Here's a search string that led to my page:
"Is Renee Fleming a better singer than Kiri Te Kanawa is or was?"
Gentle reader,
Renee Fleming was, until several years ago, a better singer than Kiri te Kanawa is now, primarily in that Kiri te Kanawa barely sings now and that's no good at all. RF now is certainly a worse singer than KtK was at her best, except when (occasionally) she's really good again, like in those Berg songs at Carnegie.
Some days RF is a worse singer than KtK ever thought about being, like when she's singing in a Southern accent, which KtK would never do, I'm guessing, or when she's singing jazz, which KtK did in a less misguided and grating way than RF. Te Kanawa, at her worst, was just dull. One of the crew at Parterre dubbed her "The World's Highest Paid Church Soprano," but then she went and sang that final run of Capriccio at the Met that (all snarkitude dropped for a moment) brought tears to my eyes at the outburst of "Madeleine!" in the final scene. Follow that link, by the way, and you'll also find the witty potshot about how K's Tosca is the only one you'll ever hear described as "soothing."
We could always compare them in certain roles. I, as much as anyone, like occasionally reducing opera to little more than the sausage race at a Brewers game.
Desdemona: Fleming wins.
Countess in Figaro: te Kanawa wins, unless it's Fleming fifteen years ago in which case it's a draw
Mimi in Rent: Neither of them ever sang it but wouldn't it be hilarious?
Effie in Dreamgirls: Oh stop, now you're just being silly.
Vanessa: Kiri was supposedly pretty good but Fleming hasn't sung it and I guess won't be offered it at the Met because they haven't staged it since 1965. *tap tap tap* Is this thing on?
So there you have it. Don't you love it when the internet provides an objective answer to your question?
Another disappointed reader googles his way here with the search string "words lamento della ninfa." Well I don't know them, of course, but I'm happy to make some up.
Ahime, com'e triste d'essere ninfa!
E ninfere qua e la, notte e giorno
Senza gia il tempo per fare altre cose!
Ahime, non vuoglio essere piu ninfa,
Ma che puo fare? Cantaro un lamento, cosi,
E forse Signore Monteverdi puo lasciare
La sua opera somnifera e interminabile di Poppea
Per due momenti, e scrivere le note
Per una povera ninfa, cantante suo lamento, ahime, senza musica.
Nymphs speak lousy Italian, as it turns out. One supposes they speak Nymph. I do hope ninfa means nymph, or I'm going to look like I'm not serious about these matters.
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12 comments:
Remember KtK's Morgen at dawn on the beach in Gisborne for the new millenium? I totally ate that up.
If it had been current Fleming, computers would have crashed worldwide.
Metetrice, you're going to have to forgive me if I stoop to quoting myself, but it's funny we made the same reference about Fleming. Some time back I wrote:
There once was a girl
With a strawberry curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good,
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad, it was usually in some revival of 19th century crap we didn't really give a good goddamn about anyway, but increasingly it was also in Strauss which is not ok.
Anyway I'm glad someone else remembers that she used to be great. Her trills make me wet my pants.
As to Norma, I don't know. She'd need to take a giant step back, but if she did that, it might be fantastic. I do think it'd be a notch underpowered, but still...
Too bad no one saw her concert Daphne at Carnegie last year. It was lovely. One of the best vocal performances I've ever heard.
Thomas: I was on the fence about whether to go. A mannered Daphne could be death itself, and chances seemed good of that. I'm weird about Daphne, too. After the first time I heard the recording of Popp singing the final scene, I sort of sealed it in a vault only to listen to maybe every ten years because, chez Popp, it's the good china, not everyday stuff. Seriously, I can remember the almost spooked-out feeling I had at the wordless melisma as she turns into a big old tree.
Maury, I haven't heard the Popp. The only recording I'd heard was the Gueden, whose voice I don't particularly care for. To me, Fleming sang with a total lack of mannerisms, effortlessly spinning out these long, gorgeous lines. At the end of the transformation, she turned her back to the audience for an ethereal vocalise. It was magical.
I used to be on a path of Popp completism, but at some point I gave up. She was kind of my first uber-diva (other than Callas, who is in a separate category) and honorarily still is.
I don't have that recording. Actually she recorded so much I was probably never going to have all of it. It's like the Sinopoli opera about Lou Andreas Salome: I figured I'd mostly have it just to have it and probably wouldn't love it.
I love her most for Sophie.
Don't be knocking aspirated Coloratura, though. :) Some of my favorite singers...
I think Fleming has the "better" instrument, she just doesn't know what to do with it.
You know, the interesting thing, Oberon, is that to my ear their instruments are a certain amount alike. I once heard KtK's 4 last on the radio and for a few minutes I was certain it was Fleming.
Talk about wetting your pants . . . I just sprayed tea all over myself, my keyboard, the desk, the screen, and a couple of co-workers. Need more lyrics about depairing nymphs. Are you sure you aren't related to a certain cabaret artist who recently died from moving to Australia?
The thing that interested me about Fleming's voice from the first time I heard her (at the Met Auditions) was the natural strength of her lower register. It does not seem to be chest resonance, it's just the way her voice is built.
I once had tea at the home of Renee's teacher, the late Beverley Peck Johnson. I wanted to ask Mrs. J about Renee's lower register but there was so much to talk about and after we had cake, Mrs. J dozed off for a bit. My friend and I tiptoed around, washed the dishes, and were about to sneak quietly out when Mrs. J awoke with a start and picked up the conversation where she'd left off. We stayed another hour.
Kiri's timbre always struck me as slightly more delicate than Renee's. Beyond that, their stylistic approach could be similar though Renee has gone to extremes sometimes. Which, I believe, Mrs. J would find distressing. But she is no longer with us.
Your pseudo-Italian is FAR more entertaining than that fake Latin one occasionally comes across - you know, the material that's used as placeholder text on half-developed Web site pages and starts "ipsum something-or-other."
you mean the lorem ipsum?
check out wikipedia's entry on it! i must confess that i nerded out a bit on it when a friend of mine posted about it on some forums i also frequent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum
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