#dramatic coloratura soprano

[opera-ghosts]

March 5. 1868 the first performance of Arrigo Boito’s Opera “Mefistofele” was presented at the Scala di Milano. Here we see the very rare original castlist from the first performance of this Opera at The Metropolitan Opera 1883 six weeks after the opening from the MET.

[joansutherlandfan]

Remembering the greatest of the tenors and Joan's close friend - Luciano Pavarotti (12 October 1935 - 6 September 2007).

[…] "Going to Australia with Joan, first of all, I've learned to be a very serious professional singer and from her particularly, I learn to breath, who is the most important thing, but the most difficult. More than anything, I think the technique is perfect, I think it's probably the most incredible technique of all the time I would say." […]

Excerpt taken from the documentary "Pavarotti - 2019" by Ron Howard.

[widevibratobitch]

13 years today... rip queen. who could ever do it like you.

[milkwands]

saw him earlier for probably the last time til spring semester

[soprano-sfogato]

Types of sopranos who have sung the role of Christine in ALW’s musical

Lyric sopranos

Almost all of the actresses

Spinto sopranos (potential)

Rachel Barrell

Elizabeth Loyacano

Marni Raab

Dramatic sopranos

No one (to my knowledge)

(Some people have suggested that Agnete Munk Rasmussen isn’t a lyric soprano, but I can’t find any recordings of her, so I can’t comment on that.)

The difference between soprano types isn’t about timbre but rather the weight and size of the voice:

Lyric sopranos: Light and moderately weight voices

Spinto sopranos: Larger and heavier than lyric sopranos. A spinto voice often has a sharper, piercing quality—like a dagger to your ears.

Dramatic sopranos: Heavier and more powerful than spintos with immense volume and resonance.

I’m not including coloratura sopranos on this list because, first of all, coloratura is not a voice type—it’s a technique. Though in the opera world today, it’s often added to voice type classifications to indicate that someone can sing roles requiring agility, but in the past, this was taken for granted as part of having solid technique.

Secondly, it’s hard to say which Christines could be considered coloraturas. Having a good high E doesn’t automatically make someone a coloratura soprano because coloratura is not about hitting high notes. That title requires mastery of things like trills, portamenti, and fast passages—none of which are really present in Christine’s part.

While some opera singers in this role may have been coloraturas, they were most likely lyric coloratura sopranos.

All the Christines who could qualify as spinto sopranos have noticeably larger voices and sound heavier than other actresses. I’ve labeled them potential spintos because it’s difficult to definitively identify someone as a spinto unless they’ve been trained in opera—classical training alone isn’t enough. They would also need proper opera training before taking on traditional spinto roles.

[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

[international-baccalaureshit]

my history teacher threatened to make me sing opera in class on a daily basis (for those of you who don't know, i'm a dramatic coloratura soprano and totally fucking would)

[tailing-sun]

Shadow High OCs Bio 7: Tara Rajneesh

COLOUR PALETTE: Galaxy

YEAR: Third

GENDER: Female

FOCUS: Performing Arts

STYLE: Celestial. Dazzling. Classy.

QUOTE: “The stars align for me.”

BIO: Professional triple threat (and amateur astrologist) Tara Rajneesh rules the Performing Arts scene at Shadow High and shines not just like a star, but like a whole constellation on stage. Though her creativity is unbounded and her performing choices are always bold, she can barely do anything in her day-to-day life without first consulting her horoscope. She loves to be the centre of attention, and thanks to her standout energy and eccentric personality it just kind of happens naturally. A thespian at heart, Tara has no interest in film acting, and prefers the inherent transitive quality that only the stage can offer. As for which roles she likes best, lead roles are great, and villains are even better! She’s starred in plenty of productions back in her home city of Chicago, but her dream is to play the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute at the Met.

OTHER:

-Tara’s one of those girls who has a different boyfriend every month because of some drama or another, to the great interest of Candy.

-Her parents are both from Hyderabad, India, but she was born in Chicago.

-Her age is seventeen and her sign is Sagittarius.

-She stands taller than most of her female classmates at 5’8” (without heels).

-She’s bilingual, and speaks Hindi with her parents. Although their English is already pretty good, they insisted on teaching her Hindi to preserve their culture.

-Her clothes are relatively simple, usually stretchy and form-fitting due to her practically living on stage and needing to move for blocking. This doesn’t stop Tara from accessorizing as much as possible with sparkling, glittering, star-studded bangles, necks, and hair pins.

-She gets along with Dia Mante and Glitch Crowne, bonding over music and the stage.

-Much to her classmates’ annoyance, she’ll sometimes read them their horoscopes unprompted and/or dragoon them into a tarot-reading session.

-To de-stress, she likes to go stargazing. She’s even got a telescope.

-Though she definitely gives off diva vibes, it’s mostly because she’s usually in her own head and feels every emotion at 200% at all times. By no means is she rude, snobby, or even intentionally selfish, in fact she runs a student support group on the side for classmates to gather and vent about school-related stress.

-She likes modern musicals well enough, especially dramatic ones, but her first love is opera.

-She sings coloratura soprano and is a seasoned actor, but struggled a bit with dancing.

-Despite the flack other Shadow High kids give her for it, Tara follows RH exchange student Meena Fleur on social and even trades school gossip with her. (Thanks again @sunshine7eyes)

[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

[opera-ghosts]

"I met Oscar Wilde in London once,"said Mdlle. Christine Nilsson Bouzcaud the other day, " where we were both guests,and he was to take me down to dinner. He commenced to talk his nonsense and pose to me as we were going to the diningroom. I said to him, ' Look here, Mr Wilde, Mdlle. Christine Nilsson mil put np with no such stuff. This is all put on, aud there is nothing in it but nonsense.' Mr Wilde said, 'Thank you. You are the first sensible woman and true friend that I have met.' After that teacted as a man should, and talked sensibly."

MR. OSCAR WILDE. At telegram from New York, dated Wednesday, says Mr. Oscar Wilde sailed for home by the Bothnia to-day. He left sorrowfully. He savs his mission to reform the tastes and dress of the Americans has been a failure. He has been in New York for a month past, and has been entirely neglected. Ho never was regarded seriously in any part, of the country. The public got as much fun out of him as possible, and then dropped him. Mdme. Christine Nilsson seems to have spoken a piece of her mind about Mr. Oscar Wilde to a Chicago reporter in a fashion which will probably cause the Apostle of the Sunflower to reconsider his verdict that Mdme, Nilsson was "the first sensible woman and true friend he had ever met." Mdme. Nilsson said:—" He ought to have been taken by the ear and taken to the boat and driven out of this country. What right has he to come here and say that everything American is all wrong? I think that your people are too good- natured, or they would not stand it. I know shouldn't put up with his nonsense. You know in Europe he doesn't appear clad as he does here. That wouldn't be tolerated there."

[venomous-qwille]

Whats a skill you have that most people wouldn’t know about :)

I'm a classically trained coloratura soprano! I fully intended to carve a career out as an opera singer before my life careened in a dramatically different direction. Sadly I haven't had the opportunity to perform properly for many many years now :( sometimes life just works out that way...

[joansutherlandfan]

“When one is singing high and loud it’s as though one is in light air, high upon a mountain. I feel a lightness and dizziness. Exhilaration too. I’ve never smoked marijuana, but I fancy it might be the same sort of feeling.”

Joan Sutherland

Portrait as Lucia di Lammermoor. Feb 1959.

[herstoriies]

𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 .

1. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙨𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚?

Delicately floral. A beautiful rose to decorate her hair or gown. Expensive perfume with notes of honeysuckle, jasmine, and orange blossom.

2. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚’𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚?

Small and dainty, and buttery smooth. They've not known much labor. And her fingers are usually adorned with a ring or two on each hand. On her left is a ring on her index and middle fingers. On her right, a pinky ring. Verse dependent, on her left hand in lieu of the middle finger ring is her engagement/wedding ring.

3. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙪𝙨𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙙𝙖𝙮?

Opera verse - She's very conscientious about what foods affect her voice. On a day she's performing, she avoids dairy and sticks to light but sustainable meals like soups, not overly salted vegetables, and fruits. That said, it's a battle given Priscilla is equally a bit of a foodie and restauranter and loves trying different cuisines. And did I mention her sweet tooth and love of champagne? More often than not she eats out, but isn't incompetent in the kitchen and enjoys making a traditional meat and vegetable dish, pastas, and baking scones and cake for tea.

Baroness verse - The Staunton chef's daily English meals (including high tea), or out and about to various restaurants.

4. 𝘿𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙘𝙚?

In one verse she made an entire career out of it :D

In short, yes, she does. Naturally in her Diva verse, singing is her life and her voice was trained and finetuned to the coloratura soprano she became famous for. But natually she has a nightingale's voice, soft and melodically sweet.

In her other vereses, she still enjoys singing as a hobby, can't resist joining in a shanty, or chorus/choir and might stand out in a crowd of carolers if not mindful.

5. 𝘿𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙗𝙖𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙨?

She can be very reckless of her own behavior and get into trouble.

She's loudmouthed and outspoken and confrontational, when not in a comedic situation can lead to dire consequences.

She's impulsive and enjoys things in excess.

She has a revolving door of dandies she rotates like accessories. (in v: joie de paris)

She has kleptomania (in v: the baroness)

Uhhh to name a few.

As far as nervous ticks, its like sweeping her hair behind her ear, playing with her fingers or the tassel dangling from her fan, or taking a less confident posture.

When agitated she gets more sharp tongued, sarcastic, and demanding.

And in a dramatic moment of witnessing betrayal, can and has in the past physically lashed out, in the sense of destroying nearby objects and shoving everything off of her vanity table.

6. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙪𝙨𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 / 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧?

In a word: fabulous. Silks, lace, satin flowers, embroidery. Everything of opulent Victorian-era (verse-dependent but nonetheless...) Haute Couture frivolities. Most notably sporting designs by the famous designer: House of Worth. She has on occasion spent her entire paycheck on her wardrobe and had to scramble together a combination of savings and a slew of hustle side-gigs like posing for artists just to pay the next month's rent!

It can be argued her taste is a bit too avante garde, fortunately it's fitting for the victorian era

Some additional meta: Priscilla's wardrobe is like her battle armour. And she often prides herself in her physical assets, and displays them properly with utmost taste and opulent class. Starting with her custom-fitted corset and foundational wear for comfort and accentuation, and each layer and petticoat forward, topped off with silk ornately detailed bodice and skirt. More often the silk is a vibrant solid color - shades of blue, navy, violet, burgundy, emerald; or a pastel shade, or the classic cream, white, gold, tan, or mourning black (often worn in v: the Baroness!). Of course, this is paired with the right accessories: jewelry, a trimmed and feathered hat, a beaded shawl, and satin or leather gloves depending on the event. And I must highlight her shoes - often ornately embroidered - are equally a fashion statement. More often than not they're heeled, to give herself some added height (given her petite stature).

Another statement & asset is Priscilla's golden mane of untamable curls. For the most part, it's in an era-specific updo, but she's also donned the more ancient Grecian style. Often her hair is accessorized with some combination of an elegant comb (her iconic one is in the shape of a peacock!), a rose, and/or an elegant hat.

7. 𝙄𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙚?  𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝?  𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙨𝙤?

A little too much for her own good. This is why she must be protected at all costs so her affections do not go to the wrong person(s)! She's a romantic, and more often in love with the idea of being in love than actually in love.

She is affectionate by her loyalty, her wanting to be with someone (& how frequently), exchanges of sweet nothings, little surprises/gifts, and basis of mutual respect.

8. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙞𝙣?

Any ol' position, often little spoon. She tends to steal the covers and/or take up the entire bed somehow no matter what size it is. Otherwise having someone to cuddle helps! Then she'd just go koala mode.

9. 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙢?

Probably. Either from hearing Priscilla's rehearsing her singing, laughing at a joke, being the larger than life life of the party she is, or even arguing with a Parisian producer she loves to quarrel with. Otherwise, it's a toss-up.

Tagged by: commandeered from @reverdies

Tagging: YOU!

[erotetica]

‘the old guard’ is the name of a lil queer opera company tho.

They do Shakespeare in the park-type stuff. Nicky is a basso profondo & baritone Yusuf is marked down as annoyed and horny. The Plot is that Andy is a dramatic contralto & she takes the male/butch leads in drag, opposite quynh’s soprano (iirc contralto is the deepest register for women on a scale similar to the male tenor. whom also iirc usually get leading-man roles. Anyway it’s SUPER fascinating 2 me 2 swap them.) When quynh leaves, booker, a high tenor, does her bits in drag. There’s not as much vocal contrast between Booker and Andy tho, so after some faffing he goes back to his usual, supporting female roles, & enter Nile as prima donna soprano. Coolgirl career prima donna at Big Opera Houses, joining the guard to do queer shit. I think she’s a coloratura/whereas quynh was more of a Wagnerian soprano, & she fills the void quynh left with her own, brighter vocal style (themes & metaphors etc)

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Marta Eggerth in Die Czardasfürstin (1934) by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 137. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Marta Eggerth in Die Czardasfürstin/The Csardas Princess (Georg Jacoby, 1934). Hungarian-born singer and actress Márta Eggerth (1912-2013) maintained a global career for over 70 years. She was the popular and talented star of 30 German and Austrian operetta films of the 1930s. Many of the 20th century's most famous operetta composers, including Franz Lehár, Fritz Kreisler, Robert Stolz, Oscar Straus, and Paul Abraham, composed works especially for her. After the rise of the Nazis, she continued her career with her partner Jan Kiepura in the US. Márta (or Martha) Eggerth's was born in Budapest in 1912. Her mother, a dramatic coloratura soprano, dedicated herself to her daughter, who was called a 'Wunderkind'. At the age of 11 she made her theatrical debut in the operetta Mannequins. Marta began singing the demanding coloratura repertoire by composers including Rossini, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, and Johann Strauss II. Soon she was hailed as Hungary's 'national idol'. She performed at the Hungarian state opera in Budapest. Eggerth made her film debut in Budapest in such silent films as Csak egy kislány van a világon/There Is Only One Girl in the World (Belá Gaál, 1929). While still a teenager, Márta Eggerth embarked on a tour of Denmark, Holland and Sweden before arriving in Vienna at the invitation of Emmerich Kalman. Kalman had invited her to understudy Adele Kern, the famous coloratura of the Vienna State Opera, in his operetta Das Veilchen von Montmarte (The Violet of Montmarte). Eventually she took over the title role to great critical acclaim after Kern suddenly became indisposed. Next she performed the role of Adele in Max Reinhardt's famous 1929 Hamburg production of Die Fledermaus (The Bat). At the age of 17, she was perhaps the youngest singer ever to undertake this part. Her silvery soprano voice made her in the following years a popular star of the operetta. Marta Eggerth's film career really career took off with the German sound film Bräutigamswitwe/Let's Love and Laugh (Richard Eichberg, 1931) co-starring Georg Alexander. The success of the film resulted in international fame. Her German film debut was soon followed by more film operettas like Trara um Liebe/Trumpet Call of Love (Richard Eichberg, 1931) and Moderne Mitgift/Modern Dowry (E.W. Emo, 1932). Franz Léhar composed the music for Es war einmal ein Walzer/Once There Was a Waltz (Victor Janson, 1932), especially for Eggerth. In the silver age of the operetta Márta Eggerth starred in numerous successful film operettas and musical comedies as the cheeky, captivating girl, but she also played more tragic roles. To her great successes belong Das Blaue vom Himmel/The Blue from the Sky (Victor Janson, 1932), Leise flehen meine Lieder/Lover Divine (Willi Forst, 1933), Unfinished Symphony (Anthony Asquith, Willi Forst, 1934), Der Zarewitsch (Victor Janson, 1933), Die Czardasfürstin/The Csardas Princess (Georg Jacoby, 1934), Die ganze Welt dreht sich um Liebe/The World's in Love (Viktor Tourjansky, 1935), and Das Schloss in Flandern/The Castle in Flanders (Géza von Bolváry, 1936). Critics praised her musical abilities, but also her nuanced acting. In favour of her film work, she appeared less and less on stage. On the set of Mein Herz ruft nach dir/My Heart Calls You (Carmine Gallone, 1934), Marta Eggerth fell in love with the young Polish tenor and film star Jan Kiepura. The couple married in 1936, and they were the most dazzling Liebespaar (Love Pair) of the European cinema. Together they starred in Zauber der Boheme/The Charm of La Boheme (Géza von Bolváry, 1937), based on motives from Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème. They caused a sensation wherever they appeared. But the political situation became more and more uncomfortable for her in Austria, being a foreigner and of Jewish descent. In 1938, Jan Kiepura and Márta Eggerth fled Austria after its annexation by the Nazis. They first settled down in the South of France, and later in the USA. Eggerth was signed by the Schubert Theater to appear on Broadway in Richard Rodgers' musical Higher and Higher. She subsequently signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood, but she only performed in two MGM musicals. At the side of Judy Garland, she appeared in For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley, 1942), and Presenting Lily Mars (Norman Taurog, 1943). Together with her husband, she returned to the theatre, and they first starred on the operatic stage in La Bohème to rave reviews. Then they had a huge, three-year long success with Franz Léhar's operetta Die lustige Witwe/The Merry Widow, with Robert Stolz conducting and George Balanchine as choreographer. They would eventually perform The Merry Widow more than 200 times, in five languages throughout Europe and America. After the war, Márta Eggerth and Jan Kiepura returned to France. They toured through Europe and starred in such films as La Valse Brilliante/Brilliant waltz (Jean Boyer, 1948) in France and Das Land des Lächelns/Land of Smiles (Hans Deppe, Erik Ode, 1952) in Germany. Eggerth wasn't able to gain a foothold again in the German cinema, and would further only appear in Frühling in Berlin/Spring in Berlin (Arhur Maria Rabenalt, 1957) starring Sonja Ziemann. In the 1950s she became American citizen, but her connection to Europe remained. In 1954 Eggerth and Kiepura brought The Merry Widow to London's Palace Theatre and they often toured through Germany with The Merry Widow and other productions. After Jan Kiepura died in 1966, Eggerth stopped singing for several years. Finally, persuaded by her mother, she decided to revive her career. In the 1970s she began to make regular television appearances, and to actively perform concerts in Europe. In 1979, she was awarded the Filmband in Gold for her longtime achievements in the German cinema. In 1984, she returned to the American stage. She co-starred in the Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical Colette opposite Diana Rigg in Seattle and Denver, and later in Stephen Sondheim's Follies in Pittsburgh. In 1999 Eggerth had a comeback appearance on German television as a chamber singer in the episode Nie wieder Oper/Never Opera Again of the popular crime series Tatort. In 2005 she brought out a new album, Marta Eggerth: My Life My Song, with recordings from throughout her career. In 2007 the Silent Film Festival of Pordenone in Italy presented one of her first Hungarian films, but the then 95-year old star was not able to attend. The reason: she had to perform at a concert in New York! Mártha Eggerth always stayed an advocate of the operetta: "In opera, everybody dies. In operetta, everybody is flirtatious", she said of her favourite art form. Marta Eggerth owned an 18-story apartment building in Rye, New York, where she died 26 December 2013. She was 101. Sources: Anne Midgette (The Washington Post), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb. For more cards of this series, check out our album Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst.

[hinotorihime]

so i'm learning about the fach system of dividing vocal roles in opera and i think i have a general handle on how it works? feel free to correct me, and i know there is a lot of extra nuance to this, but my understanding so far is that:

-obviously you first break the roles down by the expected range: soprano/mezzo/contralto/tenor/baritone/bass. the range isn't just "what notes can you hit", it's "what notes can you reliably hit and sustain loudly enough to be heard over full orchestra"

-then there seem to be three general divisions of the range. obviously there are extra subcategories going on but overall my impression is—

lyric roles are sort of the bog-standard default, they focus on being smooth and maybe a bit brighter or even younger-sounding than dramatic roles

2. dramatic roles tend to work more in the lower half of the range, and the focus is on power—they're loud, and very rich, and typically sound more mature

3. coloratura roles tend to work more in the higher half of the range, and the focus is on agility—these roles have a lot of movement, plenty of runs and jumps, so the voice needs to be flexible. there is such a thing as dramatic coloratura soprano, god help them