CASTA DIVA LISTENING ASSIGNMENT - Sarah Boucher
1. Renee Fleming: Brava Renee! Crushed it. I love her rendition. She is authentic, she is free and she has such musicality. I saw no tension in her body, and those high notes were gorgeous. She was energized yet calm. I like that she put personality and passion into it, but it didn't feel like over kill.
2. Maria Callas: I know everyone loves to hate on Maria Callas but I think she nails this song. Yes, I don't fully love her tone color but the thing is you can tell it is her voice. She is so authentic in her singing, more so then a lot of other singers! She has such passion for this piece. There is musicality, personality and passion. I am not sure how the folded arms helps her with posture and breathing but she seems to make it through fine!
3. Barbara Frittoli: There was something so pure and free in her tone. I thought it all seemed to just flow naturally out of her and she displayed a lot of musicality. She had pretty good posture and released jaw and I liked that her voice is unique. Her sound may have been a little too oscuro though. It was so flowing though, that I felt like some of the diction was lost. I also felt like while it was good technically, she didn't have much passion or emotion.
4. Sumi Jo: (Note: The video from the email didn't have a visual attached, it was just sound with a picture of her so I found one that was live to watch. It was the one where she is wearing the crazy white dress.) I thought her sound was very balanaced and her high notes had lovely bing. She put a lot of emotion into the piece. The thing I didn't enjoy about this performance was that she sometimes makes weird faces to reach high notes that aren't very nice to look at. She had a little bit of bucket breathing especially in the beginning, but her phrasing and musicality was nice. She was more upright than Netrebko.
5. Anna Netrebko: I normally love her, but as I watched this video in comparison with the others I just felt as though she did not have very good posture and therefore her breath was shallow. (It could be because of the dress she was wearing.) It seemed like she was hunched over and her chin was either raised very high or very low. I like the warmth in her voice but it felt a little too dark at times. She did put a lot of musicality and emotion into it though.
6. Joan Sutherland: I like that Sutherland had more bing in her voice then
Netrebko, but I thought she seemed a little stiff (it could be because
of the plant vines she was holding out in front of her). Although the
body seemed firmly grounded, there seemed to be tension. Her high notes
didn't quite have the bing that is heard in the rest of her voice. She
didn't give much character either.
7. Edita Gruberova: I put Edita last because she was hard to watch. The way her eyes got big (She looked a little like a deer in the headlights sometimes) and she would tilt her head back a ton. I thought her vibrato lacked consistency and that her high notes sounded a bit like they were being squeezed out.
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