OK, here’s a thread virtually guaranteed to go down like a lead balloon, but . . .
I’m talking about your favorite all-time opera singers, not just people singing today, whether you’ve heard them in recording or in live performance.
My picks:
Tenor - Luciano Pavarotti. Not now, he should have stopped singing years ago, but in his prime he was wonderful. Kind of a vanilla choice, I know, but I can’t help it, I think he was great. Close behind: Jussi Bjoerling, Mario del Monaco, Fritz Wunderlich, Jose Cura.
Soprano - Leontyne Price. No one, but no one, could do Butterfly better. Close behind: Maria Callas, Kathleen Battle, Renata Tebaldi.
Baritone - Not sure I have favorite here, I’d have to think more.
Mezzo-soprano - Montserrat Caballe, for her Liu and her Azucena.
Bass - Sam Ramey. Gorgeous, silky voice, and always brought enthusiasm to his role. Close behind: Nicholai Ghiaurov, Simon Estes.
Alto/contralto - I don’t think I can name any, much less a favorite. The famous composers never wrote good roles for them!
Soprano…Victoria de los Angeles (perfection)…Kathleen Battle (saw her in La Fille du Regiment and she was wonderful except that in the snare drum scene they had her play her own drum which was just foolish).
Baritone…Mario Sereni…Robert Merrill (listen to his Figaro sometime).
Sopranos: A dime-a-dozen (see my rant below), but put me down for Leontyne Price, Joan “consonants are optional” Sutherland, Barbara Cook, and Florence Foster Jenkins*
Mezzo-soprano - ditto on Monserrat Caballe
Alto: Marian Anderson did a pretty good Ulrica in “Un ballo in maschera”, but yer right, not too many abound.
Tenor: Placido Domingo (such a warm voice)
[Honorable mention to José Carreras]
Baritone: Håkan Hagegård (mmmmmmmmmm) [at least I think he’s a baritone?], but Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau in Aribert Reimann’s “Lear” [King Lear] is awesome.
Bass: Yeah, I’ll go with Estes on that one, but I can’t think of the one I really liked from an old recording of Britten’s “Billy Budd”
TELL ME ABOUT IT!!! Not only are we under-represented in the operatic casting (the role is usually more mezzo-ish), but if we are in there, we never end up with the lead tenor and are usually the nasty evil character bent on tormenting the ‘sweet’ soprano and end up getting our come-uppance in Act III/V (depending on normal opera or Wagner).
*okay, she’s in for a cheap laugh, but you have to admire her gutsiness.
I’m very much a newbie to the world of opera so I only have one that I’ve enjoyed so far: Renee Fleming. Really have enjoyed her CD “The Beautiful Voice”.
Need to focus on getting some actual opera CDs, with complete scores, etc.
My favorite thing is choral music though, so opera is lagging behind.
Wow, Danimal, I’m just going to have to agree with virtually all of your pics.
Tenor - Pavarotti in his prime. Bottom line.
Soprano - In addition to divine Leontyne, I would add Ruth Ann Swenson, whom I saw in Rigoletto and the Tales of Hoffman. She is absolutely magnificent. I also love Kathleen Battle, Kiri te Kanawa, and Jessye Norman.
Baritone - I think Paata Burchuladze is a baritone. If not, then he is surely a bass, and I would add him to my list down there.
Yikes :eek: - How could I forget Frederica von Stade! (was a wonderful Cherubino in “Le Nozze di Figaro”). If I wasn’t stuck as an alto, I’d wanna be her!
BTW - I met Kiri te Kanawa. Phenominal voice, very impressive personality.
Screech-owl, I think I have to go with the guy you mentioned, Fischer-Dieskau, for my baritone. Never heard his Lear, but I saw him in a production of Die Fledermaus where I really liked him. I never have heard Håkan Hagegård sing.
I must say I’m not really fond of Placido; something in his voice just sounds too harsh for my taste. Of course, you can tell something about my taste from my naming Wunderlich, who is the operatic equivalent of drinking maple syrup straight from the jug!!!
I sure hope your voice coach doesn’t call you “Screech-owl.”
P.S.: Wow, Maeglin and I agreed on something! Cool!
(blush) Does Charlotte Church count? (/blush) (probably not technically an opera singer) Her voice gives me chills. Swear to God, I could listen to her sing “99 Bottle of Beer on the Wall.”
VEERRRRRYYYYY wonderful voice - very full, lush without being drippy – pick up the Bergman-directed video of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” (the one where no one blinks through the entire tape [maybe 6 times total] - your eyes will start hurting after you realize this!) - he is quite good as Papagano (the rest of the cast is eh, okay). Does some great Schubert lieder, also (though DF-D is still my fav), and his (Håkan) Figaro in “Il barbiere di Sivigila” is one of the best I’ve heard. I put up with Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony’s version of Orff’s “Carmina Burana” only to hear him as the bartitone soloist.
Have I waxed rhapsodic enough to convince you to give a listen? Something about baritone voices is just so…seductive…to me…
Nah, but I have been accused of sounding like Anthony Newley. (Seriously.) I am getting back into lessons as a New Year’s resolution.
Domingo
Leonard Warren (first person to die on stage at the Met, and the most impressive voice of all time IMHO)
Mirella Freni
Dietrich Fischer Dieskau (but NOT for his opera–for his song recordings. Unbeatable.)
Samuel Ramey
If I weren’t in such a hurry, I could write pages…
aschrott I was wondering when you would show up here!
(Thanks for the discourse on jaw/muscle tension in the other thread - I was in the middle of refining my second answer when you beat me to it.)
So what voice type are you? Lissa - Charlotte Church does have a very nice voice to hear, but from the couple of times I’ve seen her on tv, I find the arm-swinging quite distracting (does she always do this [graduate of the Celine Dion school of emoting] or did I just catch the couple of times she did?).
But sometimes the supporting characters get all the good songs, like in Gounod. Faust may be a tenor, but the supporting characters get all the good songs. I’d rather listen to Mephistopheles’ serenade and Valentin’s “Avant de quitter ces lieux” twenty times than that saccharine “Salut, demeure.”
As a fan of Oprah, my favorite singer is . . . Oh, you meant Opera!
Can’t say I’m a fan of opera, but I did go to a student recital at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and was amazed at the strength of their un-microphoned voices. Those folks have talent.
A bit of a hijack here – sorry if you posted his name already, but what’s the name of that terrific Welsh singer? He’s kind of a burly, big guy with curly hair. I saw a documentary about him once on PBS and he was very, very impressive. Can’t remember what he sang, but I believe he is a baritone.
OK, this is probably gonna fail to impress everybody but here goes. Mrs. O works with the mother of a young woman who is apparently a rapidly rising and prominent talent. All I know is her first name - Naftali - and that Placido Domingo knows who she is and is very impressed with her.
So any of you opera buffs able to fill me in on who she is and how impressive it might be that I have a Naftali number of 3?
Bryn Terfel. I agree, a lot of his stuff is terrific.
No help here–there are lots of young singers in the mix, and lots of them are “up-and-comers”. Domingo sponsors at least one competition; maybe she was a winner at one of them?
Well, maybe. Although I’ve gotten stories that Naftali is in much closer personal contact with Placido Domingo than just being a contact winner:
-Naftali’s gotten backstage with her mother to meet Placido, who addressed her as “La Niña” and complimented her mother on her daughter’s talent.
-Naftali has a standing invitation to sing for him when he’s back in the U.S. after the holidays.
This could all be a buncha hooey fed to a couple of gullible goobers (Mrs. O and I) from a co-worker with a talent for prevarication, but I figured I’d throw it out and see what I could verify.
Serious question and I haven’t seen the episode for awhile - who was the opera singer that guest starred on “The Odd Couple”, the episode where Oscar had to act as the lead for Felix’s “Rigoletto” after breaking the guest star’s leg in a baseball game?
