No one, absolutely no one can beat how Sills's coloratura on this recording. But recordings document only how a voice sounded. Recordings cannot capture the stage aura of the singer. When Sills sang this aria in person, her voice, face, and body radiated ecstatic joy. We've lived through a golden age of extraordinary singers from Tebaldi to Caballé. Not a single voice in the opera world today can match those giants, but of them all, Sills was the greatest singing actress because she was the greatest actress.
@@brunopicaude3092 If you read carefully, I put Tebaldi in a list of "extraordinary singers," not coloratura sopranos. That great age of singing also includes Birgit Nilsson, who was a Wagnerian. I started with Tebaldi because she sang Mimi in "Boheme" in the first live opera production I saw. Franco Corelli sang Rodolfo. Corelli was a great singer, but he was not a coloratura.
@@carlberg7503 I can, of course, appreciate singers who have a limited repertory, but in absolute, I put them in a second rank. As Callas said: "Can you imagine a violinist telling that he can't play this note, or this trill, or this piece... ?" This problem concern generations who didn't benefit of teaching by singers of the old bel canto school and learnt only the large singing (canto di forza). Even the great Nilsson, in Verdi's Lady Macbet, omits a quantity of small notes in the passages in vocalize.
No one, absolutely no one can beat how Sills's coloratura on this recording. But recordings document only how a voice sounded. Recordings cannot capture the stage aura of the singer. When Sills sang this aria in person, her voice, face, and body radiated ecstatic joy. We've lived through a golden age of extraordinary singers from Tebaldi to Caballé. Not a single voice in the opera world today can match those giants, but of them all, Sills was the greatest singing actress because she was the greatest actress.
Tebaldi didn't have the slightest idea of what coloratura meant.
@@brunopicaude3092 If you read carefully, I put Tebaldi in a list of "extraordinary singers," not coloratura sopranos. That great age of singing also includes Birgit Nilsson, who was a Wagnerian. I started with Tebaldi because she sang Mimi in "Boheme" in the first live opera production I saw. Franco Corelli sang Rodolfo. Corelli was a great singer, but he was not a coloratura.
@@carlberg7503 I can, of course, appreciate singers who have a limited repertory, but in absolute, I put them in a second rank. As Callas said: "Can you imagine a violinist telling that he can't play this note, or this trill, or this piece... ?" This problem concern generations who didn't benefit of teaching by singers of the old bel canto school and learnt only the large singing (canto di forza). Even the great Nilsson, in Verdi's Lady Macbet, omits a quantity of small notes in the passages in vocalize.
Beverly Sills in her prime among the greatest coloraturas and such a sensitive artiste wholly dedicated to the music and text.
Why no info on year, venue, conductor, etc.?