Soprano
(It.).
A
term signifying in normal practice the highest musical range, used both in
instrumental and vocal music: thus, ‘soprano clef’, ‘soprano part’, ‘soprano
register’, ‘soprano saxophone’. In vocal music, where it is most common, the
word generally refers directly to the singer: with female voices, it is
frequently modified to describe the specific type of voice, such as ‘lyric
soprano’ or ‘dramatic soprano’; it is also used for a boy's treble voice (‘boy
soprano’) and in the 17th and 18th centuries was used for the adult male Castrato with a high range.
The
range of the soprano voice normally lies between c' and a'', but
can be extended at either end, particularly in solo writing. The word itself is
built on the root ‘sopra’ or ‘sovra’ (‘above’, ‘over’) and derives (through
such forms as ‘supremus’, ‘supranus’, ‘sovranus’ and ‘sopranus’) from the Latin
‘superius’, the commonest term for the top voice in 15th-century polyphony.
Pietro Aaron (Thoscanello de la musica, 1523) used it as the equivalent
of ‘canto’. Zarlino (Le istitutioni harmoniche, 1558, p.281) remarked
that the canto is ‘a voice called by some the soprano because of its supreme
position’, and used the two terms with almost equal frequency, writing the
canto mostly in the mezzo-soprano clef and the soprano mostly in the soprano
clef. Vicentino (L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica, 1555)
used only the word ‘soprano’ and almost exclusively the soprano clef,
reflecting the interest of the Ferrarese court (where he worked) in music for
female sopranos.
1. History to c1600.
2. 1600–1800.
3. 19th century.
4. 20th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OWEN JANDER, ELIZABETH FORBES, STANLEY
SADIE, J.B. STEANE/ELLEN T.
HARRIS (with GERALD WALDMAN)
Soprano
1. History to c1600.
In
the earliest Western polyphony, top vocal parts were written for male voices,
either high tenors or falsettists. Although the use of boys' voices in the
performance of polyphony is mentioned as early as the 9th-century Scolica
enchiriadis, no music was written before the early 16th century that
regularly carried top voices above d'' and would require either boys or
female sopranos. By the late 1520s, however, particularly at Florence, a motet
repertory came into existence that depended on an élite corps of boy sopranos
capable of reaching notes as high as g'', inaccessible to adult
falsettists. Moreover, in Florence during the ensuing decades music was
composed for secular festivities that specifically required female voices. The
music for the festivities attending the marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence,
in 1539 included some compositions in which two or even three parts ascend to f''
and are notated in the soprano and treble clefs.
Except
in convents, where women actively performed and composed (Kendrick, 1996),
women singers were excluded from participating in ecclesiastical music in the
early centuries of the Christian church, and only during the first half of the
16th century began to appear as regular participants in entertainments at
various north Italian courts. Among powerful and influential noble families
there were women who distinguished themselves as keenly talented and deeply
committed musicians, notably Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua
(1474–1539), avid patron of the arts and of music in particular, instrument
collector, lutenist, keyboard player and singer. Even in Isabella's generation,
however, secular music (notably the frottola repertory) was published in
versions suited for all-male ensembles. Only towards the middle of the century
did composers begin to publish a repertory – that of the madrigal – that called
for the newly cherished sound of the female voice (e.g. Cipriano de Rore's
first and second books of madrigals, 1542 and 1544, which clearly require a
soprano for the top line, and Luca Marenzio's second book of five-part
madrigals, 1581, which often requires two sopranos).
The
late 16th century saw the beginning of the cult of the soprano diva. At the
Ferrara court the sopranos Lucrezia Bendidio, Laura Peverara and Tarquinia
Molza were praised by the poet Torquato Tasso in over 100 rime d'amore;
large numbers of madrigals were dedicated to Peverara (Newcomb, 1975), and
Molza is probably the earliest singer for whom there exists a published
biography (D. Vandelli: Opuscoli inediti di Tarquinia Molza modenese,
Bergamo, 1750). Similarly admired was Vittoria Archilei, star of the Florentine
intermedi of 1589; she apparently sang the title role in Peri's Euridice
(1600, Florence) and was praised by Peri as ‘the Euterpe of our age’. It was
with the expressive power of Caterina Martinelli in mind that Monteverdi
composed the lament for Arianna (1608, Mantua), but as she died before
the first performance the virtuosa Virginia Andreini [née Ramponi] performed
the role at short notice and distinguished herself; Federico Follino reported
how after the first performance ‘there was not a woman who did not shed tears’
(A. Solerti: Gli albori del melodramma, 1904, ii, 145).
Soprano
2. 1600–1800.
(i) Italy.
Throughout
the 17th century, most female roles in opera were written in the soprano range,
the exception being the occasional character part (older women, nurses and the
like, which were sometimes written for contraltos, sometimes for male tenors or
even basses; see Travesty); however, the term ‘soprano’ was most
often applied to the high castrato singer (see Primo
uomo and Prima
donna) who
might take the leading male role or, in papal states where women were still not
permitted to perform publicly, the leading female role. The female roles of
Bradamante and Angelica in the first performance (1642, Rome) of Luigi Rossi's Il
palazzo incantato were both taken by castratos, Marc'Antonio Pasqualini and
Loreto Vittori. Leading female sopranos included Anna Renzi, who created
Octavia in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643, Venice) and
about whom a book of laudatory poems was published (Le glorie della signora
Anna Renzi, 1644), and Giulia Masotti, active in Rome in the 1660s and
later in Vienna, praised by the contemporary tenor Nicola Coresi as ‘the most
superb woman in the world’. In the 17th century, solo parts for both female
sopranos and soprano castratos were most usually written in the range c'
to g''; Carissimi's cantata Apritevi inferni (before 1663)
provides one of the earliest instances of a soprano being called on to sing the
note c'''.
Female
sopranos were also sometimes cast as men. The soprano Margherita Durastanti
specialized in male roles; she created the title role of Handel's Radamisto
(1720, London) but was replaced in the first revival by the castrato Senesino,
when she moved to the role of Radamisto's wife. This interchangeability of
sopranos and castratos applied to female as well as male roles. After singing
Mary Magdalene in the première of Handel's La Resurrezione (1708, Rome),
Durastanti, because of the continuing papal ban in Rome on public singing by
women, was replaced by a castrato. Two of the most important sopranos of this
period were Francesca Cuzzoni (who created, among her many Handelian parts,
Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare, 1724, and Rodelinda, 1725) and Faustina
Bordoni; the two appeared on stage together in operas at the Royal Academy of
Music from 1726 to 1728. Their intense competition, fuelled by partisan fans
and a spate of broadsides in favour of one or the other, erupted into an
onstage fight in Bononcini's Astianatte (1727). Their vocal styles were
complementary: Cuzzoni had a range of c' to c''' and excelled in
slow, legato arias, while Bordoni's speciality was rapid passage-work and she
had a somewhat lower range. Of Handel's later Italian sopranos the most
important was Anna Strada del Pò, whose roles included Ginevra (Ariodante)
and Alcina.
(ii) France, Germany and England.
The
use of castratos (soprano or contralto) in female roles was not widely adopted
outside the Italian papal states, even in Catholic cities. Le Cerf de la
Viéville wrote (Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique
française, 1704–6) that ‘a third of the leading roles in the Operas of
Lully are those of ordinary tenors; our women are always women’. Castratos were
not used in French opera but they did appear in Italian opera productions: in
Cavalli's Xerse (1660, Paris) the female role of Amastre was taken by
the castrato Francesco Maria Melani. In France, ‘soprano’ was applied only to
Italian singers (male or female) well into the 18th century; Dessus was preferred as late as the
first edition of Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829). The most famous
soprano (or dessus) of Lully's era was Marie Le Rochois, who created six
of Lully's leading female roles and was noted for her powerful acting and fine
declamation.
In
Rameau's operas the leading soprano was Marie Fel, who was noted by Grimm (Le
petit prophète de Boehmischbroda, 1753) for her ‘light and brilliant voice,
its tone ringing like silver, as pure as gold from the furnace’. She sang at
the Académie Royale de Musique in over 100 roles, 1734–57, creating nine for
Rameau. Her successor and pupil Sophie Arnould created Iphigénie in Gluck's Iphigénie
en Aulide (1774) and in the same year sang in the première of his Orphée;
the more powerful Rosalie Levasseur took the principal soprano roles in Alceste
(1776), Armide (1777) and Iphigénie en Tauride (1779).
Italian
singers dominated the stage in German-speaking countries, especially at Dresden
and Vienna. In sacred music for the Lutheran service, including cantatas,
passions, masses and motets, the soprano solos as well as the choral parts were
intended for boys; Bach's cantata Jauchzet Gott may be his only work for
soprano not intended for a boy – its virtuoso demands and its range (up to c''')
suggest that it may have been intended for a Dresden opera singer, a castrato
or a female soprano (see R. Marshall, ‘Bach the Progressive’, MQ, lxii,
1976, pp.313–57).
In
Anglican service music, the choral treble parts by Blow, Purcell and Handel
were written for boys, the solo parts for boys or countertenors. In the
theatre, after the Restoration, a succession of singing actresses took the
leading female (and sometimes travesty) roles. First was Anne Bracegirdle,
around 1700, who probably sang Purcell's Dido when the opera was given in a
production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure in 1700 and was
particularly known for her performances of John Eccles's songs; in the next
generation, Kitty Clive dominated the stage, excelling in ballad opera, singing
in works by Arne (such as Alfred and Comus) and creating Dalila
in Handel's Samson (1743); and following Clive was Cecilia Young, who
sang much of the music of her husband Thomas Arne, was a soloist at Vauxhall
Pleasure Gardens and Drury Lane Theatre and was one of the few English singers
to appear in Handel's operas (Ariodante, 1735; Alcina, 1735) as
well as his oratorios (Saul, 1739).
(iii) Mozart's sopranos.
When
an operatic singer achieved fame in the first half of the 18th century it was
usually because of an ability to perform elaborately difficult music with great
technical precision. The most skilful soprano was accorded the title of ‘prima
donna’ and to her were assigned the greatest number of arias in an opera and
the most showy, difficult music. In this period a'' was usually the top
note in music for the soprano and little merit was attached to any ability to
sing higher. Such ability, according to Burney, ‘seems a trick which persons
gifted with a fine voice of common compass may learn’, but ‘such cork-cutting
notes … are unworthy of a great singer’ (History, iv, 1789, p.481). The
Mozarts, father and son, did however admire Lucrezia Aguiari, whose compass,
they noted, extended from g to c''''. Anna De Amicis, Gluck's
first Alcestis, also earned the Mozarts’ esteem for her agility and her range
in the role of Junia (Lucio Silla, 1772).
During
the later 18th century, composers came not only to appreciate the extended
upper range but also to make dramatic distinctions among female dramatic roles
in the soprano range in terms of compass, technical demands and character.
Mozart, above all, created soprano roles of notable variety: bravura roles in
the grand tradition often with an element of parody (Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira
and Donna Anna), serious roles of a pathetic character without bravura display
(Pamina) and primary roles of a soubrette character (Susanna, Zerlina).
Although in bravura roles Mozart usually demanded a'' or b
'' as the highest
note, in the unusually brilliant role of the Queen of Night (written for Josepha
Hofer, his sister-in-law), the voice is carried as high as f''''.
(Mozart's better known sister-in-law, Aloysia Lange, also had a brilliant and
strong top register). These distinctions were, by and large, more for dramatic
reasons than a result of vocal categorization; for example, Luisa Laschi
created the role of Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and also
sang Zerlina in the 1788 Don Giovanni, roles that now would be
considered impossible for one singer. However, when Adriana Ferraresi del Bene,
who created Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, sang Susanna in the 1789
revival of Figaro, Mozart carefully deleted parts of the original role
and composed two new, more showy arias especially for her.
Mozart
composed the brilliant sacred motet Exsultate, jubilate (1773) for
Venanzio Rauzzini, a soprano castrato also renowned for his own compositions;
Rauzzini had just sung the Cecilius in the première of Mozart's Lucio Silla.
Mozart also wrote for soprano castratos in his later serious operas, including Idomeneo
(1781) and La clemenza di Tito (1791). Of the female sopranos for whom
Mozart wrote in his mature operas, probably the most notable were Nancy
Storace, the English soprano who created Susanna (1786) and many other roles in
Viennese opere buffe of the time, and Caterina Cavalieri, Konstanze in Die
Entführung (1782) and Donna Elvira in the Viennese première of Don
Giovanni (1788), an Austrian who sang primarily in German opera and
oratorio (including Mozart's Davidde penitente, 1785).
Soprano
3. 19th century.
In
the 19th century, a consolidated international repertory began to develop.
Singers were increasingly called upon to sing music that had not been written
for them, and this new diversity of styles led to the categorization of the
soprano (and indeed the other voices too) into types: among them the coloratura
soprano (or in France the ‘soprano à roulades’), the lyric soprano, the two
characteristic French voices known as the ‘Falcon’ and the ‘Dugazon’ (named
after particular singers), the Italian, more dramatic spinto and lirico
spinto, and the dramatic or heroic soprano, primarily a German type of
voice.
In
Italy, the lyric coloratura was central to the works of Rossini, Bellini and
Donizetti. The voice type was first personified by the Spanish soprano Isabella
Colbran, and then by a remarkable pair of sopranos, Giuditta Pasta and Giulia
Grisi. Colbran created leading roles in ten of Rossini's serious operas,
1815–23 (the two were married in 1822), including Elisabetta, regina
d'Inghilterra, Otello, Mosè in Egitto, La donna del lago,
Maometto II and Semiramide. Her flexible and powerful voice was
said to extend from g to e'''. Pasta created the title role,
Amina, in La sonnambula (1831); Bellini also wrote the more dramatic
title roles of Norma (1831) and Beatrice di Tenda (1833) for this
singer's magnificently vibrant voice, which extended from a to e'''.
Another opera composed around Pasta's talents was Donizetti's Anna Bolena
(1830), his first opera to achieve wide international acceptance, quickly
reaching London and Paris with Pasta in the title role. Grisi created Adalgisa
in Norma at its première; later she was majestic as Norma herself. It
was also for Grisi that Bellini composed Elvira in I puritani (1835);
although less dramatic in character than the roles for Pasta, Elvira
nonetheless embodies stylistic elements of a typical Bellini soprano heroine,
combining vocal agility with long-breathed melodic lines. In operas by
Donizetti, Grisi created the tragic role of Elena in Marino Faliero
(1835) and the comic role of Norina in Don Pasquale (1843).
In
Germany, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient and Henriette Sontag typified an
increasingly common contrast in vocal types. Sontag, like Pasta and Grisi,
specialized in the coloratura roles of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. She also
created the title role in Weber's Euryanthe, performed Agathe in his Der
Freischütz and sang with great success in the premières of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony and Missa solemnis (both 1824). Berlioz especially
appreciated her performance of Susanna in Figaro. Her range was from a
to e''' and she was highly praised for her technical abilities. However,
J.E. Cox said of her London performances in 1828: ‘Execution is with her
everything, expression is nothing’. Schröder-Devrient offered a voice of a
different type. She studied the role of Leonore in Fidelio – originally
sung by Anna Milder, later Milder-Hauptmann, much admired for her power and
intensity – with Beethoven and performed it to great acclaim from the composer
and others. It was her performance that so inspired Wagner, who observed
approvingly that she sang ‘more with the soul than with the voice’ (as opposed
to the vocal skill required in bel canto), and she created the Wagner
roles of Adriano (Rienzi, 1842, a trouser role), Senta (Der fliegende
Holländer, 1843) and Venus (Tannhäuser, 1845). Weber preferred her
interpretation of Agathe to all others. Henry Chorley (Modern German Music,
London, 1854) described her voice as: ‘a strong soprano – not perfect in
quality … but with an inherent expressiveness of tone, which made it more
attractive on the stage than a more faultless organ’. Schröder-Devrient also
excelled in lieder, and it was she who persuaded Goethe of the merits of Schubert's
Erlkönig.
In
France, the coloratura demands of the early 19th century were met in the voice
of Laure Cinti-Damoreau (1801–63), the leading soprano at the Opéra. The
soprano roles in Rossini's operas written or adapted for Paris (1826–9) were
created for her, as were Elvire in Auber's La muette de Portici (1828)
and Isabelle in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831), both extremely
florid. From 1836 to 1841 she appeared at the Opéra-Comique in a succession of
roles by Auber. Cornélie Falcon (1814–97) made her debut at the Opéra in 1832
as Alice, the true heroine of Robert le diable; although her career was
brief she left an indelible mark on French opera, lending her name to the type
of lyrico-dramatic soprano personified by Alice as well as by Rachel in Halévy's
La Juive (1835) and Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
(1836), two roles written expressly for her. Falcon's emotional and dramatic
power opened up new compositional avenues in France, much as Schröder-Devrient
did in Germany, and it was her success at the Opéra that drove Cinti-Damoreau
to the Opéra-Comique. It was in operetta that the lyric soprano and lyric
coloratura continued to be favoured, as in works by Offenbach, Johann Strauss,
Suppé and Sullivan.
A
heavier lyrico-dramatic soprano voice combined with dazzling coloratura was
also cultivated in the mid-century. In Verdi's first major success, Nabucco
(1842), the role of Abigaille, the villainous female protagonist, requires a
wide compass and great violence of emotion expressed through torrents of
coloratura. The role was created by Giuseppina Strepponi. Other sopranos with
voices powerful enough, especially in the middle register, to penetrate Verdi's
orchestration and yet flexible enough to cope with fioriture include
Sophie Loewe, the first Elvira (Ernani, 1844) and Odabella (Attila,
1846), Erminia Frezzolini, the first Giselda (I Lombardi, 1843) and Joan
of Arc (Giovanna d'Arco, 1845), and Marianna Barbieri-Nini, the first
Lucrezia Contarini (I due Foscari, 1844), Lady Macbeth (1847) and Gulnara
(Il corsaro, 1848). In Paris, Caroline Carvalho (née Marie Miolan)
created the role of Marguerite in Gounod's Faust (1859), in which her
smooth, light lyric voice and excellent coloratura were well displayed. Adelina
Patti was also a fine Marguerite and excelled as Amina in La sonnambula
and as Donizetti's Lucia. She made her La Scala début in 1877 as Violetta in La
traviata, a role demanding power as well as an extended upper compass (her
voice rose easily to f''') and flexibility. That she also sang the title
role of Verdi's Aida and Leonora in Il trovatore indicates again
how singers in earlier periods sang a greater variety of roles than is normal
today.
The
increased size of concert halls and opera houses and the heavier orchestration
of the mid-19th century led to a demand for greater volume from singers. For
the Wagner repertory, the demand for larger tone was already great even at the
Bayreuth Festspielhaus, with its hooded orchestra pit; as Wagner's music dramas
came to be performed in other theatres not so designed, the challenge to the
soprano voice was even more formidable. Not surprisingly, as maximum power
became the priority less emphasis was placed on coloratura singing and in the
second half of the century there were many sopranos associated chiefly with
dramatic roles. The Danish singer Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, the first
Isolde (1865), Sophie Stehle, the first Fricka (Das Rheingold, 1869) and
first Brünnhilde (Die Walküre, 1870) and a conspicuously successful
Senta, and Therese Vogl, creator of Sieglinde (1870), a famous Isolde and the
first London Brünnhilde, were among the first generation. Amalie Materna sang
Brünnhilde in the first Ring cycle at Bayreuth (1876) and Kundry in the
première of Parsifal (1882) and became the first Metropolitan
Brünnhilde; she also created Goldmark's Queen of Sheba (1875). Lilli Lehmann,
who had begun her career in such florid roles as Philine (Mignon) and
Violetta, became a fine Isolde and Brünnhilde while continuing to sing Donna
Anna and Norma.
The
19th-century love of the dramatic soprano ultimately affected even Italian
opera. Verdi, in his later works, produced several roles in which the essence
of virtuosity was less a matter of agility than of prodigious tone control.
Teresa Stolz, a Bohemian soprano described as ‘vigorous, flexible, dramatic,
limpid, brilliant’, was the ideal interpreter of Verdi's later roles. In 1867
in Italy she created Elisabeth de Valois (Don Carlos) and, in 1872,
Aida. The rise of verismo in the next generation sustained the demand
for sopranos with the generous voices required to surmount the luxuriant
orchestration of Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano and Puccini, and also with the
dramatic force and conviction that those composers demanded. Gemma Bellincioni
sang the first Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana (1890) and
created the title role in Giordano's Fedora (1898); she was also the
first to sing Strauss's Salome in Italy (1906) and went on to sing the role
over 100 times. Her greatest rival was the French soprano Emma Calvé, who
triumphed particularly in the role of Santuzza. Mascagni composed Suzel in L'amico
Fritz (1891) for Calvé and Massenet wrote Anita in La Navarraise
(1894) and Fanny in Sapho (1897) for her. Massenet composed the title
roles of Esclarmonde (1889) and Thaïs for the American soprano
Sybil Sanderson.
Soprano
4. 20th century.
A
major development in the 20th century, accelerating in the second half, was the
lessening of national differences in singing style. Early recordings clearly
illustrate such differences, for example the richness of the chest register
favoured by the Italian school but not the French. Ironically, the recording
industry probably played a significant role in the reduction of such
differences. National or geographical categorization is therefore less useful,
and vocal typing, although still applicable to individuals, does not relate in
any consistent fashion to the work of 20th-century composers as it did in the
19th century. Rather, singers are identified primarily by their repertory: late
19th century, bel canto, early music, modern music or popular styles
including music theatre.
(i) Dramatic sopranos.
The
type of late 19th-century soprano comfortable in the Wagnerian and verismo
repertory continued into the 20th with such singers as the Czech soprano Emmy
Destinn, the first Covent Garden Tatyana and Butterfly. Destinn also sang
Minnie in the première of La fanciulla del West (1910) at the
Metropolitan and was the first Salome at Berlin and Paris. Other favourite
Strauss singers included Lotte Lehmann, who created the Composer, the Dyer's
Wife and Christine (Intermezzo, 1924) and was also a renowned
Marschallin; Elisabeth Schumann, a fine Mozart singer and an ideal Sophie;
Elisabeth Rethberg, the first Egyptian Helen (1928), who also excelled in
Italian roles, particularly Aida and Desdemona; and Viorica Ursuleac, creator
of Arabella (1933 and the Countess (Capriccio, 1942). The supreme
interpreters of Strauss after World War II were Sena Jurinac, Lisa Della Casa
and especially Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, whose command of tone and line coupled
with extraordinary musicianship won her almost unalloyed praise. Early
20th-century Wagnerian sopranos included Olive Fremstad, the Swedish-American
singer whose superb Sieglinde, Brünnhilde and Isolde dominated the Metropolitan
in the years 1902–14; Frida Leider, her successor; and especially Kirsten
Flagstad, the Norwegian soprano whose golden-toned, seamless voice was of
unsurpassable richness and unprecedented volume. Birgit Nilsson, in the same
Nordic tradition, was her natural successor: her penetrating, secure and
brilliant-toned voice was well suited to Donna Anna, Tosca, Salome, Electra and
Turandot as well as Isolde, Brünnhilde and other Wagner roles. After 1965 the
Welsh soprano Gwyneth Jones succeeded in a similar repertory, which has been
inherited by the English soprano Jane Eaglen.
In
Verdi opera, the Yugoslav soprano Zinka Milanov had few equals in the mid-20th
century; she sang a wide repertory but specialized in Verdi and Puccini at the
Metropolitan from 1937 to 1966. A generation later, Maria Callas, with her
unique dramatic power and musical command, was the dominant figure, but Renata
Tebaldi, Victoria de Los Angeles and Leontyne Price were also heard to great
advantage in Verdi. A favourite role of Tebaldi's was Cilea's Adriana
Lecouvreur, and she also excelled in Puccini; in addition to her Desdemona, Los
Angeles was particularly admired for her Puccini and Massenet, but also sang
Eva (Tannhäuser) and Elsa (Lohengrin) as well as Weber's Agathe;
Price was involved in 20th-century opera, being chosen by Virgil Thomson for a
Broadway revival of Four Saints in Three Acts (1952), singing Bess in a
world tour of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and creating Cleopatra in
Barber's Antony and Cleopatra at the opening of the new Metropolitan
(1966).
The
range of dramatic soprano and spinto repertory was later covered by a
trio of sopranos born in the 1930s: Hildegard Behrens, a dramatic soprano, in
Strauss and Wagner; Renata Scotto, a lirico spinto, in Puccini
especially, but also Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi; and Mirella Freni, a lyric
soprano who moved into the heavier repertory of Puccini and Verdi. Kiri te
Kanawa, who began her career in Mozart and moved on to heavier roles, was a
creamy-voiced Countess Almaviva and Elvira, who also sang Desdemona, Amelia (Simon
Boccanegra), Arabella and the Countess (Capriccio). Jessye Norman,
whose repertory ranges from Rameau's Phaedra (Hippolyte et Aricie) and
Gluck's Alcestis to Wagner's Elisabeth and Strauss's Ariadne, combined a
powerful, mezzo-tinted voice with a noble stage presence.
(ii) Lyric sopranos.
Lyric
sopranos claim a largely different repertory, ranging from Mozart to Bizet's
Micaëla and to such lyric roles in Strauss as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier.
The French repertory, both in opera and song, has been particularly well served
by these sopranos. On 10 April 1900 a young Scottish soprano, Mary Garden, yet
to make her official début at the Opéra-Comique, caused a sensation when she
took over the title role of Charpentier's Louise in the middle of a
performance. Two years later, on Debussy's insistence, she became the first
Mélisande. Massenet, who admired Garden as Manon, wrote the title role of Chérubin
for her (1905). The great British lyric soprano, Maggie Teyte, was also most
admired for her French roles, especially Mélisande, and for her singing of
French song.
By
the early years of the century the traditional skills in florid singing had
largely fallen out of favour with ‘serious’ musicians, but coloratura sopranos
still retained a certain popular following: witness the acclaim granted to
singers such as Luisa Tetrazzini, Amelita Galli-Curci or Nellie Melba: Norma
survived in the repertory as long as a soprano such as Rosa Ponselle was
available for the title role, but Lucia di Lammermoor became the
property of coloratura sopranos with light voices such as Toti dal Monte and
Lily Pons. The repertory of the lyric coloratura differed little from the lyric
soprano except for the addition of such favourite virtuoso roles as Mozart's
Queen of Night and Strauss's Zerbinetta. Erna Berger was especially admired for
just these roles in the 1930s and 40s, as was her prize pupil and successor,
Rita Streich, in the 1950s and 60s. The Austrian soprano Sena Jurinac and the
Swedish singer Elisabeth Söderström, both born in the 1920s, excelled equally
in lieder and stage roles. Jurinac's repertory emphasized Mozart operas and
Strauss lieder; Södeström, in contrast, made a speciality of the more modern
operatic repertory of Strauss, Janácek and Britten, and of the 19th-century
lieder of Schubert and Rachmaninoff. An astonishing generation of lyric and
lyric coloratura sopranos born between 1938 and 1940 claimed the stage in the
years following: Elly Ameling, one of the most admired lieder singers of the
late 20th century; Ileana Cotrubas, especially admired for her Mozart
characterizations; Helen Donath, who shone in oratorio and lieder; Edith
Mathis, who sang Mozart, Strauss and oratorio; Benita Valente, who displayed
her superb musicianship and diction in operas by Handel and Mozart, as well as
in oratorio and lieder; Arleen Augér, greatly admired for her noble singing of
Mozart and Handel; Lucia Popp, a vivacious singer of Mozart, also admired in
the high-lying soprano solos of Orff's Carmina Burana; and Edda Moser,
known especially for her Queen of Night. In the same tradition is Edita
Gruberová, who has combined the lyric coloratura roles of Queen of Night and Zerbinetta
with the more dramatic parts of Donna Anna, Lucia and Violetta, and Kathleen
Battle, who has excelled in the light coloratura and lyric repertory from the
Baroque to the 20th century; while Renée Fleming's richness and brilliance of
tone establish her in the tradition of dramatic lyric sopranos.
(iii) Revivals.
The bel
canto revival, and with it the revival of a more dramatic coloratura and
the reinstatement of Bellini as a serious composer, can be dated to 1949, when
Maria Callas sang Elvira (I puritani) between series of performances as
Brünnhilde (Die Walküre) and alternated Norma with Turandot. After Joan
Sutherland, who had sung Agathe, Desdemona and Eva and created Jenifer in
Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage (1955), earned a spectacular
success in Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti's rehabilitation was also on
the way, a process continued by Callas and by Montserrat Caballé, whose early
repertory included Elsa, Elisabeth, Eva and Salome. These three sopranos, all
with voices of dramatic weight as well as great flexibility, revived many other
long-neglected bel canto operas. The revival continued with
lighter-voiced Beverly Sills, whose intelligent musicianship and dramatic
ability made her especially prized for her Lucia, the three Tudor Queens
(especially Queen Elizabeth I in Roberto Devereux) and French repertory.
June Anderson has won renown in similar roles.
Both
Sutherland and Sills were important in the 1960s revival of Handel's operas,
but in later years this and earlier repertory stretching back to the Middle
Ages was claimed by musicians of the early music movement. Vocal production
before the end of the 18th century involved the production of a lighter tone
with little or no vibrato, a clear distinction between head and chest registers
and, for much repertory, great flexibility. Judith Nelson was among the first
true professionals specializing in this type of tone production and became
particularly known for her interpretations of 17th-century opera. Emma Kirkby
became a leading exponent of Renaissance and Baroque music in the 1970s, noted
for her purity and sweetness of tone, without vibrato, and unaffected style;
her performances and recordings include works by Dowland, Monteverdi, Schütz,
Purcell, Handel and Mozart. A 1985 recording of Handel's Athalia brought
together the very different voices of Kirkby and Sutherland as Josabeth and
Athalia, respectively, to striking dramatic effect. In Germany, Barbara Schlick
was especially admired for her light and stylish singing in Bach and other
Baroque repertory.
(iv) 20th-century music.
A
light, flexible voice with little vibrato was also cultivated for the
performance of 20th-century music, where emphasis is placed less on volume than
on the precise focus of pitch, which for most singers is best achieved when the
tone is unforced. The relationship between these styles of performance is
sometimes clear in the repertory of singers. Nelson, for example, although
specializing in early music, also gave the premières of many British and
American works. Similarly, Cathy Berberian, best known for her remarkable
performances of works by Stravinsky, Henze, Cage, and especially Berio (her
husband, 1950–66), also performed 17th-century opera, and Bethany Beardslee,
who gave premières of works by Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky, Krenek and
Babbitt, was a principal singer of medieval and Renaissance repertory with the
New York Pro Musica. Heather Harper, one of the most musical and versatile of
postwar sopranos, also combined early and modern music, extending her repertory
from Monteverdi and Bach through standard classical and Romantic roles to the
20th-century ones in which she specialized; she sang the Woman in the British
stage première of Erwartung, created the role of Mrs Coyle (Owen
Wingrave) on television and sang in the early performances of Britten's War
Requiem. Evelyn Lear created several roles, including Lavinia in Levy's Mourning
becomes Electra (1967), Arkadina in Pasatieri's The Seagull (1974)
and Ranyevskaya in Kelterborn's Kirschgarten (1984); her repertory
ranged from Monteverdi's Poppea and Handel's Cleopatra to Marie (Wozzeck)
and Lulu. Lulu in the three-act version was first sung by Teresa
Stratas, whose repertory includes works by Menotti and who sang in the
premières of Peggy Glanville-Hicks's Nausicaa (1960) and Falla's Atlántida
(1962).
Sopranos
who have specialized in performing 20th-century music include Joan Cross, for
whom Britten wrote the roles of Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes, 1945), the
Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia (1946), Lady Billows (Albert
Herring, 1947) and Queen Elizabeth I (Gloriana, 1953). Poulenc wrote
Thérèse in Les mamelles de Tirésias (1947), Blanche in Dialogues des
Carmélites (1957) and Elle in La voix humaine (1959) for Denise
Duval. Josephine Barstow, whose voice defies categorization but is specially
effective in 20th-century music, created Denise in Tippett's The Knot Garden
(1970) and Gayle in his The Ice Break (1977), and became an ideal
exponent of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth. The American soprano Phyllis
Bryn-Julson has specialized in particularly difficult orchestral song repertory
and was especially valued for her clarity of tone and excellent intonation by
such composers as Boulez, Crumb, Ligeti and Foss.
Operetta
and musical theatre in the 20th century also had their share of remarkable
sopranos, beginning with Jeanette MacDonald, famous for her performances in
works by Rudolf Friml, such as Rose-Marie (1924), and Sigmund Romberg.
Irene Dunne and Helen Morgan were both associated with the music of Jerome Kern
and especially Show Boat (1927), and Elisabeth Welch was a particularly
fine interpreter of Cole Porter. The Broadway sopranos Mary Martin, Julie
Andrews and Barbara Cook were all classically trained singers: Martin's roles
included Peter Pan and Nellie Forbush (South Pacific), Andrews (widely
admired for her central role in the film The Sound of Music) played
Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady) and Guinevere (Camelot), and Cook
created the coloratura role of Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide.
Although sopranos associated with popular music rarely perform classical music,
one exception has been Marni Nixon, who appeared in The Sound of Music
and sang for Audrey Hepburn in the film of My Fair Lady; she has also
performed widely in opera as a lyric coloratura in such roles as Zerbinetta and
Konstanze and is particularly acclaimed for her musical, extremely accurate
interpretations of such 20th-century composers as Webern, Stravinsky and
Hindemith.
Soprano
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