José Carreras & Georges Thill Note: Finding recordings of and writings on Georges Thill was rather difficult in comparison with the previous singers I’ve studied. Rather than abandon the pursuit entirely, however, I decided to focus a bit more heavily on José Carreras by listening to three full operas and excerpts. For Thill I was limited to excerpted arias from a variety of sources and highlights of a Charpentier opera. José Carreras José Carreras’ career defies easy explanation because of the multiplicity of factors that defined both his technique and his repertoire throughout. It remains unclear if his progression from Bel Canto lyric repertoire all the way through spinto repertoire caused or was caused by a darkening depth in the voice even as it retained its fundamental characteristics. Many critics questioned the function conductors and fame played in role selection and a strong suspi...
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau & The Deep Voice Principle Note: Suitable baritones who fit the subject of this project were substantially more difficult to find than singers of previous voice types. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau fit the bill perfectly because of his experience in a variety of operatic repertoire and in art song, but few others did. I have written at length about Fischer-Dieskau and then addressed this problem itself. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau In order to study Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau I used assorted recordings of art songs along with three recordings of longer works. The assorted recordings of art song were of pieces I had in my own collection as well as the seminal Erlkönig. I used a video recording of Winterreise in 1979 with Alfred Brendel at the piano, a recording of Rigoletto under the direction of Rafael Kubelik in 1964, and an opera film of Le nozze di Figaro under Karl Böhm in 1...
A fellow voice major here at Lawrence caused me to recall an interesting trend in vocal classification among singers over the past century. Theoretically, beyond Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, (the rare) Alto, Baritone, and Bass, voice types are governed by fächer a term hailing from Germany that describes a group of different fach (s) that further divide these voice types. Note that there are other terms that are used in countries that don't speak German, but by far fach is the most common word used to describe the idea. Rather than list fächer here, as that isn't the point of this article, I will direct you to look them up here on Wikipedia (note this list is not entirely accurate, as there are some omissions (such as absence of the leggiero tenor) and the terms are not clearly defined even among experts). All the great singers that opera lovers enjoy thinking about and listening to should technically be able to be classified by these fächer . However, save for a few except...
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