Maria Callas-I think this was the best performance. Her diction was clear and she had a good balanced timbre. The intonation was solid and she really showed some good agility that seemed to be free of tension. Also, I think she did the best job expressing the emotion of the music.
Anna Netrebko- It's a nice, consistent timbre that looks very effortless. The expression was also good. The timbre is a little dark for my taste, though and there were some breaths that involved a lot of shoulder movement and sternal displacement.
Renee Flemming- She has a great, balanced timbre and great control. It doesn't even look the slightest bit hard for her. My only complaint is that she is smiling the whole time, which I didn't find appropriate for this particular aria.
Barbara Frittoli- Her voice seemed to be well in control and she has some good agility. Her body did some weird things, though. I don't like the whole my-palms-are-glued-to-my-thighs thing and her head kept wanting to move down and forward. Also, a lot of her breaths seemed pretty high.
Joan Sutherland- Sutherland has a good timbre that is well-balanced, but the tone was a little choppy on some of her ornamentation. She was also scooping into a lot of notes. Her head was tilting back a lot and it looked like there was some tension in the shoulders.
Sumi Jo- The timbre wasn't terrible, but only got worse in the coloratura passages. It sounded like she was putting an 'h' before every new note. Her vibrato was shaky, inconsistent, and sounded forced. The diction was inaccurate, especially the vowels.
Edita Gruberova- The timbre was really swallowed and sounded squeezed in the upper register. She was scooping for a lot of notes and her high notes were flat and the last note had some serious intonation problems. Her head was thrown back practically the whole time and there seemed to be a lot of tension in her shoulders. Also, her eyebrows were practically touching her hairline.
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