzos, I must mention my personal favorite, Sara Dolukhanova, a voice so rich and powerful and flexible she could sing just about anything. Too bad about that iron curtain being in the way all those years. It's a shame she's not better known. |
| Lately, the Coloratura Mezzo has been mushrooming in popularity, and a lot of the Rossini heroines who have been hogged by coloratura sopranos for so long have been going back to their original keys. This means no spectacular, silvery high notes, but when Cecilia Bartoli, a bubbly mezzo with a smallish voice and great agility, toured the world not so long ago, nobody seemed to miss the high Cs and she has become a Classical superstar. Close on her heels are Coloratura Mezzos Jennifer Larmore and Vessalina Kasarova. Long before Bartoli, Conchita Supervia was doing much the same thing in the 1930s, wowing audiences with her bucketloads of charm and unforgettable, vivid personality. Berganza, listed as a light mezzo, also specialized in coloratura, and Lucia Valentini-Terrani in the 1970s and 80s had a powerful voice and great musical intelligence that should have made her more famous than she is. Speaking of famous, there was (and is) Marilyn Horne, big ever since the late 1960s, her strong, distinctive voice employed effectively in the masculine roles. She is sometimes referred to as "the general", and is what I call a great Handelian Bloodthirsty Mezzo. Both she and Valentini-Terrani could produce stentorian high notes. |
Moving on down to the last category, and the rarest, the Contralto, or Alto for short, is even lower than a mezzo. "Alto" means high, and "contra", against. To eliminate confusion, I'll explain that Alto was a term applied to the all-male church choirs of long ago, and a man singing high was called an Alto. Now that we call them countertenors, women of similar range are sometimes called Altos, but Contralto makes more sense. Did that eliminate confusion?
These are the women capable of the richest sounds, the lowest notes-although in my mind, voice classification is concerned with sound quality as much as range-and cast as evil seductresses, witches, bringers of doom, and the accursed. Delilah (Samson et Delilah), Ulrica (Ballo in Maschera), Azucena (Trovatore), Amneris (Aida), Maddalena (Rigoletto): just a glance at these operas' plot summaries tells you what these women are all about. Then there's Carmen. Everybody seems to want to sing that role, and someone from every category I've gone through (except the first two) has. Contraltos used to be far more common in bygone days, and most of the roles above are now sung by Mezzos.
There were two outstanding contraltos in the 1940s and early 50s who not only possessed fantastic voices (alas, neither sang a lot of opera) but were respected for other reasons as well. Marian Anderson was the first African-American singer to sign a Metropolitan Opera contract (in 1955!) and some years earlier, on Easter Sunday, 1939, sang in front of the Lincoln Memorial when the Daughters of the Revolution refused to allow her to perform in Constitution Hall. Apparently their refusal was due to Ms. Anderson's colour. That Lincoln Memorial concert was broadcast, and a crowd of 75,000 packed the grounds. She was an extraordinarily heartfelt singer, and those low notes are jaw-dropping.
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Also a sincere communicator, the down-to-earth Lancashire lass Kathleen Ferrier had a velvet voice you could wallow in, and was mourned by countless fans and colleagues when she died of breast cancer in 1954 at the peak of her powers. Other Contraltos include Clara Butt, Dame of the British Empire, whose booming voice the British would brag was audible on the other side of the Channel if the day was clear; Louise Homer, mainstay of the Met in the early 1900s; and Sigrid Onegin, with a voice of pure cream, active in the 1920s and 30s.
The true Contralto has almost disappeared, but recently there have appeared two women whose voices have made Contralto aficionados hope again. Frenchwoman Nathalie Stutzmann's interpretations of Bach, Handel and various lieder sound like a low Countertenor, but with an unmistakable feminine warmth. And the Polish contralto Ewa Podes (pronounced "Ava Podlesh") is travelling all over the world with her husky low notes and impressive coloratura ability. One critic compared those lowest notes (on a recording of Handel's opera "Ariodante", also featuring Anne-Sophie Von Otter) to the growling of a maladjusted bulldog. She seems to have fun with what she sings. |
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So there it is, from top to bottom, as I see it. If you're confused, don't worry. My hope is that this information will enable you to explore a bit, and enjoy. There's no test. Yet.
CD Recommendations:
Note: Three of the singers above recorded some gorgeous Schubert. Christine Schäfer on the Orfeo label, Gundula Janowitz on DG and Janet Baker on EMI. The last two mentioned are in budget "2 for the price of 1" packages and have no translations. However, these can be found on The Lied and Song Texts page.
Another note: when it comes to selecting historic recordings, there are many different labels specializing in transfers (of the old 78 RPM records to CD) and they each have different results. Nimbus Prima Voce is good because they are affordable and choose good examples of each singer. They have a method for muffling out the surface noise on the old records that also slightly muffles the voice, however. But it's subtle and many listeners prefer their technique to any other. Pearl tends to leave everything alone, and the scratches are there, but the voices can stand out. Preiser is always excellent; they seem to get great originals, and, like Nimbus, choose great examples from a singer's recorded output. Romophone and Marston are regarded as the best in the field, but they're almost always in 2 CD sets and are more of an investment. I would suggest you listen before you buy. Don't be afraid to special order any of these. Any decent store should be able to get them in. (Unless they're deleted by the time you read this! These days you never know…)
 | Patricia is a classically trained mezzo who now lives and works in the UK. For more information about her, visit patriciahammond.com. |
