A Soubrette Dilemma: Where Have All The Pretty Voices Gone?

Kathleen Battle sang the soubrette role of
Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte during
January 1982 at the MET.
(Photo: Winnie Klotz/Metropolitan Opera)

When people talk about opera sopranos, many immediately conjure up the caricature of a Rubensian figure wearing viking horns with the vocal amplitude of an diaphone foghorn. Fortunately for audiences these high voices come in all shapes and sizes. On the more petite end of the spectrum is a specialized fach known as the soubrette. Often categorized as light and lyric, this voice type is more likely to caress the listener's ear drum rather than penetrate it. The last century has seen a radical shift in the characteristics of this genre. Marcella Sembrich was a late 19th-century Polish soprano who often made appearances onstage as Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), and Rosina (Il Barbiere di Siviglia). These roles were a sharp contrast to her typical fare of dramatic coloratura roles of Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor) and Elvira (I Puritani). This fascinating cross-pollination of repertoire certainly brought a radiant sound and identity to her characterizations in the opera house. At the end of her career, the soprano taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where one of her students, Eufemia Gregory, would go on to teach another famous soubrette of the 1970s & 1980s: Judith Blegen. It was in the latter half of the 20th-century that sopranos really began to give the vulnerable and sweet women in the soubrette repertoire their own distinct sound that didn't always carry over to other vocal categories. They were interpreters from around the globe like Rita Streich, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Norma Burrowes, Reri Grist, and Patrice Munsel, starting to emerge as leaders in this repertoire. But the silky floating tones of a coquette didn't mean she could not be strong in her own right. These roles became more crafted and unique under the domination of singers like Edith Mathis, Helen Donath, Elly Ameling, Judith Blegen, and Kathleen Battle. This group was heavily influenced with the stereo advancements in the recording industry which begged for a delicate immediacy from a voice in front of a microphone

Vocal Spectrum: Anna Netrebko as Adina* [top]
and Lady Macbeth** [bottom]. (Photos: Ken
Howard* & Marty Sohl**/Metropolitan Opera)

that didn't need to carry over a wave of 4,000 audience members in the opera house. Did all this saccharine give way to a more vanilla tone in the 1990s when voices seemed to be more precise and pointed than brilliantly sensuous in the likes of Sylvia McNair, Dawn Upshaw, Barbara Bonney, and Heidi Grant Murphy? This latter group of ladies was distinctly musical, possessed superb instruments, and sang musically. But something was lacking in the timbre of the sound that seemed to bloom in the previous generation. As opera crosses into its fourth century in existence, have interpreters of the soubrette roles become even more watered-down with a non-distinct sound lacking lushness and identity leaning more toward an early music style by sopranos like Danielle de Niese and Mojca Erdmann? Society today favors an individual who can "do it all" and this may lead to the demise of the specialized singing in soubrette repertoire. Take for instance superstar soprano Anna Netrebko who sang the role of Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'Amore at the Metropolitan Opera in January 2014 and then took on one of the heaviest soprano roles in opera,  Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth at the Bayerische Staatsoper in June 2014. This blurring of lines can produce dramatic reinterpretations of roles by bringing new colors, not to mention volume, to a character in opera and certainly harkens back to the old-school voices that could tackle multiple ranges of repertoire. Read more about soubrettes and listen to audio samples of 20 sopranos in soubrette repertoire after the jump.

Designing Opera Costumes In The Digital Age Of High-Definition

Lisette Oropesa, who sings the role of Nanetta, fits herself in riding boots. (Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times)

The New York Times visits the Metropolitan Opera costume department to expose all the difficulties in recreating period costumes that can sustain the scrutiny of a high-definition camera. Taking a peak at the latest cast and costumes from Robert Carsen's new production of Verdi's Falstaff, the newspaper features a wonderful gallery of photos along with the story. "High-definition cameras are only the latest challenge for members of the Met’s costume department. As it is, their work requires a combination of finely honed technical skills, a historian’s understanding of period costumes, and personalized attention to opera singers, their performance style and body hang-ups. At the same time, Met costumes have to be much more durable than regular clothes. Unlike couture fashion, these garments must last for many seasons — sometimes decades — and withstand rapid costume changes between scenes. In the past, that might have meant sturdier zippers and thicker hooks, but with cameras trained even on the backs of singers, the Met’s designers, drapers and seamstresses have had to become craftier." [Source]

Lisette Oropesa Loses Weight The Old Fashioned (Healthy) Way

Special thanks to Opera Chic for pointing out this great feature on soprano Lisette Oropesa's journey to a healthy lifestyle! Be sure to check out another story done last year about her running by clicking here.

Successful "Xerxes" Production Thrives at San Francisco Opera

Susan Graham (l) in the title role and Lisette Oropesa as Romilda in San Francisco (Photo: Cory Weaver)

"This seems to be San Francisco Opera’s season for premiering major operas of earlier centuries that it has heretofore overlooked. On the heels of its first mounting of Donizetti’s 1834 opera, Lucrezia Borgia, comes the first production of Handel’s 1738 opera Xerxes. Company General Manager David Gockley could not have assembled a finer cast, nor chosen a more consistently delightful production for an opera that SFO’s superb Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers considers one of Handel’s 'thorough masterpieces.' Director Michael Walling’s revival of Nicholas Hytner’s marvelous production, which won England’s Laurence Olivier Award in

David Daniels as Arsamenes (Photo: Cory Weaver)

1985 for 'Outstanding New Opera Production of the Year,' assigns Handel’s male castrato role of Xerxes to mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, and the female soprano role of Arsamenes (Xerxes’ brother) to countertenor David Daniels. It also brings to the fore the many camp elements of the convoluted plot, which seem right at home in David Fielding’s whimsical setting. The results seem ideal for Handel’s one and only operatic comedy....The cast and conducting are extraordinary. Graham, as gifted in Baroque coloratura as she is in Romantic lyricism, tosses off her many interpolated embellishments with the warm, seductive sound for which she is prized. Her instrument may not be ideally suited to Xerxes most furious outpourings — her smooth phrasing would ideally be more biting and brilliant — but her voice and artistic commitment sweep all before them. Daniels has an equally smooth, astoundingly fluent voice whose size is a fine match for Graham. As with many members of the cast, his embellishments bring out the craziness of the crazy libretto. Both stars invest their long-breathed, roller coaster lines with the surfeit of emotion essential to conveying their characters’ inner feelings." [Source]