Wednesday
Jul072010
OperaNow! #111: Boxergate!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 9:30AM 
Peter Gelb talks back to Anne Midgette's smack...is smaller the way to go for new works?...Will Crutchfileld fights the good fight for bel canto...La Scala cancels Juan Diego's barbiere due to union thugs!...Bartoli sings Norma (despite what The OC has told us time and again).
Oliver's Corner closes out Giulio Cesare with...Giulio Cesare!!! He plays excerpts of Marijana Mijanovic, Jennifer Larmore, Nathalie Stutzmann, Andreas Scholl, David Daniels, and Kristina Hammarström (all available on the new Oliver's Corner sectioin to the left.)
This week we feature The OC, Doug Dodson in a triumphant return and Jenny Rivera
Reader Comments (16)
I wonder what he thought of the next season's Aida that featured naked breasts and simulated human sacrifice?
Never wash your eyes again.
Maybe I can get him to use my name on his facebook page.
Oliver Camacho: The great Coloratura Ha-Ha Vs. Legato Debate on this weeks OperaNow. In the corner for the Ha-Ha's, The OC, whose own Ha-ha's garnered him the lavish compliment "superbly-stylish" in the Chicago Tribune. For Team Legato, mezzo-soprano and all-around nice gal Jennifer Rivera , who actually has a career to speak of and is recording Aggrippina with Rene Jacobs.
Dean Smith likes this.
Brad C. Sisk: I'm rooting for Jennifer on this one. Rivera-1, Camacho-0.
Jennifer Rivera: You know, I've been thinking about it since we did the podcast. It's not that I think that one is always better than the other. I had a coach once say to me, " if you're going to sing fast coloratura, you have to find the speed where it still sounds exciting and doesn't sound too easy" and that's the key. Whichever voice you have, whatever speed your vibrato, you have to find a way to make it sound brilliant and exciting. If you do the wrong speed or the wrong style for your voice, it just sounds too easy and not as exciting. That's my two (although at this point it's about 89) cents.
Jennifer Rivera: and listening to the podcast I realized I already said all that.
Brad C. Sisk: Whoa, whoa, don't back down, Jennifer! You said (I'm quoting from memory), "Legato coloratura is always more exciting than 'ha-ha' coloratura--if you can do it." And that's exactly right. If you can articulate the notes without resorting to aspirates, then that's MUCH more conducive to allowing the voice to bloom, which is implicit in the whole concept of "fioritura" and "coloratura." Aspirates by definition have no "color"--they're an articulatory crutch. If coloratura is about nothing more than velocity of articulation, without regard to color, bloom, and phrase shaping, then it's just a race to the market. The treatises of the baroque era (Tosi, Mancini, etc.) clearly frowned upon singers resorting to "barnyard animal noises" which almost certainly included exactly the sort of clucking and cackling you hear in ha-ha coloraturas.
Oliver Camacho: People who can Ha-Ha can. It's a choice. People who don't know how to don't. There I said it.
Brad C. Sisk: Yes, we'd all just LOVE to be able to colorlessly ha-ha like a hen being strangled. You're on to us, Olives. ;-)
Oliver Camacho: i'm just saying, the singers who argue for legato everything are the ones who usually don't know how to do it any other way. And they make a mess out of earlier baroque passagi that were NEVER INTENDED TO BE SUNG ON THE BREATH!
Brad C. Sisk: As Jennifer said, you'd never be heard. Not even in Monteverdi/Cavalli-era Venice. Rivera-2, Camacho-0. (Insert "ha-ha"s, here.) P.S., I only goad you because you're such a good sport. ;-)
Oliver Camacho: these comments should be focused onto the website. they're more permanent there. and I need permanency so I can throw this back in your face one day when you get hired to sing a monteverdi vespers and can't execute the gruppetti with your slovenly legato.
Roberta Senatore: I agree with Jennifer on this one (no surprise to Oliver, I am sure)!
Jennifer Rivera: I just want to add Oliver that it's more likely that the ha-ha-ers can't do the legato coloratura than the other way around. If you can sing fast runs, you can usually add h's. If you are singing with h's, you probably can't take them out. BAM. I said it.
Oliver Camacho: Shall I challenge you to a coloratura duel? Non piu mesta, perhaps.
Roberta Senatore: This I have to hear!
Jennifer Rivera: Oh OC, I'm sure you'd win in the end :) But I would love to hear you sing non piu mesta!
http://www.amazon.com/Handels-Operas-1704-1726-Clarendon-Paperbacks/dp/0198164416
("Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques" also highly recommended).
The story I didn't tell is as follows: Originally, Sesto was going to be sung by an alto castrato. Durastanti (who ended up singing Sesto as a pants role) was going to sing Cornelia, and Robinson (who ended up singing Cornelia) was going to sing the role of Cleopatra's cousin and confidante Berenice (this character was replaced with Nireno eventually). One of Berenice's arias was "Va, tacito," the A section of which roughly translates to: "The astute hunter goes silently and stealthily when he is avid for prey." Berenice was to sing this aria to Cleopatra as advice on how to seduce Cesare and bend him to her will.
So. Then the castrato that was supposed to sing Sesto shows up in London. Handel has never heard him before; he was hired based on good recommendations. He sings for Handel. Handel hates him. Handel refuses to let him sing Sesto. So he has the librettist rewrite large chunks of the opera so that he can avoid giving this castrato any arias. So he replaces the character of Berenice with the character of Nireno, and gives "Va, tacito" to Cesare, who sings it to Tolomeo not as advice on how to seduce somebody, but as a warning that Cesare is on to Tolomeo's evil plots (the implication is that Tolomeo is NOT an astute hunter. :) ).
So there's the "blah, blah." It's a pretty interesting story and of course is only possible in opera seria. Just imagine any other composer giving an aria to a different character without changing the words or the key and having it make sense. :-P
I've seen "Cesare" once, a conservatory student production, and the 3 hours flew by. IIRC, not a single singer Ha-ha'd through it. Pretty impressive, come to think of it. (But I'm afraid that this production also persuaded me that Cesare shouldn't be sung by a mezzo. Maybe the mezzo that day just wasn't up to the task.)
My opinion on ha-ha's (which I tried to articulate on the podcast) is that legato coloratura and aspirated coloratura can both be used as a color choice. Sometimes, if it's a rage aria, I want the ha-ha's. Sometimes the character is laughing (or cackling sinisterly) and aspiration can add an emotional element. Personally, I don't think it should always be done one way or the other, but I do support legato as the "default" and think aspiration should be used as an ornamental choice rather than as the default. It's another color choice that can be used effectively, I think.
http://listserv.bccls.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=OPERA-L;cMuvng;19990113145101-0500B
Ultimately, it is a matter of personal taste. I happen to have very good taste.
The Golden Ticket at least has a glancing relation to the ha-ha vs. legato debate in Mike Teavee's character, who was supposed to be a spoof of Handelian singing. The way his character was written suggests that regardless of who wins the technical smackdown, the parodist seems to read it as ha-ha (advantage OC?). Unrelated to the debate, I wonder if others who saw/were in the show (Michael? Jenny?) would have preferred a straighter approach to the style. "I don't dream; I watch TV" is one of the most haunting lines of the libretto, and I thought the heavy-handed exaggeration partially undermined what could have been a really beautiful moment in the opera.
I'm undecided on the broader debate, but will say I loved Scholl. I also loved Jennifer Larmore, though here I come down definitively on Jenny's side. I see what OC means about how her voice sounds in neutral, but if that's what she has to do to deliver the aria that well, I don't see it as a flaw.