While I enjoy listening to opera, the extent of my familiarity is really what I picked up as a kid listening to what my dad listened to many years ago in the era of Callas, Sutherland et al. So I have never heard Sondra Radvanovsky. My goodness, what a joy!! Of them all, she's the one I went back to and replayed and replayed. Thank you, Michele, for this!!
This one of the reasons why I love opera and why I own so many recordings of them - directors and performers bring themselves to a work and make it new each time (as opposed to several friends of mine who have "their favorite" recordings and have no desire to hear other recordings). As a sometimes composer myself, I very much appreciate Adams' perspective. There are *many* people who think of music, especially classical musics, as writ in stone (one must abide by the composer's directions, etc.). I am not one of those people. It is both exhilarating and humbling to put a work "out there" and have it performed, especially if one gives it away and explicitly allows interpretive or even modifications of a work. I like the 'recipe' model.
I think non-classical musics are also interpreted by performers. The Great American Songbook is full of works performed by myriad performers who interpret the songs from their own perspectives with their own gifts. Pop, rock, and blues have tunes that are similarly interpreted, especially songs written by the great songwriters (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen, Carole King, etc.). Think how many versions of Cohen's Hallelujah you may have heard, or Lennon & McCartney's Blackbird.
After listening to "Casta Diva", interpreted so beautifully by these seven phenomenal artists, I did something I'd never done before. I found the Italian lyrics (along with an English translation) and tried to sing along - badly, of course😃(https://lyricstranslate.com/en/casta-diva-virtuous-goddess.html). The experience gave me a deeper appreciation for the fortuitous and enduring collaboration on "Norma" between the composer Vincenzo Bellini and his librettist, the poet Felice Romani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felice_Romani). They produced perhaps not only the finest exemplar of the bel canto genre for the soprano voice, but also gave legions of performers permission to embrace the kind of vocal acrobatics I now understand as "ornamentation". Each of these women "decorated" the music in their own way. I loved them all.
I dare say technique applies more to NORMA than beauty. Having heard a disastrous Rita Hunter as NORMA at The Met and a feeble one at City Opera w/Richard Bonynge conducting. Joan and Marilyn could still not be bettered decades later at The Met. And I heard an excellent NORMA with Anton Coppola conducting at the Paramount in Asbury Pk.
While I enjoy listening to opera, the extent of my familiarity is really what I picked up as a kid listening to what my dad listened to many years ago in the era of Callas, Sutherland et al. So I have never heard Sondra Radvanovsky. My goodness, what a joy!! Of them all, she's the one I went back to and replayed and replayed. Thank you, Michele, for this!!
This one of the reasons why I love opera and why I own so many recordings of them - directors and performers bring themselves to a work and make it new each time (as opposed to several friends of mine who have "their favorite" recordings and have no desire to hear other recordings). As a sometimes composer myself, I very much appreciate Adams' perspective. There are *many* people who think of music, especially classical musics, as writ in stone (one must abide by the composer's directions, etc.). I am not one of those people. It is both exhilarating and humbling to put a work "out there" and have it performed, especially if one gives it away and explicitly allows interpretive or even modifications of a work. I like the 'recipe' model.
I think non-classical musics are also interpreted by performers. The Great American Songbook is full of works performed by myriad performers who interpret the songs from their own perspectives with their own gifts. Pop, rock, and blues have tunes that are similarly interpreted, especially songs written by the great songwriters (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen, Carole King, etc.). Think how many versions of Cohen's Hallelujah you may have heard, or Lennon & McCartney's Blackbird.
After listening to "Casta Diva", interpreted so beautifully by these seven phenomenal artists, I did something I'd never done before. I found the Italian lyrics (along with an English translation) and tried to sing along - badly, of course😃(https://lyricstranslate.com/en/casta-diva-virtuous-goddess.html). The experience gave me a deeper appreciation for the fortuitous and enduring collaboration on "Norma" between the composer Vincenzo Bellini and his librettist, the poet Felice Romani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felice_Romani). They produced perhaps not only the finest exemplar of the bel canto genre for the soprano voice, but also gave legions of performers permission to embrace the kind of vocal acrobatics I now understand as "ornamentation". Each of these women "decorated" the music in their own way. I loved them all.
I thought they all sang so beautifully, couldnt choose just one
I dare say technique applies more to NORMA than beauty. Having heard a disastrous Rita Hunter as NORMA at The Met and a feeble one at City Opera w/Richard Bonynge conducting. Joan and Marilyn could still not be bettered decades later at The Met. And I heard an excellent NORMA with Anton Coppola conducting at the Paramount in Asbury Pk.