As her biographer, I frequently brought tapes, and sometimes original discs, to Ponselle’s estate so she could give me her retrospective reactions to her recordings. Her reactions were always candid. Of this one she said, “My French isn’t very good because I didn’t learn to speak it fluently until I prepared ‘Carmen,’ so I’m singing it phonetically. I’m in good voice, though, but I was almost always in good voice back then because I was singing all the time. And I’m singing it in a key that was perfect for my voice. I could do without that cellist, whoever he is. I can’t believe that I allowed him to take up half of the record! I always preferred singing it with violin accompaniment. You should have heard Fritz Kreisler and I perform this. Now that was really something!”
Thanks for this insight. We often do not know much about what such an artist felt. They will rarely critique themselves in public. Her voice is so perfect for this work and the beauty of it comes through but I doubt it captured what they heard at the Met in the early 20's with Caruso! She was probably the greatest dramatic soprano vocally within the last 120 years or more. Amazing to have been born and trained in the USA and not Europe. I only wish she would have recorded more of the arias from Norma. Her technique was amazing.
Do you know if any substantial amount of her private recordings were preserved somewhere? I had read in a piece I actually think you wrote that one of her friends had an early tape recorder and used it frequently. Knowing the common practice of the day I imagine many were recorded over but I hope that some at least managed to survive. If I may ask, on an unrelated note, do you know what her favorite gown was? My fiancee is a dress maker and is interested in making an early 20th century formal gown for some events we plan to attend next year.
@@craigester1449: I believe that the late Bill Park persuaded those who had recorded her on tape in the early-1950s (Leigh Martinet, Hugh Johns, and Lloyd Garrison among others) to let him copy and return their tapes. Bill’s entire collection of tapes, air-checks, original pressings and photos were to go to Texas Women’s University. You might want to contact the library and inquire about access to the Bill Park collection. About gowns Ponselle favored, one that she especially liked was the gown she had made for her Covent Garden Traviata. Its train was made in cascading layers so she could reduce its length and wear it as a ball gown, although she never did to the best of my knowledge.
@@jimdrake-writer Thank you for the reply! I need to get ahold of your biography on her, I just got back into gramophone restoration and I discovered Rosa by accident. The little bit I know of her story is deeply interesting but also tragic in that so much talent existed just a little too early. Even though great singers came before, they don't have early recordings like these teasing us! I will certainly inquire about those recordings, I hope they're being digitized as metal tape can degrade. It should be a lot easier to clean up the electronic noise from the cheap machine than the layers of issues with these shellac recordings. If I spiral deeper into this I might have to buy season opera tickets, I don't live in New York or London but my city actually seems to have an opera company. Would you happen to know anything about "Opera Tampa"?
Gorgeous... And to think that I sang for this sublime vocal creature during a competition in Baltimore's Notre Dame back in 1970/71... It brings tears to my eyes...
This is my favorite of the Ponselle selections I have listened to. Utterly beautiful. I was fortunate to grow up in a family of opera lovers. My grandmother spoke of Mary Garden. My mother spoke of Geraldine Farrar. My own favorite for 75 years has been Lidia Albanese. ( I first heard her when I was 17; now I’m 92! But Ponselle is another voice, another spirit. Her warmth surrounds and comforts the listener. God bless her and keep her.
Ô, doux printemps d'autre fois, vertes saisons, Vous avez fui pour toujours! Je ne vois plus le ciel bleu; Je n'entends plus les chants joyeux des oiseaux! En emportant mon bonheur, mon bonheur... Ô bien-amé, tu t'en es allé! Et c'est en vain que [le printemps revient!]1 Oui, sans retour, avec toi, le gai soleil, Les jours riants sont partis! Comme en mon coeur tout est sombre et glacé! Tout est flétri pour toujours!
I was driving cab and I went to a address and picked up two. I said I was just listening to a recording of Rosa Ponselle from 1926 . And she said Well that's her granddaughter right there and her mother died in a car accident ! I got all choked up 😭
Mille mercis... Je chante prochainement ce morceau en examen et je recherchais une interprétation de référence. Que j'ai enfin trouvée... Époustouflant quand on songe à l'âge de l'enregistrement. Les "stars" actuelles quoique méritantes n'ont pas été capables de faire mieux. Ça a l'air si simple quand on l'entend par R. Ponselle alors que c'est si difficile techniquement (gérer une absence de vibrato, tenir le souffle et des respirations silencieuses, respecter les nuances, ne pas surinterpréter le texte, couvrir sans écraser et quel exemple de soufflet final). Une leçon de mélodie française. Encore merci. :-)
Bonjour Catherine! Est-ce que tu as la musique de cet pièce? J'ai ne la trouve pas avec le cello, piano et soprano... Peut-tu la partager avec moi, s'il vous plait? Excusez mon français.. J'espere que t'ait été bien dans votre examen.
Ileana Muñoz I've got the music score for piano/voice (no cello - I have never been able to find it !). I'll share it gladly (but I need an e-mail address ^^)
ONLY 12,000 view for this. And idiots like Britney Spears get million views for their garbage. Ponselle is the Prima Voce. She is a marvel, a miracle as Serafin said. We will never hear the like of her again. What passes for sopranos these days is sad. I don't even want to go to opera because I know what I will hear.
I agree but opera has for many years been the music of the upper-classes and today you better have lots of money to se and hear it even for the second raters we hear now.
I note that one of your thumbs down correspondents says only Americans like her. I am an Aussie and I think she was great! No warmth in her voice? What absolute nonsense! Musical snobbery is never attractive! She was great
Quelle délicatesse, et quelle sensibilité, la douceur égalée...
Desde Argentina después de casi 100 años de esta magnífica versión, mi admiración eterna💪👏
As her biographer, I frequently brought tapes, and sometimes original discs, to Ponselle’s estate so she could give me her retrospective reactions to her recordings. Her reactions were always candid. Of this one she said, “My French isn’t very good because I didn’t learn to speak it fluently until I prepared ‘Carmen,’ so I’m singing it phonetically. I’m in good voice, though, but I was almost always in good voice back then because I was singing all the time. And I’m singing it in a key that was perfect for my voice. I could do without that cellist, whoever he is. I can’t believe that I allowed him to take up half of the record! I always preferred singing it with violin accompaniment. You should have heard Fritz Kreisler and I perform this. Now that was really something!”
Thanks for this insight. We often do not know much about what such an artist felt. They will rarely critique themselves in public. Her voice is so perfect for this work and the beauty of it comes through but I doubt it captured what they heard at the Met in the early 20's with Caruso! She was probably the greatest dramatic soprano vocally within the last 120 years or more. Amazing to have been born and trained in the USA and not Europe. I only wish she would have recorded more of the arias from Norma. Her technique was amazing.
Do you know if any substantial amount of her private recordings were preserved somewhere? I had read in a piece I actually think you wrote that one of her friends had an early tape recorder and used it frequently. Knowing the common practice of the day I imagine many were recorded over but I hope that some at least managed to survive. If I may ask, on an unrelated note, do you know what her favorite gown was? My fiancee is a dress maker and is interested in making an early 20th century formal gown for some events we plan to attend next year.
@@craigester1449: I believe that the late Bill Park persuaded those who had recorded her on tape in the early-1950s (Leigh Martinet, Hugh Johns, and Lloyd Garrison among others) to let him copy and return their tapes. Bill’s entire collection of tapes, air-checks, original pressings and photos were to go to Texas Women’s University. You might want to contact the library and inquire about access to the Bill Park collection. About gowns Ponselle favored, one that she especially liked was the gown she had made for her Covent Garden Traviata. Its train was made in cascading layers so she could reduce its length and wear it as a ball gown, although she never did to the best of my knowledge.
@@jimdrake-writer Thank you for the reply! I need to get ahold of your biography on her, I just got back into gramophone restoration and I discovered Rosa by accident. The little bit I know of her story is deeply interesting but also tragic in that so much talent existed just a little too early. Even though great singers came before, they don't have early recordings like these teasing us! I will certainly inquire about those recordings, I hope they're being digitized as metal tape can degrade. It should be a lot easier to clean up the electronic noise from the cheap machine than the layers of issues with these shellac recordings.
If I spiral deeper into this I might have to buy season opera tickets, I don't live in New York or London but my city actually seems to have an opera company. Would you happen to know anything about "Opera Tampa"?
@@jimdrake-writer Is this the Covent Garden dress? 4.bp.blogspot.com/-VLz5VwqIgMY/UWcjn8GvwPI/AAAAAAAACWI/Id4FH5ycmDI/s1600/PonselleTraviata.jpg
Gorgeous... And to think that I sang for this sublime vocal creature during a competition in Baltimore's Notre Dame
back in 1970/71... It brings tears to my eyes...
Nobody can't sing this like she.
This is her Aria. Magnificent and opulent opera singer.
Quel beau timbre ! Un délice
Maria Callas était une admiratrice inconditionnelle de Rosa Ponselle ...qui le lui rendait bien.
This is so profund !
This is my favorite of the Ponselle selections I have listened to. Utterly beautiful. I was fortunate to grow up in a family of opera lovers. My grandmother spoke of Mary Garden. My mother spoke of Geraldine Farrar. My own favorite for 75 years has been Lidia Albanese. ( I first heard her when I was 17; now I’m 92! But Ponselle is another voice, another spirit.
Her warmth surrounds and comforts the listener. God bless her and keep her.
Correction. Licia nAlbanese
Have you heard her version of: Ideale.? Sublime!
What song could be more beautiful than this one? It is the very rapture of life in all its grief and joy.
Ô, doux printemps d'autre fois, vertes saisons,
Vous avez fui pour toujours!
Je ne vois plus le ciel bleu;
Je n'entends plus les chants joyeux des oiseaux!
En emportant mon bonheur, mon bonheur...
Ô bien-amé, tu t'en es allé!
Et c'est en vain que [le printemps revient!]1
Oui, sans retour,
avec toi, le gai soleil,
Les jours riants sont partis!
Comme en mon coeur tout est sombre et glacé!
Tout est flétri
pour toujours!
I was driving cab and I went to a address and picked up two. I said I was just listening to a recording of Rosa Ponselle from 1926 . And she said Well that's her granddaughter right there and her mother died in a car accident ! I got all choked up 😭
This is divine! What a lovely version and high notes she has :)
The legato! Unearthly yet of the earth!!
Astounding, astonishing singing. It does not get better than this
divina .
dicono che la perfezione nell’arte non esiste ... .
esiste, è come .
Magnifica Ponselle!
preciosa melodía ,nostálgica, sutil ,simplemente maravillosa en la vos de una de las prima donnas del siglo xx
Astonishing!
Très beau..!
A SPECIAL voice, technique and musicality.
Happy tears are in my eyes. What a wonderful channel and post.
My highest regards friend-John
BJORLING,CARUSO,CHALYAPIN,MARIAN ANDERSON and PONSELLE.THEY BREAK MY HEART!!
😂❤Золотой голос,фантастика ❤🎉😊
Merci pour le post, magnifique !
Beautiful !!!
Mille mercis... Je chante prochainement ce morceau en examen et je recherchais une interprétation de référence. Que j'ai enfin trouvée...
Époustouflant quand on songe à l'âge de l'enregistrement. Les "stars" actuelles quoique méritantes n'ont pas été capables de faire mieux.
Ça a l'air si simple quand on l'entend par R. Ponselle alors que c'est si difficile techniquement (gérer une absence de vibrato, tenir le souffle et des respirations silencieuses, respecter les nuances, ne pas surinterpréter le texte, couvrir sans écraser et quel exemple de soufflet final). Une leçon de mélodie française.
Encore merci. :-)
Bonjour Catherine! Est-ce que tu as la musique de cet pièce? J'ai ne la trouve pas avec le cello, piano et soprano... Peut-tu la partager avec moi, s'il vous plait? Excusez mon français.. J'espere que t'ait été bien dans votre examen.
Ileana Muñoz I've got the music score for piano/voice (no cello - I have never been able to find it !). I'll share it gladly (but I need an e-mail address ^^)
Thank you!! My e-mail address is ileana.munozr@gmail.com:)
As good as it gets.TY Rosa for posting.
@Aetion
You are allways welcome. With love!
R.
fantastica
Gran cantante.Callas aprendio mucho de ella.🌹🌿🌹🌿🌹🌿🌹🌅🌈🌅🌈
@waspman1633 thanks for your kind comment.
ONLY 12,000 view for this. And idiots like Britney Spears get million views for their garbage.
Ponselle is the Prima Voce. She is a marvel, a miracle as Serafin said.
We will never hear the like of her again. What passes for sopranos these days is sad. I don't even want to go to opera because I know what I will hear.
I agree but opera has for many years been the music of the upper-classes and today you better have lots of money to se and hear it even for the second raters we hear now.
My Diva
I note that one of your thumbs down correspondents says only Americans like her. I am an Aussie and I think she was great! No warmth in her voice? What absolute nonsense! Musical snobbery is never attractive! She was great
Вечная Память
No voice is like any other !
Thank you for sharing this! Is this audio copyright free? Can i use it for a short film?
No copyright on this.
Wish there were no 'subtitles'. Detracts from the music.... a lot.
You must not watching the video while listening to the music...Look the other way.
@abracadabranque
Je suis content, que ca vous plaise.
Merci que vous visite ma chaîne!
There is no one alike.