Love you and your dedication ❤️

‘Who can sing the operas I do?’ (1957). Give her two years and the answer is Maria Callas.

I saw angel blue in London and her voice is amazing although it's true that her low notes do not carry that well.

I agree with almost everything in the video except the correlation between loss of popularity of opera and the shift from Italian school. I would wager a guess that global turmoil and WW1 as well as movies coming into the picture played a huge role. Movies especially did help expose large audiences to new music styles (you can even see opera bump up a little as the movie "A Night at the Opera" came out in 1935). I would say opera truly started to loose relevance in the 70s.

Incredible video!!! Although I disagree, I think she is the greatest over her era in what she did ! Can not recreat her like you can not recreate Freddie

Callas and Tebaldi should never have been compared. I think this was the kind of thing the media loves to encourage. Why? To sell newspapers of course! (To the the youngest generation: newspapers were an ancient news reporting medium consisting of cheap paper called "newprint.")

But also she has a Greek spirit!

Thanks for your efforts! "Love, not willpower"

I can't necessarily say that I always agree with the "old" way of singing. I sometimes find the low-vibrato voices shrill.

One of my favorite ear candies of Callas is Una voce poco fa…goosebumps!

So disrespectful! Couldn't the crowd take a moment, be quiet and enjoy the gentle caressing of their ears by an angelic voice?

This is something I really need to work on as well as breath control

Well, to be fair, that O Don Fatale is being sung literally an entire minor 3rd down. High note is G instead of a big B flat.

My wife is an opera singer. I can hear her upstairs training her voce now. Old school. She is preparing a couple of arias for a recital. The problem is simple: the old maestros, Italian technique, are gone. Today opera singers sing opera with Broadway techniques and pop techniques. It not only sounds ugly but it is also dangerous for the voice. My wife had the great luck to train her voice with Cuban Baritone and Maestro Jorge Gavira, who had also learned to sing in Italy with the great masters at that time of the Old Italian School and I remember comparing my wife's lessons with recordings from Julliard's and laughing at the studio. After singing leading roles all over the world, my wife had to stop singing because she had nodules in her voice (American technique). Gavira had to rebuilt her voice and technique with private lessons basically from scratch. He completely prohibited her from signing a single note until he said that she was ready, not even in the shower! "If I realize that you have been singing, I will stop teaching you!". He was so strict as it should be. It took 2 years until she could do her first recital again. He used to say" voice is like a Baccara crystal cup, you break it, and repair it with crazy glue and it will never sound the same again".

This was a lovely breakdown. Lots to think about. I recall an interview with David Gilmour, guitarist of Pink Floyd, in which he said he tries to make his guitar sound like an opera singer's voice. He railed against excessive vibrato (it is very easy on an electric guitar), and made an observation I've always liked. Vibrato sounds best when it starts with a pure tone, then adds colour in a controlled way. Hit the note, hold it, then give it a delicate shake that works with the rest of the music. In terms of brightness, it's a matter of taste, but it can also be a matter of venue. I once directed music for a play whose venue was to be a theatre with something in the range of 1000 seats, much bigger than our group was used to. After a rehearsal at the venue, our lighting guy mentioned that he couldn't really hear the words from the back. I gave it some thought and realized that it wasn't an issue with volume, but that many of my (rather young) singers were doing that thing you're first taught: making a round "o" with low jaw to get a nice, dark sound. Very admirable, good technique, approving nods from music teachers, sounded great in the small practice rooms. But for whatever reason, it translated poorly in that hall. So I had them try the "wrong" thing, look up and really smile while they sang. The idea was to brighten up the tone... there was almost a mutiny!... but in terms of clarity, it worked! We got rid of the exaggerated posture before performance, but kept the brightness, and I think the show was much better for it.

Leonard Warren: "The lightness and suppleness of a hippo on a trampoline".

Thats exactly what happened to me. I don't enjoy singing any more.

Someone cited Manuel Garcia! *Beverly Sills' Musical "Geneaology"* *Manuel Garcia I* taught his three children, Maria Malibran, Pauline Viardot, and *Manuel Garcia II.* *Manuel Garcia II* invented the Laryngoscope; he authored books of vocal exercises, and taught *Mathilde Marchesi, née Graumann,* who worked as his assistant in vocal pedegogy. *Mathilde Marchesi* taught Emma Calvé, Emma Eames, Dame Nellie Melba, and *Estelle Liebling.* *Estelle Liebling* taught, among many others, *Beverly Sills.* For Beverly Sills' entire career, Estelle Liebling was Beverly Sills' only teacher, from the time Ms Sills was 7 years old until Ms Liebling passed away in 1970. AN UNBROKEN CHAIN FROM THE TRUE GOLDEN AGE OF BEL CANTO!

Thank You for giving reality and truth a voice!

The sad thing about Maria Callas' brilliant, unique voice was the heavy wobble on her high notes. For me, it ruined most of her performances. It wasn't a vibrato - it was an obvious tremolo.

Thanks for this lovely video! I would love a video on Gigli.

Have you heard this? It's a pretty great lesson in trilling. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mt-qo7l6yrfcm4E.html

what you said discussed by Pavarotti Sutherland and Horne kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o9FgabWnrZ-afok.html&ab_channel=SueAnnNivens

Amen and amen. It’s what I‘ve been teaching for years. Sacrificing mass for brightness has been a terrible trend.

Well you're not really the last student! Lol. Go to italy?

The moden and historic examples are nor comparable because of a different recording technology

sorry but the version of Huber Eisdell is totally out of rhythm... rubato is a concept that comes at least a century later and did not exists in 18th century...

The old technique actually sounds more relaxed and less complex than modern opera. Listening to singers today I use to feel hopeless bc it sounded like a lot to accomplish

Looks?

The most horrific of them all are shown first to the ghost. I feel for him.

Kaufman? OMG! He is horrendous. He drools all over the stage when he sings. He's opening his mouth wide but no the back of his throat there is no squillo, no overtone.

Please suggest some bel canto opera singers that I might check their recordings besides Caruso, Volpi, Di Stefano, Corelli, Lanza

I've been binge-watching your channel and really love your videos!! Could you possibly make a video explaining how to do all the different kinds of trills correctly?

I love Callas' personality but I hate her voice.

Thank God it changed! If singers were still singing the old-fashioned way I wouldn't be an opera fan. Love modern singing!

Raisa was not a verismo singer, but was trained in the bel canto school. She was a famous Norma of her time, but she also happened to have a large silvery voice, which was a good fit for Turandot. If you listen to her "Ah, bello a me ritorna" from Norma, you hear a voice that is perfectly schooled in the bel canto tradition. Carmen Melis, in contrast, would be a true verismo singer.

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis Excuse me, but I have always found the female operasingers on the old 78 recordings sounding like old aunts, with laces, corset, button boots and pince-nez. But perhaps they were😏

Gargling and drinking Papaya or Pineapple juice! It tenderizes the vocal cords, then sleeping for as long as possible! Breathing steam also helps, and of course warming up the voice gently and carefully 10 minutes more than you would normally, and not force the voice.

What I hear in modern singers is how awful their middle is, wobbling out of control, weak lower register, collapsed falsetto-like middle voice notes, no core to the sound, the words are just a mush. It’s actually bad compared to someone like Nellie Melba where every word is clear and both her high A and low D’s are equally easy in this piece.

You’re not the last one, my dear! When I studied voice I learned the “modern” opera technique but also I dug up old records and read old bel canto manuals and realized the way male singers sang back in the early 19th century was entirely different, so I was able to somehow develop both, and while my tenor upper register is limited with modern technique, using the technique as described by Rubini and Giovanni David I can soar easily to F5 and G5, and even higher sometimes. Nowadays I song perform classically so much, they never knew what to make of my head voice upper register instead of pushed up chest voice, but I’m still singing <3

Awesome video all round, best Opera channel. Wonderful singing, and Piano playing.

Beautiful! And I understood every word without need for subtitles! Good job

Your speaking voice seems so tired..

The techniques and colors etc. are hard to gauge in the old recordings. It is an interesting study, BUT we don't get the full effect of true acoustics based on the limitations of the technology at the time. As nowadays, recordings are a poor substitute for the live experience.

Those highest tones sound like the high pianissimi that Caballe was famous for, and as her career progressed, she used those tones more and more on high notes instead of singing them full out, even when they were intended to be sung forte or fortissimo. Apparently, singing them pianissimo was easier than singing them full out. To my ears, these sound merely like a slimmed down version of the singer's high register, stripped of its overtones. I would call the fourth voice the whistle register we hear in singers such as Mado Robin or even Mariah Carrey. Lilly Pons also used such a tone, where you could see her almost close her mouth when she went for the highest notes.

I often wonder how much of the differences we hear in these recordings have to do with the recording technology. Singers of the past often had to scale their voices way down for the primitive recording equipment, which could easily be overpowered if they sang as fully as they did in the opera house. Some of the great voices, such as Rosa Raisa, sounded absolutely terrible on recording, while others, usually much smaller voices such as Galli Curci, recorded beautifully. Melba described herself as a glorified boy-soprano, because of her nearly vibrato-less silvery tone. And yet, Caruso's contemporary Rosa Ponselle had a rich vibrato. Aside the agility and trilling ability, I think it's really difficult to judge how these singers would have sounded side by side when their voices were recorded with such totally different technologies.

Didnt she have an affair with Onassis?

Thank you, thank you for sharing this. This came up exactly when I needed it. 💕💕 Thank you for this beautiful reminder.

My singing teacher knew Rae Woodland and used to share recordings with me and even arranged for a masterclass with her.

You are a hidden treasure. Kisses from Brazil!