Coloratura soprano - silver voice

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

We all know the touching and sad tale about the Snow Maiden, the authors of which were A. N. Ostrovsky and N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. The part of the tender girl, the daughter of Spring-Red and Frost, according to the author's intention, is performed by a coloratura soprano. It was this timbre of voice, high and reminiscent of a crystal bell, that was able to convey both the ringing of a drop and the silver of ice, which is associated with the image of the Snow Maiden.

Coloratura soprano in the classification of singing voices occupies the highest line. This is a voice capable of sounding in the highest register. In addition, this is the most mobile voice, which is why it is called coloratura. He can perform the most complex vocal embellishments - coloratura.

Interestingly, different composers were attracted to the possibilities of this timbre in different ways. If the composers of the 18th century paid attention to the virtuosity of the sound of the voice, then the coloratura soprano was used to show its closeness to the sound of a musical instrument in all its brilliance. An example is the evil sorceress Queen of the Night, to whom W. Mozart assigned one of the main roles in the opera The Magic Flute. A bright and complex part with virtuoso passages. Later, already at 19century, composers began to pay more attention to expressiveness, psychologism of singing. But as before, this timbre of the female voice is associated with fairy-tale heroines: Lyudmila in the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" by M. Glinka, the Swan Princess in "The Tale of Tsar S altan" by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, the Shamakhanskaya Queen in his "Golden Cockerel".

A narrower specialization has formed in the West. The coloratura soprano is subdivided into dramatic soprano and lyric soprano. The part of the Queen of the Night in Mozart's "Magic Flute" is sung by a performer with dramatic voice characteristics, and the part of Zerbinetta in "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Richard Strauss is performed by a lyric-coloratura soprano. In Russian practice, such fractionality, as a rule, is not taken into account.

Singers with a lyric soprano perform the roles of Natasha Rostova in Prokofiev's "War and Peace" or Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin". It is a voice with a warm timbre, lyrical and soft.

Another variety, the dramatic soprano, as the name implies, is a bright and strong singing voice. Such a timbre is given to the parties of heroines with a complex character, who fight for their happiness and often die for it. Natasha from the opera "Mermaid" by A. Dargomyzhsky or Lisa from "The Queen of Spades" by P. Tchaikovsky are just such heroines.

There are voices that can combine different qualities of a soprano, then they can do a variety of parts and images. Such a unique lyric althe coloratura soprano was, for example, the great Russian singer Antonina Nezhdanova.

Of course, Italian bel canto singers have always fought for the right of the world's first soprano. Once the first was Maria Callas. Today the throne is vacant. Although the Russian singer Anna Netrebko, who is glad to see on any stage, confidently pushes the Western opera divas, being at the same time the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre.