Soprani who go contralto
rick
Kirsten Flagstad in Das Rheingold, '59 Solti recording
Helen Traubel in The Mikado, '60 Bell Telephone Hour (also an LP)
Pretty sure mezzo Monica Sinclair played Queen of Fairies in Iolanthe,
but I know from a local production that that part may be transposed
*to* mezzo.
Peggy Wood in '65 movie The Sound of Music goes contralto, but I read
she had a ghost singer.
Others?
Ancona21
Leonard? LT . . . . ?
SeattleJohn
Jessye Norman crossed over as Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and Brahms Alto
Rhapsody.I have an realy live Jocasta from early in her career that
contains the most booming low notes I ever heard from a diva. She
also sang the alto part in the Verdi Requiem in Missa Solemnis.People
who comment that she did not have a large voice never heard her low
notes. I heard her do a low D in Schubert's The Death of the Maiden
and is practically vibrated my seat like a cheap bed with a quarter
slot in a flop house:)
Rose Bampton sang soprano and contralto roles at various times in her
career.
Eileen Farrell sang arias from Carmen and Delilah in that 50s movie
about Marjore Lawrence ( she had a huge lower register when she wanted
to use it) Her best low note was actually in Blues in the Night where
she ended with a very powerful low F below middle C.
Rysenek and Rosalind Plowright both sang Klytemenstra late in their
careeers.
Eva Marton has a recording on Youtube singing Ombra Mai Fu.
wagnerfan
"rick" <robertja...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:01e1adb1-b445-4929...@l28g2000vba.googlegroups.com...
Fricka is not a contralto role - Wagner Fan
Richergar
records and live.
Records I think there are a lot. Callas ultimately did some French
arias which were pretty clearly mezzo on record, and of course
recorded Carmen the second time around - Beecham wanted her and not
Victoria, but she was too self-conscious about people saying she had
lost the top, or that was what she said. A number of sopranos have
sung Carmen, of course, and we will get to see, if not hear, another
one do it this coming year at the MET, unless we are lucky. I am sure
it will be fashionable.
Live, of course, Resnik made the switch as a general matter, and a
number of short sopranos have sung the Composer as a major part of
their career, including Seefreid, I think I recall.
Flagstad, of course, sang Dido in live performan before she recorded
it, and she was still singing some clearly soprano roles at that time.
Rosina is a tough one, because if you sing it in E it's more mezzo,
and in F more soprano, and lots of sopranos have sung it up in various
transopostions....Victoria also sang it (as she sang almost
everything) as written....it wasn't that she couldn't, but she had
very strong feelings about what the composer wrote....in her last
recitals she transposed some songs (and that she tended not even to do
often) when she was under the weather, but it was still a relatively
rare event for her.
Adalgisa is of course a soprano role (as is clearly, Giovanna in
Bolena, and lots of the 'mezzo' roles now were written for the seconda
donna - that's how they were identified in the score, and in practice
it meant a lighter, HIGHER, singer, but they are now sung by mezzos,
but more recently Adalgisa, if you mistakenly consider it a mezzo
role, has been sung by sopranos. I think in modern practice it started
in Bari when Grace took over Norma and Leila Cuberli (a wonderful
Texas singer I love, and who is not much remembered) took on Adalgisa.
Dimitrova sang Amneris at a Scala opening - don't ask me why.
I am not thinking very clearly this morning, but I think that some of
the Massenets and French romantic operas are a place to look for mezzo
roles sung by sopranos, because the roles tend to be written a bit
ambiguously anyway. Of course, Charlotte (Werther) is essayed by older
or tired sopranos sometimes (including Victoria and Regine and Magda -
it seems to be the French answer to La Voix Humaine, in terms of being
an 'old lady role' and it is an opera I detest. Someone very smart
once said to me that it (Voix Humaine) was the ultimate anti-woman
opera written by a real woman-hater (I won't use the real word he
used), and he was right, I think. I have often thought that to do it
in drag would be just what the opera deserved...Michael Aspinall could
have done so, and I bet if you mentioned it to Bejun Mehta......).
I am sure there are many more.
> Eva Marton has a recording on Youtube singing Ombra Mai Fu.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
mysterytenor
Margaret Harshaw seemed to go back and forth between soprano and mezzo
roles. Resnik started as a soprano and became a mezzo.
Lucine Amara, though she did spend her entire career as a soprano,
sang the old lady Madelon in Andrea Chenier, which is for a contralto,
in her last ever Met performance.
Bumbry and Verrett sang both soprano and mezzo roles, and even
Simionato and Cosstto, though primarily mezzos, and great mezzos, did
sing at least a couple of soprano roles. Simionato sang as a soprano
in Ugnotti at Scala in the part of Valentin, and Cossotto at least
recorded Lady Macbeth.
Richergar
she was still singing two decades later, Cossotto sang Ulrica).
LT
>
> > Kirsten Flagstad in Das Rheingold, '59 Solti recording
>
> > Helen Traubel in The Mikado, '60 Bell Telephone Hour (also an LP)
>
> > Pretty sure mezzo Monica Sinclair played Queen of Fairies in Iolanthe,
> > but I know from a local production that that part may be transposed
> > *to* mezzo.
>
> > Peggy Wood in '65 movie The Sound of Music goes contralto, but I read
> > she had a ghost singer.
She did, one whose dramatic sound was similar to that of Patricia
Neway, of the OBC.
>
> > Others?
>
> Margaret Harshaw seemed to go back and forth between soprano and mezzo
> roles. Resnik started as a soprano and became a mezzo.
>
> Lucine Amara, though she did spend her entire career as a soprano,
> sang the old lady Madelon in Andrea Chenier, which is for a contralto,
> in her last ever Met performance.
> Bumbry and Verrett sang both soprano and mezzo roles,
Of the two, IMO Bumbry was the more successful, ie, equally impressive
in each rep, especially Verdi's Leonoras.
LT
That selection seems to have been performed by nearly every vocal
type, hasn't it?
LT
> "rick" <robertjarmstr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
And Gottlob Frick(a) was no contralto, either!