It’s what most people don’t get why Maria was sooo special! She really cared for what the composer wrote down and tried her hardest to do justice to that!
Indeed, so many people think. She is just sing well, follow well with the note. But NOT ONLY THIS. She do it so subtle because she compose together with the music , she adding a polish on the music piece, it was all so fit that simple minded people easily overlooked it
she could act AND sing .. AND was had great musicianship AND could do justice to the languages AND could do justice to the composer AND the librettist ...AND she made herself thin and attractive ... THAT was what made her special.. she had to do all that
Tebaldi ! ;-) She made her complete career without singing one poor single trill. Sometimes, it reaches a ridiculous point: in Marguerite's aria (Faust by Gounod) there is (twice) a long note preparing the famous "Ah ! je ris...". And this note is a trill expressing the trouble of Marguerite discovering herself so cure in the mirror. Tebaldi can't do nothing with this note she sings as flat as a billiard table. Non sense.
I was taught that if you are doing a student performance it's OK not to trill, but if you aspire to do anything more than student performances you must master this as you must master other skills.
Thank you sooo much for this video. I found out I have it... I just didn't know it was good enough since it is so naturally integrated in my singing. And that is how it's supposed to sound. Not absent and not as a car engine having problems starting on a cold day
Trills are something very special. They need a special equilibrium between a necessary stress and relaxation of a specific part of muscles. Trills need more then anything else some predisposition to be able to make it... If singers don't have this predisposition it is very difficult or even impossible to learn it.....
@@OperaMyWorld Yes, many singers CAN learn it. I've just wanted to add that some singers CANNOT learn trills even if they try it for years. They must have some predisposition TO BE ABLE TO learn it....
I didn’t know a human voice to equal an instrument’s trill until day one of a rehearsal with Sutherland. It wasn’t for some time that I listened to Callas. The best two full bodied human trills I have test to hear. So no, very few can give an exciting trill. Sutherland said it was always there. She found it and only improved on it. I don’t know about Callas, but hers doesn’t sound manufactured either. A very rare ability.
Funny thing is that every pop singer in Iran or Azerbaijan can sing trills. I believe every singer can absolutely learn to trill, but I think people treat it as such a bugaboo that they get stiff and can't sing it.
I think if your natural vibrato is a little on the faster side, you tend to have an easier time with trills. Lighter voices tend to also have faster vibrato, so I think most of the time its easier for lighter voices. However, Callas and Sutherland are great examples of large voices that still have the mobility to trill, which I think is still related to their rates of vibrato.
Panofka and Concone. Both can be downloaded from Petrucci Library imslp dot org, as can Garcia, Lamperti,Marchesi, Vaccai. Appcompaniment can be downloaded from apple or google stores the accompaniment to Panofka, Cocone, Marchesi, Garcia and Vaccai are in there as part of free package
There is a natural predisposition to perform agility, among which trills are certainly very difficult but not impossible. In fact, there is the exercise that allows you to improve them. There are singers with a very beautiful and linear voice who do not bother to perform the music as it is written, and there are singers who abuse their vocal and technical skills and their virtuosity to make only that feel: it also depends on the musical context, the directors, the market. With Callas we are on another planet, it's useless, because she is talking about what they wanted, or what it's assumed they wanted, Verdi and Boito
@@OperaMyWorld Of course, I know very well, but I wanted to say that if they wanted to, and if they knew how to impose themselves, many singers and many conductors would also know it well; the ruin of art is compromise
Tebaldi's fakery, trying to pretend a trill, is embarrassing and disgusting! Caballe's wasn't much better, which is always so shocking considering she was such a master of Bel Canto in every other aspect. Same with Gencer. Sutherland's is by far the best, and of course Callas is sublime. The other Greek soprano, whom I'm not yet familiar with sounds quite good too. Sills should have been included as well, whose trill even surpasses Sutherland.
Callas had the better trill though: she can change it depending on the character and the situation and it wasn't just always fast like Sutherland or without core like Sills.
@@deadwalke9588 . I had to really think about what you stated, and have to agree with you on both accounts. Both Sutherland's and Sills trills, though quite fast and exciting, were really nothing more than a mechanical display of human warbling like a canary, whereas with Callas, her trills were always different, and always in line with the drama, AND the music...just like everything else she did. And yes, it's also very true what you said about Sills trill. Although it was very unique and an amazing speed to it, in order to perform her trills the way she did, she always completely dropped any core that she had from the tone. A total voice change from her normal singing to her trill singing. Even her vowel would change.
Art Danks Callas could also do a messa di voce on a trill, trill in chest voice, her trills from different arias are of a completely different style, such as comparing Coppia Iniqua to D’amor Sull’ali... in Coppia it is larger and more frantic, in D’amor it is tighter, more reserved.
@@manolis.799 Very true! I hadn't really thought of that before, but now that you've brought it up I know from memory you are absolutely right! And the amazing thing about that is that she was such an artist that she would actually be very deliberate about each one, based on the drama and the music. No one like Callas!
No. Everybody knows trill is a matter of “luck". Yo have it or you don't. If you see the old manuals (i.e. the _Vaccaj_ ) they insist in some embellishments every singer has to master (roulades, grupetti, acciacature...) and dedicate several lessons to each of them. For trills, just an “introductory" lesson that teaches mainly how to pretend to sing it when you naturally can‘t. Many of the better singers in history didn't have a trill and led wonderful careers, nevertheless. Surprising that, as knowledgeable as she was in this matter, Callas made such mistake.
Famous singers without trills they have just not learn how to trill!! There is a whole tradition and books about how to acquire trills! As Marilyn Horne stated once on her interview...” I didn’t have any trill! So I just took two notes and tried to speed them up! Little by little in whole tones!! For 2 Years! And after that I had a trill!!! So of course it can be learnt! Callas didn’t made any mistake! She just learn and developed all her technique complete! On the other hand Tebaldi for example, couldn’t make trills and so many other technique skills, she never was taugh them! And she never dared to learn them! Also she had huge intonation problems! That’s matter of technique! Being a famous singer doesn’t mean that you have a perfect technique!
@@OperaMyWorld, are you talking seriously? Do you really consider Horne a good example of how to sing well? Well, then we are not talking about the same thing. Greetings.
@@robert111k Where I wrote that Horne is a good example of singing? Learn to read!! I said that She learnt how to trill!! So trill is definately as Callas stated matter of technique and learning. Greetings.
That is absolutely BS, trills like every other aspect of vocal technique can be learned and developed, it just so happens most never bother to develop them!
I really enjoyed this post - but Joan Sutherland was the greatest in the world at trills - Callas was good...but Dame Joan should have done a master class on this. I really liked hearing Maria give instruction to the student however!...😊
Sutherland's trills were spectacular, especially in fast music. In slow music, Callas takes the cake. She could bind trills into a slow cantilena in a way that Sutherland never could. Callas could enter and exit a trill seamlessly without every breaking the legato line. The trills became almost an intensification, where as Sutherland's trills in slow music were an appliqué glued over the melodic line. I think you can hear this best in D'amor sul ali rosee or in Bolena's Al dolce guidami. In such music, Sutherland can't hold a candle to Callas. But take the cabaletta to Masnadieri, and Sutherland is in a league of her own.
@@Shahrdad Sutherland was in no way better than Callas at trills regardless of the tempi. Her trills in Masnadieri cabaletta are weak and transparent, not fully open and resonant. Callas could sing her trills faster and much bigger. Just listen to Sutherland's cabaletta and this in a row and you'll see what i mean. ruclips.net/video/Ns5hdhOq4FU/видео.html
It’s what most people don’t get why Maria was sooo special! She really cared for what the composer wrote down and tried her hardest to do justice to that!
Indeed, so many people think. She is just sing well, follow well with the note. But NOT ONLY THIS. She do it so subtle because she compose together with the music , she adding a polish on the music piece, it was all so fit that simple minded people easily overlooked it
she could act AND sing .. AND was had great musicianship AND could do justice to the languages AND could do justice to the composer AND the librettist ...AND she made herself thin and attractive ... THAT was what made her special.. she had to do all that
I don’t understand how people can see a written trill and just say “eh nobody will notice....”
Tebaldi ! ;-) She made her complete career without singing one poor single trill. Sometimes, it reaches a ridiculous point: in Marguerite's aria (Faust by Gounod) there is (twice) a long note preparing the famous "Ah ! je ris...". And this note is a trill expressing the trouble of Marguerite discovering herself so cure in the mirror. Tebaldi can't do nothing with this note she sings as flat as a billiard table. Non sense.
They CANT embrace the most incredible art form in the Universe. So why bother my friend. 🇫🇷💙 Arnuad
Callas' trill was never 'just an ornament'...it was TRUE emotion that hits an heats the heart! She knew how to wield her voice as great story teller!
I truly think that Callas remains the most complete operatic artist ever to have lived. Almost too much demonic genius and talent for one human being.
No a gift from god.
She was a divina who portrayed demonic-quite a difference.
Callas makes trill an expression. Brava Divinaaaa
I was taught that if you are doing a student performance it's OK not to trill, but if you aspire to do anything more than student performances you must master this as you must master other skills.
That “oh” at 0:03 cuts deep lol
I felt that as well
Thank you sooo much for this video. I found out I have it... I just didn't know it was good enough since it is so naturally integrated in my singing. And that is how it's supposed to sound. Not absent and not as a car engine having problems starting on a cold day
Ann-Mari Alexis I also never had to learn to trill... I've just always been able to do it
Sutherland, Callas and Sills were all the queens of trills. Callas was the queen of expression.
Trills are something very special. They need a special equilibrium between a necessary stress and relaxation of a specific part of muscles. Trills need more then anything else some predisposition to be able to make it... If singers don't have this predisposition it is very difficult or even impossible to learn it.....
Jaroslav Sojka Callas helped a student if her (Barrie Smith) to learn to sing trills...so it is matter of learning!!
@@OperaMyWorld Yes, many singers CAN learn it. I've just wanted to add that some singers CANNOT learn trills even if they try it for years. They must have some predisposition TO BE ABLE TO learn it....
I didn’t know a human voice to equal an instrument’s trill until day one of a rehearsal with Sutherland.
It wasn’t for some time that I listened to Callas.
The best two full bodied human trills I have test to hear.
So no, very few can give an exciting trill.
Sutherland said it was always there. She found it and only improved on it.
I don’t know about Callas, but hers doesn’t sound manufactured either.
A very rare ability.
Funny thing is that every pop singer in Iran or Azerbaijan can sing trills. I believe every singer can absolutely learn to trill, but I think people treat it as such a bugaboo that they get stiff and can't sing it.
I think if your natural vibrato is a little on the faster side, you tend to have an easier time with trills. Lighter voices tend to also have faster vibrato, so I think most of the time its easier for lighter voices. However, Callas and Sutherland are great examples of large voices that still have the mobility to trill, which I think is still related to their rates of vibrato.
Even Wagner wrote trills! Singers have been ignoring them for years!
Verdi wrote trills on Otello... for the baritone.
Lol that Tebaldi's version of Trovatore 🤣🤣
0:01 "I can't trill, Oooh" HAHAHAH
And Tebaldi, Nilson, Caballe made an entire career faking/ignoring trills. No wonder the student thought it was ok not to have it.
Caballe trilled
@@operadoc Nope, she sometimes tried to sing a fake trill or just didnt sing it at all like in Ana Bolena.
@@TdvcAgreed. I heard her sing this aria and tried to trill, but it's not the kind of trill that Maria and Joan do.
DIVINAMENTE UNICA!!! POI QUANDO CANTAVA CON PIPPO!!!!!!!
What specific book of ornamentations is Callas referring to? I never caught the title or author...
LaDivinaLover Panofka and Conconi
luis david alvarez corrales Callas refered to her masterclasses to the book “Panofka and Conconi” very frequently!!!
OperaMyWorld I’m a year late as I never got a notification you replied. Thank you!! Truly I appreciate the information. I’ll try to find the book now!
Panofka and Concone. Both can be downloaded from Petrucci Library imslp dot org, as can Garcia, Lamperti,Marchesi, Vaccai. Appcompaniment can be downloaded from apple or google stores the accompaniment to Panofka, Cocone, Marchesi, Garcia and Vaccai are in there as part of free package
There is a natural predisposition to perform agility, among which trills are certainly very difficult but not impossible. In fact, there is the exercise that allows you to improve them. There are singers with a very beautiful and linear voice who do not bother to perform the music as it is written, and there are singers who abuse their vocal and technical skills and their virtuosity to make only that feel: it also depends on the musical context, the directors, the market. With Callas we are on another planet, it's useless, because she is talking about what they wanted, or what it's assumed they wanted, Verdi and Boito
@@fabriziocigni6945 But when the composer put the trill he wanted something to express! Tou can’t do anything you want ;)
@@OperaMyWorld Of course, I know very well, but I wanted to say that if they wanted to, and if they knew how to impose themselves, many singers and many conductors would also know it well; the ruin of art is compromise
Our Maya 💙👑 La Unica Grazie Amico 🇫🇷 Arnuad
Tebaldi's fakery, trying to pretend a trill, is embarrassing and disgusting! Caballe's wasn't much better, which is always so shocking considering she was such a master of Bel Canto in every other aspect. Same with Gencer. Sutherland's is by far the best, and of course Callas is sublime. The other Greek soprano, whom I'm not yet familiar with sounds quite good too. Sills should have been included as well, whose trill even surpasses Sutherland.
Callas had the better trill though: she can change it depending on the character and the situation and it wasn't just always fast like Sutherland or without core like Sills.
@@deadwalke9588 . I had to really think about what you stated, and have to agree with you on both accounts. Both Sutherland's and Sills trills, though quite fast and exciting, were really nothing more than a mechanical display of human warbling like a canary, whereas with Callas, her trills were always different, and always in line with the drama, AND the music...just like everything else she did. And yes, it's also very true what you said about Sills trill. Although it was very unique and an amazing speed to it, in order to perform her trills the way she did, she always completely dropped any core that she had from the tone. A total voice change from her normal singing to her trill singing. Even her vowel would change.
Art Danks Callas could also do a messa di voce on a trill, trill in chest voice, her trills from different arias are of a completely different style, such as comparing Coppia Iniqua to D’amor Sull’ali... in Coppia it is larger and more frantic, in D’amor it is tighter, more reserved.
@@manolis.799 Very true! I hadn't really thought of that before, but now that you've brought it up I know from memory you are absolutely right! And the amazing thing about that is that she was such an artist that she would actually be very deliberate about each one, based on the drama and the music. No one like Callas!
I'm of the opinion that if the composer's of the opera's she sang could have heard her, ALL of them would have loved her completely!
No. Everybody knows trill is a matter of “luck". Yo have it or you don't. If you see the old manuals (i.e. the _Vaccaj_ ) they insist in some embellishments every singer has to master (roulades, grupetti, acciacature...) and dedicate several lessons to each of them. For trills, just an “introductory" lesson that teaches mainly how to pretend to sing it when you naturally can‘t. Many of the better singers in history didn't have a trill and led wonderful careers, nevertheless.
Surprising that, as knowledgeable as she was in this matter, Callas made such mistake.
Famous singers without trills they have just not learn how to trill!! There is a whole tradition and books about how to acquire trills! As Marilyn Horne stated once on her interview...” I didn’t have any trill! So I just took two notes and tried to speed them up! Little by little in whole tones!! For 2 Years! And after that I had a trill!!! So of course it can be learnt! Callas didn’t made any mistake! She just learn and developed all her technique complete! On the other hand Tebaldi for example, couldn’t make trills and so many other technique skills, she never was taugh them! And she never dared to learn them! Also she had huge intonation problems! That’s matter of technique! Being a famous singer doesn’t mean that you have a perfect technique!
@@OperaMyWorld, are you talking seriously? Do you really consider Horne a good example of how to sing well? Well, then we are not talking about the same thing. Greetings.
@@robert111k Where I wrote that Horne is a good example of singing? Learn to read!! I said that She learnt how to trill!! So trill is definately as Callas stated matter of technique and learning. Greetings.
That is absolutely BS, trills like every other aspect of vocal technique can be learned and developed, it just so happens most never bother to develop them!
@@apollodionysus3857 Yes--of course you can learn to trill--it requires practicing a run perhaps 500 times in various ways.
I really enjoyed this post - but Joan Sutherland was the greatest in the world at trills - Callas was good...but Dame Joan should have done a master class on this.
I really liked hearing Maria give instruction to the student however!...😊
Sutherland's trills were spectacular, especially in fast music. In slow music, Callas takes the cake. She could bind trills into a slow cantilena in a way that Sutherland never could. Callas could enter and exit a trill seamlessly without every breaking the legato line. The trills became almost an intensification, where as Sutherland's trills in slow music were an appliqué glued over the melodic line. I think you can hear this best in D'amor sul ali rosee or in Bolena's Al dolce guidami. In such music, Sutherland can't hold a candle to Callas. But take the cabaletta to Masnadieri, and Sutherland is in a league of her own.
@@Shahrdad Sutherland was in no way better than Callas at trills regardless of the tempi. Her trills in Masnadieri cabaletta are weak and transparent, not fully open and resonant. Callas could sing her trills faster and much bigger. Just listen to Sutherland's cabaletta and this in a row and you'll see what i mean. ruclips.net/video/Ns5hdhOq4FU/видео.html
This is about our Maya & Not about Dame. Joan my friend. Arnold Bourbon Anaral
@@fan2jnrc YES!
Sutherland's trill was a marvel but so was Callas' in a way. Very different takes.