From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Cheryl Studer was Re: Kathleen Battle
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:25:19 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <1992Mar30.125343.12498@lloyd.Camex.COM> chrisi@lloyd.Camex.COM (Chris Ischay) writes:

>In article <28357@brahms.udel.edu> conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:

>>Ann, I'm curious:  what does your voice teacher think about Cheryl
>>Studer?  To me, she's unique among "name" sopranos these days in
>>her vocal qualities:  a large voice that's also high, bright (but not
>>metallic), and fluid.  

>I heard her Violetta last fall, and it was very beautiful.  She is gifted
>as a *vocal* actress, but her stage histrionics were a bit overdone.  I've
>heard her CD of Mozart arias, which I find really gorgeous.

And remarkable for including both Pamina's and the Queen of Night's
arias, very well done.  I agree, visually she does "the usual opera
thing" onstage, though I don't doubt the basic sincerity of her
involvement.

>I wonder whether you would put folks like Aprile Millo and June Anderson in
>the same category.  

I personally would not.  I was talking about a particular kind of purely
vocal excellence that I hear in the best of Studer.  Millo's is a good
solid Verdi voice; we'd be better off if we had a dozen at her level,
rather than almost no alternatives for Aida and the like.  To me she's
not "one for the ages," though, and when I saw her in Don Carlo last
month she seemed edgy, effortful, and scoopy.  Also at times quite
lovely, never less than acceptable.  We've certainly heard much worse.

June Anderson seems inconsistent to me.  Very good in some ways, less
satisfying in others.  I'll be watching to see how she develops though.

>>(I should add that I do hear her go off-track
>>occasionally when singing the big Italian parts.  

>I'm not sure what off-track means here.  The one flaw I heard was during
>her duets in La Traviata when she tended to wander off pitch in the exposed
>moments.  Her Germont stayed rock solid, but things got a little funky in
>"Parigi o cara."

Well, I was indeed thinking primarily of pitch problems.  I saw her
first Lucia, in Philadelphia a few years back, and was horrendously
disappointed.  Either she has been accepting bad Italian coaching, or
her evident good sense deserts her when she elaves the German repertory.
She seems to think that her own firm, well-projected vocal placement is
somehow wrong for Verdi or Donizetti (the great coloraturas of early in
this century, many of whom sang Aida, would have been surprised), and
tries to manufacture a darker, false vocal color.  She also somehow
imagines she has to "lighten up" to sing the coloratura, even though she
has no trouble singing runs full voice.  So she loses control of pitch.
I wish she'd just say "sorry, Maestro Muti, I can't do it Tebaldi's way;
here is my way."

Our modern coaching system probably ensures that no performance turns
out unlistenably awful.  But it has a lot to answer for in terms of
trying to enforce the same sound and manner on everybody.  Be grateful
for the special few who'll have nothing to do with it.

Jon Alan Conrad
Organization: Senior, Music, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA