#coloratura mezzo soprano

[opera-ghosts]

Rare footage of Conchita Supervía singing a Spanish song

This wonderful excerpt is taken from the 1934 film "Evensong'. Supervía sings "Los ojos negros" (Dark eyes) composed by Luis Barta.

[widevibratobitch]

nothing sad but i need to bitch and im tired and need to frow up

[asmuchasidliketo]

#ennio motherfucking morricone babyyy!!! #also listen to the ukulele orchestra of great britain's cover sometime tags by @thestuffedalligator

[joansutherlandfan]

Celebrating the heavenly birthday of Mezzo Soprano Grace Bumbry (4 January 1937 - 7 May 2023).

Grace was an extremely admirable person and artist. Alongside Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, break down the color barrier in opera. Conquered international acclaim in 1961 after performed at the Bayreuth as - how the press noticed - "Black Venus" in Wagner's Tannhauser. Withi Joan, she recorded the mezzo part in Händel's Messiah (1961) and with Birgit, her canonical role, Amneris in Aida (1967).

📷 Grace poses with Joan and Richard in the occasion of Bing's Met Farewell, 1972.

[sopranoentravesti]

All right, DS9 fans who are opera freaks

For the 3 of you on tumblr, @currymuttonpizza and myself got chatting and one thing led to another and Badda-bing, Badda bang, we came up with the Fächer of the characters for the Opera version of DS9. Here goes

Captain Sisko: Bass Baritone. This seems self explanatory

Jake Sisko: countertenor

Major Kira: Coloratura mezzo. I may have been biased for this one bc that is the closest thing to my fach, but think Rossini‘s heroines, or some of Vivaldi‘s work (like Armatae Face et Anguibus from Juditha Triumphans)

Gul Dukat: also Bass-baritone, but of the villainous variety. Think Samuel Ramey as Reverend Olin Blitch in Susannah, or the titular role in Don Giovanni

Julian Bashir: Tenor leggiero. This also seems self explanatory

Kai Winn: originally I thought of a mezzo a la Ježibaba, but I think actually this may be a place for a villainous contralto

Jadzia Dax: mezzo, but of the type that delves down in contralto territory periodically (a la Avery Amereau ❤️)

Odo: dramatic baritone— to use @currymuttonpizza‘s inimitable phrasing “He's like if Scarpia were a good person idk.”

Worf: Bass, nuff said

Miles: baritone. Mostly an Everyman lyric kind but can venture in dramatic territory when he’s Suffering (he’s basically Wozzeck, if you think about it)

Keiko: sweet, loving, badass, sassy when needed? A soubrette, of the Mozart variety, a la Susanna and Zerlina

Garak: Britten tenor

Quark: dramatic baritone. Basically Alberich in space

Rom: Basso buffo

Nog: the guy you think is a tenor buffo, but is actually a Helden tenor

Kasidy Yates: full lyric soprano

Weyoun: tenor buffo. Complete Don Basilio type

Brunt: also tenor buffo. Both played by combs who brings buffo energy to both

Ezri: soubrette

Leeta: high poppy squeaky coloratura soprano (I’m thinking Olympia in the doll aria)

Damar: baritone, maybe slightly romantic but pretty run of the mill

Ziyal: light lyric soprano, ala Gilda from Rigoletto

Joseph Sisko: Dramatic Bass

Female Changeling: contralto, think Erda

Moogie: mezzo a la Marcelina from Nozze, but also some Despina vibes

Grand Nagus Zek: gonna trust @currymuttonpizza on this one, heldentenor like the drum major, but make it funny

Vedek Bareil: speaking role

[mariacallous]

A Sword & a Caress. Few rate the Callas voice as opera's sweetest or most beautiful. It has its ravishing moments. In quiet passages, it warms and caresses the air. In ensembles, it cuts through the other voices like a Damascus blade, clean and strong. But after the first hour of a performance, it tends to become strident, and late in a hard evening, begins to take on a reverberating quality, as if her mouth were full of saliva. But the special quality of the Callas voice is not tone. It is the extraordinary ability to carry, as can no other, the inflections and nuances of emotion, from mordant intensity to hushed delicacy. Callas' singing always seems to have a surprise in reserve. With the apparently infinite variety of her vocal inflections, she can keep the listener's ear constantly on edge for a twist of an emotional phrase, constantly delighted by a new and unexpected flick of vocal excitement. Quite apart from the quality of her voice, her technique is phenomenal. The product of the relentless discipline that characterizes everything she does, it enables her to ignore the conventional boundaries of soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto as if they had never been created. She can negotiate the trills and arabesques of coloraturas as easily as she trumpets out a stinging dramatic climax. Like her operatic sisters of a century ago, La Callas can sing anything written for the female voice. Because of her, La Scala has revived some operas (Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, Verdi's Sicilian Vespers, Cherubini's Medea) that it had not staged for years because no modern diva could carry them off. Blood & Tears. As actress. Callas is more exciting than any singer has a right to be. Her acting takes the form of a flashing eye that petrifies an emotion, a sudden rigidity that shouts of a breaking heart, a homicidal wish or a smoldering passion ("It takes nerve to stand still"). Callas' style of movement on stage strangely resembles the striding and lurching of the hamhearted operatic actress, but she moves so gracefully, so alluringly, with such authority, that even opera's baroque gestures take on breathtaking conviction. In her first Aida at La Scala in 1950, she startled the crowd by stalking about like a hungry leopard instead of taking the usual stately stance for her Act III duet. In the death scene of Fedora, in which sopranos tend to expire stiffly on a divan, Callas staggers from it, sags to her knees, drags herself up, crawls towards her lover's room, collapses again before she finally rolls down and dies. In Norma she has cried real tears. Operagoers, long reconciled to the classic, three-gesture range of other prima donnas, are astounded and delighted.

Music: The Prima Donna, Monday, Oct. 29, 1956 issue of Time Magazine

[gch1995]

I used to find her voice annoying when I was little, but after enjoying nearly 15 years of being professionally trained to sing mostly classical-style music theater and opera as a light lyric coloratura soprano, my singing voice definitely is most similar to Adriana Caselotti’s (Snow White) and Mary Costa’s (Aurora’s). I’ve also grown to hear the beauty in Snow White’s as I’ve gotten older, and I also realize Adriana Caselotti deliberately played up that babyish quality to her voice as Snow White to make it sound more childlike and innocent for the sake of the role. She definitely is still up there as the animated Disney Princess with the most legit classical-soprano vocal range and technique. I think she goes up to a D6 vocal trill in the dwarves Silly Song. Her highest full note is the B5 in Whistle While You Work, though.

Mary Costa (Aurora) has a bit more of a mature full lyric soprano voice than Adriana Caselotti as Snow White, nor does she use as much coloratura vocal technique in her runs and trills. However, she still has a bright and warm tone and technique that is most definitely legit classical lyric soprano. I think she goes up to an A5, and goes down to a D4.

Cinderella (Ilene Woods) is closer to a true contralto with a range of A3-Bb4. She has a darker, dreamier, and warmer quality to her voice that fits her longing nature

Jodie Benson(Ariel) technically has a light lyric soprano timbre, but she only goes between a C4-D5 as Ariel. That’s totally a doable sweet spot for a mezzo. Plus, she doesn’t really use any legit classical soprano technique. Ariel’s a light soprano belter.

In the second movie, she shows off more of her classical soprano chops in “Down To The Sea” and “For a Moment.” She goes up to at least an F5.

Paige O’Hara (Belle) goes between a low G3-to an Eb5 in the animated Disney movie, and she definitely has the solid middle timbre of a mezzo-soprano belter. It’s clear, full, and warm in the middle. Whereas Ariel can technically be sung by a mezzo-soprano quite easily, the actress who voiced her definitely has the bright, silvery, and youthful timbre of a lyric soprano. She only goes up to a D5 in the 1989 animated film, but you can tell that Jodie’s voice starts to naturally soar once she gets past the middle. Paige is definitely a natural mezzo-soprano, though.

Jasmine (Lea Salonga) is definitely a mezzo-soprano. You can tell this because she had to sing “Think of Me” from Phantom of the Opera in a lower key. However, she definitely is a lighter mezzo soprano with a slightly higher timbre.

Pocahontas (Judy Kuhn) is very much a mezzo-soprano with a range of G3-Bb4 in Colors of the Wind.

Megara (Susan Egan) from Hercules sings between a G3-C5, which is very much a mezzo soprano’s sweet spot. I also love how she added this cynical and sarcastic edge to Meg’s voice that goes away the more she falls in love with Hercules.

Mulan (Lea Salonga) is also a lighter mezzo, much like Jasmine, which makes sense since they share the same singing voice. I really do love how Lea got to show off her voice more in Mulan than she did in Aladdin because it is lovely. It makes me want to cry with her when she sings the chorus so sadly. I think she also goes up to an E5 in this song.

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is a soprano with a vocal range of G3-G5, and a more bright and youthful timbre. However, like most modern day Disney sopranos post the Golden age, she is a soprano-belter, so she is doable for a mezzo with a more developed upper register.

The Ranges of Disney Princesses.  AKA, the case for the mezzo princess.

We all hear that the Disney princesses are all sopranos, and that this sucks.  “When will we get an alto princess?!” is a phrase I constantly hear.  Well, I wanted to set down the facts for all to see.  Let’s look at the ranges.  Note that all are based on the movie songs, not the musical versions when applicable.  Let me know if I missed something, or want me to check a song again.  I cross-checked sheet music to videos, but I could have missed something.

Snow White: D4-Bb5

Anna: Gb3-G5

Rapunzel: G3-G5

Aurora: D4-F5

Pocahontas: G#3-F5

Jasmine: C#4-E5

Elsa: F3-Eb5

Mulan: G#3-D5

Tiana: G#3-C#5

Ariel: C4-C5

Belle: G#3-B4

Cinderella: A3-Bb4

So we see some sopranos here–Snow White and her little operatic runs are, undoubtedly, soprano territory.  But from there, we pretty quickly drop off from true soprano territory and fall smack-dab in the middle of mezzo-land.  Anna and Rapunzel, sure, may be tough for some mezzos who don’t have a developed upper range.  But as you move down that list, we’re suddenly getting down to notes that I know many sopranos cannot sing.  I have lots and lots of students who cannot consistently sing a G#3, so it’s tough to argue that these ranges are unreasonably soprano-esque.  In fact, we get to Ariel who has a downright tiny range.  Crazy, right!  Cinderella, Belle, and Ariel would really be considered more of altos if we just look at their ranges!  

But many people hear these songs and immediately think, but they’re so high!  And this is where timbre comes into play.  Some of these women have very light timbres, and it makes their voices sound higher than they actually are.  It’s shocking to really take a look at how low some of these songs actually are, right?  

I actually feel like amongst all these characters, there’s a pretty great representation across many ranges and types.  We’ve got belters, legit singers, more operatic, more mixed, more pop…  Ranging all the way from an F3-Bb5 altogether!  Represent, female voices.  

[kawiarenkii]

As a fellow opera enjoyer, I've been wondering: do you have opera voice type "headcanons" for your ocs? And do you want an excuse to share them?

YES! i do actually! sorry, this took a little longer to answer because i wanted to draw little headshots of the others because they Lack Proper Refs at the moment— and it’s just nice to put a face to a name!

yap warning ‼️ starting with cecilia, she’s a soprano. obviously. one look at her story and it just YELLS tragic soprano lead. maybe a coloratura soprano? i could also see her having some pretty cool rage arias.

just look at her. the face of a girl capable of rage arias.

next i have the three girls from “letters to maya”!!! i see maya as being a mezzosoprano honestly, nothing specific pointing toward it, just just vibes based. vera actually has a canon voice type, she’s a contralto, and she actually wanted to take up the operatic path at one point— but ended up continuing with ballet because of her parents’ choices earlier in her life. i’m actually not sure about lilou. maybe a mezzo as well?

from left to right, maya, vera and lilou :)

as for the sisters of „final cries to a tainted heart”, i see circe as a mezzo and amalia as a soubrette!

unfortunately i’m currently redesigning their color palettes but here they are!

this is such a fun ask…. i do have more ocs but they’re not in a story (avery, affy) or they are merely a concept right now (duchess prone to conniptions who STILL remains nameless at the moment.)

[princesssarisa]

Fancasts for "An Eternal Crown: The Opera"

I'm being silly now and imagining what it would be like if my gender-bent Magic Flute retelling, An Eternal Crown, were adapted as an opera itself. It could be a "jukebox opera," consisting partly of music from The Magic Flute transposed, and partly of other music – for example, some of Handel's florid bass arias to take the place of the Queen of the Night's arias for King Vorteyo.

Sarisa and Zeran's voices I imagine as essentially Pamina's and Tamino's, since they are those two in reverse: a lyric soprano and a light lyric tenor. Lorikeet I can't help but imagine as a lyric coloratura. Vorteyo would be a bass, Alesta and Imara both motherly mezzos, Kimzi one of those roles like Zerlina that can be sung either by a soprano or a light mezzo, and Robin a lyric baritone. The Three Warriors I picture as a "heroic" Italian-style spinto tenor, and a baritone and bass in more of a Mozartean vein.

These are some of the singers I think might have been good in the roles in different eras:

An Eternal Crown: The Opera, circa 1960-1965

Sarisa: Irmgard Seefried or Gundula Janowitz

Zeran: Fritz Wunderlich or Nicolai Gedda

Lorikeet: Lucia Popp

King Vorteyo: Cesare Siepi

Alesta: Maureen Forrester

Kimzi: Teresa Berganza or Graziella Sciutti

Robin: Hermann Prey or Theodor Uppman

Imara: Marga Höffgen

Three Warriors: Giuseppe di Stefano, Eberhard Wächter, Fernando Corena

An Eternal Crown: The Opera, circa 1980-1985

Sarisa: Ileana Cotrubas

Zeran: Francisco Araiza or Peter Schreier

Lorikeet: Kathleen Battle

King Vorteyo: James Morris

Alesta: Marilyn Horne

Kimzi: Teresa Stratas

Robin: Håkan Hagegård, or a young Alessandro Corbelli

Imara: Janet Baker

Three Warriors: José Carreras, Thomas Allen, Samuel Ramey

An Eternal Crown: The Opera, circa 2000-2005

Sarisa: Ana María Martínez or Dorothea Röschmann

Zeran: Charles Castronovo

Lorikeet: Diana Damrau

King Vorteyo: Samuel Ramey

Alesta: Denyce Graves

Kimzi: Cecilia Bartoli

Robin: Rolando Villazón (it could have been an early light baritone foray for him)

Imara: Stephanie Blythe

Three Warriors: José Cura, Simon Keenlyside, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo

I'll think of more in the future.

[opera-ghosts]

This is another 140 years old original castlist from the Royal Opera Covent Garden 1884. Meyerbeers Opera „Les Huguenots“ Look this great cast! 

[oh-great-authoress]

This is:

“Der Holle Rache”

“O zittre nicht”

“Luce di quest’anima”

“Les oiseaux dans las charmilles”

“Où va la jeune Indoue”

“Volta la terrea”

“Chacun le sait”

“Caro nome”

“Ebben? Ne andrò lontano”

“Vissi d’arte”

“Follie!...Follie!... Delirio vano e questo… Sempre libera”

“Quando m’en vo”

“Un bel di”

“Una voce poco fa”

“Non più mesta”

“L’amour est un oiseaux rebelles”

“Près des ramparts des Séville”

“Nessun dorma”

“E lucevan le stelle”

“M’appari”

“Una furtiva lagrima”

“Pour mon âmes, quel destin”

“Di quella pira”

“Il balen del suo sorriso”

Erasure!

Been a while since I made opera memes, innit

[boobiespasta]

i love dungeon meshi au’s but my state isn’t interesting to make an au based off of and i’m not connected well enough to my mother country then it hit me. i just do what i’ve been doing for years. choral voicing headcanons. i will write them here so i can draw them later

laios - bass. full church-y baso profundo, but has to be convinced to use his lower range. maybe more into literally anything else, just has such a wonderful bass range people keep begging him to fill in for them

senshi - baritone… he’s not giving bass to me. grew up as a part of�� maybe a barbershop quartet? it was him and 2 others though so maybe just a small a capella group… no i think he was probably more of a small chamber singer who never really got his degree in performance and was just passed from baton to baton

chilchuck - easy tenor— counter tenor even. actually very seasoned and did his own stints performing in competitions in places like italy and austria, petered off of a full-time solo career. i’m inclined to say he doesn’t? have a degree but he probably at least has one in performance

marcille - soprano. i think making her a coloratura while it doesn’t fit SUPER well still works and would be funny. she’s been studying classical ever since she was extremely young. always out on competitions like chil until university and her degree got in the way (i want to say both a medical degree AND a performance degree.. maybe looking at a phd to teach so she conducts and everything) so she’s joined one of falin’s choirs

falin - warmly colored alto with a strong mezzo range. i want to say she studies medicine/bio as well? but puts it on the backburner for her choral music degree. she conducts choirs as part of HER phd research. maybe she conducts the choir that everyone meets in and when she goes on sabbatical everything falls apart?

izutsumi - mezzo. sang in school choirs growing up but didn’t really go out on competitions/has no competitive experience maybe? i’d be inclined ro say she only has solo experience so she sticks out like a sore thumb in ensemble performance bc of her backstory and moving alone but mmm. the lone highschooler taken good care of by marcille. at times in ascending formation she sits next to chil and really likes stealing his sheet music.

kabru - tenor. i need a tenor. similarly to chil is a very seasoned performer but is also pursuing a degree, so is here more casually. dropped by at the recommendation of prof. tansu, stayed after he became infatuated with laios’ effortless skill as he worked extremely hard to get where he is. fears this chamber falling apart without falin because his own chamber group fell apart extremely messily

to put them in ssattb(b) because it’d be funny:

bass 2 - laios

bass 1 - senshi

tenor 2 - kabru

tenor 1/alto - chilchuck (lol) (falin mia)

sop 2 - izutsumi

sop 1 - marcille

[joansutherlandfan]

#tbt Back to 1977, after a concert with mezzo Huguette in Netherlands, Joan was received by the Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and her husband Pieter Van Vollenhoven.

[birlwrites]

coloratura is a type of vocal technique - i'm sure the technique exists in various forms in multiple other types of music (a 'melisma' in western classical music is the same thing as a 'run' in western pop music, for example), but i'll just speak to bel canto technique as that's what i'm familiar with (the standard technique for singing western opera and art music)

coloratura singing means 'colorful' (roughly), and it's called that because it is very heavily ornamented - lots of trills, lots of notes, lots of fast movement. because it moves fast, it's normally associated with lighter, more agile voices - the heavier/darker/more dramatic a voice, the harder it's going to be to move it fast, because the heavier/darker sound comes from thicker vocal cords, and the thicker your vocal cords are, the harder it's going to be to move between notes quickly. that's a surface explanation but it gets the point across

thinner vocal cords also tend to be able to vibrate at faster rates which means they tend to have a higher tessitura (comfortable vocal range). that's why you'll see a lot of coloratura in music for sopranos, because sopranos have the highest tessitura of all the basic voice types (bass, baritone, tenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano, soprano, from lowest to highest). it's not the only reason that coloratura tends to go to soprano arias, but it's a big one - the other reasons have a lot to do with western ideas of femininity and insanity

that being said, coloratura isn't exclusively the provenance of sopranos - you see a lot of it in baroque music (händel, for example). now, i'm actually not a big fan of baroque opera, because it's super repetitive, but fortunately for me, as a soprano, i have LOTS of potential coloratura repertoire in later styles

one of the most famous examples of a coloratura aria is der hölle rache from the magic flute by mozart, aka the queen of the night's aria (she has multiple but that's the famous one). lots of fast little notes very high up. (accidentals are also common.) other good examples are les oiseaux dans le charmille (the doll song) from les contes d'hoffman (offenbach) and il dolce suono (lucia's mad scene) from lucia di lammermoor (donizetti). you can also hear some coloratura in more modern work like andrew lloyd webber's the phantom of the opera - christine and carlotta in particular, although that score isn't super coloratura-heavy. glitter and be gay is also a coloratura aria

sometimes people will refer to 'coloratura soprano' as a voice type - they generally mean 'lyric coloratura soprano,' which is just a lyric soprano with an agile voice. like i said, there is a biological component to how easy coloratura is for someone to learn (although it is a learnable skill, it's not an innate one), and sometimes people will use 'coloratura' as a label for a voice type to mean that voice is agile/well suited to coloratura singing

my wips as arias i've sung

i'm procrastinating on a project so here we go! this is all specifically arias, not art songs, because i had to narrow it down lol. also, many of these wips are Not in a position to be posted but they're vibes

dark lord wip: regnava nel silenzio from lucia di lammermoor. as i've said in the tags of posts about this series, let's get some donizetti up in this bitch!! long, somewhat macabre, and features the star of the show doing Way Too Fucking Much. also, set in scotland lmao

icarus wip: song to the moon from rusalka. it's about the yearning. also the retelling of a folk tale or myth. the lonely sense of appealing to the heavens

bitter roses wip: ach, ich fühl's from the magic flute. magical and driving towards death (even though that's not what happens in the opera). ends not with a bang but with a grim prediction

silver lace wip: glitter and be gay from candide. flashy and fun, but the meter changes around on you and you might get hit with phrases you don't expect. also, JEWELRY AND GLITTER

[keratonin]

omg do you still have any of your notes or reading refs for your queer musicology class??? that sounds so interesting!!!!!

i thought i had a bunch of the articles downloaded but i guess i did not?? i'm gonna have to rectify that i Must have them

anyway here's a list of topics we covered, not in order because i do not remember the order:

castrati and countertenors (see baroque opera, jakub josef orlinski and how he presents himself in performances)

disco, as well as mainstream reactions to it

camp (but i'm a cheerleader, the music video for aqua's barbie, the medici family and their skeleton float thing?, nina west and the music video for drag is magic, can instrumental music be camp and if so how so?)

ballroom culture (+ scissor sisters, as well as madonna's vogue and her work with the queer community)

queer country (the album lavender country in particular, the idea of authenticity in country music)

hildegard von bingen and eroticism in her compositions about the virgin mary

barbara strozzi, courtesans, and the female voice as sexuality (l'arianna, monteverdi's nymph, i read the word 'secretions' a lot)

diva culture, incl. britney spears and the simultaneous purity and sexuality that's expected of divas - and if they violate that they crash and burn. (i never brought up love me 4 me by rina sawayama in that class but that's highly relevant) beyonce is an apparent exception, she has a lot of control over her own art and image which is probably why. tied this back to madonna as well

see: music video for ...baby one more time (framing of britney spears, putting the whole thing in 'her imagination'), music video for diva by beyonce, vogue again

more diva culture but this time western classical music: lucia di lammermoor and mad scenes, feminine hysteria, coloratura singing, and containing female voices

also: carmen, chromaticism, tenor and soprano vs tenor and mezzo-soprano, soprano vs mezzo-soprano in general, carmen as the Other who needs to be contained

also lady gaga's born this way music video and how it interacts with the very controlled and palatable sexuality of smth like baby one more time. lady gaga and the monster ball tour in general

the elevation of the boy soprano as a particularly special/Holy voice (compared to a woman soprano or a man falsettist, for example)

madrigals and coded language (that one famous madrigal about swans, can't remember the original name atm but it's That One with the mille mort/million deaths), along with homosocial bonds in music (madrigals were normally sung by amateurs in a private setting)

YMCA as gay anthem (see the music video, YMCAs as hookup spots)

jayne county, t rex, glam rock, david bowie and how he used bisexuality in his public image as well as his interactions w jayne county

wendy carlos and how the act of synthesizing sound interacts with what we talked about before with the sexuality of the voice etc

i can't remember if we actually covered this in the class but my final paper was GOING to be on how melancholy affected john dowland's gender presentation, how that was perceived by his contemporaries vs how it's perceived today, and then my prof was like 'that is not an 8-10 page final paper that is a dissertation. let me know if you do want to write a dissertation tho' and then i had to narrow it down to gender perception of in darkness let me dwell and u know what? he was right i did easily fill 8-10 pages just talking about one (not very long) song