Last night I had the opportunity to hear opera soprano Ana Maria Martinez sing. She’s billed as a soprano, but sounded so mezzo that I’m hardly sure where is the dividing line anymore. Martinez has that characteristic dark, rich color that today makes mezzos the toast of the opera world.
I can understand calling Beverly Sills, Anna Netrebko, and Kiri Te Kanawa sopranos and certainly Cecilia Bartoli, Denyce Graves, and Frederica von Stade are mezzos, but where is the dividing line?
Mezzos are traditionally defined by their greater lower range, but does the definition ever take into consideration the dark coloring of a particular singer’s voice?
Think of speciation, or the evolution of languages: at what point did Modern English “speciate” from Middle English?
It’s a spectrum; any division will ultimately be arbitrary to some extent. It’s easier to tell a coloratura from a mezzo than a lyric from a mezzo, though. Except when it’s not. Plus who decides? The singer? Her teachers? The critics?
I’m not a professional opera singer, so a bit of WAG, but as a plain old mezzo, the basic difference is different ranges.
My next door neighbour, who sang in the same choirs as me and possesses this brilliant soprano voice, can hit up to a high C–and maybe a very tiny bit above–fairly easily. I can, sort of, on a good day, make it up there, but I’m much more comfortable between middle C and the C above–the middle range, just like the name ‘mezzo’ implies.