Beverly Sills is Giulietta with piano and high interpolations
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- THE SONGBIRD: Beverly Sills (1929 - 2007) was my first diva and the reason I became infatuated with coloratura sopranos and started collecting vocal music. Sills holds a special place in my musical life to this day so I'm happy to share this rare item that is not currently posted on RUclips. Sills sang the role of Bellini's Giulietta in only one production -- three performances in Boston in 1975 -- and recorded it commercially that same year. However, she programmed Giulietta's well-known cavatina at least 40 times in concert and recital beginning in 1964, and included it in her first solo aria recital disc made in 1968.
THE MUSIC: The best known aria from Bellini's "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" -- his operatic version of the Romeo and Juliet story which was written for Venice in 1830 -- is Giulietta's gorgeous cavatina "Oh! quante volte." It introduces the young girl as she is pining for Romeo. It's a serene scene of suspended, dreamy bel canto lyricism that many light lyric and lyric-coloratura sopranos are drawn to.
Bel Canto in its highest form! Technique, phrasing, taste, high notes, embellishments, everything!
There are many beautiful renditions of this gorgeous scene, but Sills has always been the singer who has touched me the most when singing it, no matter which performance of hers I have heard. There’s a rare combination of pathos, femininity, fragility and strength that go straight to my heart. Superb art.
Absolutely gorgeous. She could really move her voice, and everything was always cleanly articulated, never sloppy
imposible mas belleza y delicadeza👌🏻❤️🙏🏻
There will never be a voice like Sills. She was just La Fenomena ❤❤❤ incredible
Celestial voice!
Delightful, in the extreme!
I love how Beverly Sills never got tired of singing O Quante Volte. I find ironic though how she found so many different ways to
decorate the melody but when she recorded the role, she used the most simplistic arrangement with only one high C.
True. I wonder if when she recorded the role her voice was no longer at its prime and she was less at ease with High-Es, which explains the lack of ornamentation. Maybe also a musical choice of the conductor.
Sometimes you get tired of doing all the ornaments. For me, it was 'una voce poco fa'. For the first few years I sang it, I tried so.many.ornaments, and eventually settled on the ones I liked best. But then I hit a wall, and didn't even want to sing the aria, because it had become too mechanical to me. I was able to move past that eventually, but it involved not ornamenting as much, and more singing the line.....all while having fun, of course! For an aria like this one, it would never be mechanical, but you'd be searching for what was going to let you express what you were feeling about it at the time. For me, this was "Ah, non credea....."; I got to the point where I wanted very few ornaments, because I did not want to disturb the legato line. This was important for me to maintain that feeling of actually sleepwalking and not knowing what was happening around me.
Sills was my first operatic love - I came from a musical family, but hated opera. Then in the early-1970s, I saw her with Johnny Carson and was smitten. I told my parents that I’d be open to seeing an opera with Sills. So my first opera performances were The Three Queens! So many years later, I’m still an opera lover. I tried to interest my own children when they were young (Magic Flute, Hansel), but now they’re 30 and call it child abuse. I’m not sure if they’re kidding.
NO ONE sings like this today. How sad.😢 7:43
In the 1970s, the great rivalry was Sills vs Sutherland, although both took great pains to say that it was in the minds of the critics and fans. I saw both of them onstage many times. They were different, almost as if they were singing different music. Sills had the pinpoint accuracy, the pianissimo, and the ability to get the character’s message across. Sutherland had the more refulgent sound, and the ability to do anything with the almost-Wagner-size voice. I’m glad I saw both of them.
She doesn't hit the notes in the center, as Callas suggested.
Oh Bubbles, why are you always slightly flat??