ROSA RAISA “CASTA DIVA… AH BELLO A ME RITORNA” (1920,1929)

[@raybercse1]

A voice of great clarity with a brilliant and ringing upper register. Wonderful coloratura technique.

[@georgemeiser3231]

Her 1929 portion of this posting is an absolute showstopper. Considering that everyone referred to her enormous dramatic soprano voice, here she demonstrates coloratura ability that is astounding. Many thanks for this posting.

[@andremad75]

Incredible. Divine rendition of both aria and cabaletta. .and the cabaletta with the reprise of the first section, in 1929, it's a true miracle. Thanks for posting.

[@terrance7220]

My favorite Casta Diva recording ever ! Shows absolutely no struggling, straightforward and HUGE from beginning to the end. And the voice has so much character.

[@BellaFirenze]

Hai sentito altri soprani in questa aria?

[@antoniomartinazzo5847]

You are so right. Effortless, no holes whatsoever.

[@niamcd6604]

😂😂😂😂

[@fabriziogarzi9892]

​​​@@antoniomartinazzo5847 , si ma senza nessuna espressione, un pezzo di legno, come viene viene. La voce pero' e' bellissima e arrivava fino al Re sopracuto col quale chiudeva il 1° atto di Norma dopo il Terzetto e per me migliore di quella della Ponselle. Ma dopo aver ascoltato la Callas non reggono nessun confronto. Ma sicuramente prima del 1948 possiamo considerarla una Norma da manuale anche se lo stile nessuna sapeva cos'era.

[@antoniomartinazzo5847]

@@fabriziogarzi9892mi scusi ma mi permetto di dissentire. In primis la Callas non ci regalo' mai la cabaletta con il da capo variato, ne' tantomeno una vocalita' senza note sorde. Per carita', la Maria e' stata una delle grandi Norme, nessuno lo vuole negare, ma certo non uno spartiacque nella storia dell'opera. Ce lo vogliono far credere, ma credo avesse ragione Lauri-Volpi, quando sosteneva che spesso il valore commerciale superava quello artistico.

[@davidkurland6802]

what a pleasure to hear raisa......she certainly lives up to her reputation

[@stefanodepeppo]

Beautiful voice, secure and uniform from top to bottom. Excellent technique, beautiful coloratura, especially for a big voice and of those times! Very interesting to hear variations in this cabaletta pre- Sutherland. But also no expression whatsoever, nothing happens in Casta diva, nothing happens in Ah bello… Bizarre, because in Mefistofele she was full of pathos.

[@MarcioSaburi]

Amazing singer!

[@scottgrunow5201]

Such an easy top register

[@davidmolina7543]

I had never heard her before oh, she does some interesting ornamentation that had never heard before all-in-all I enjoyed her performance.

[@МаринаМариновна-з5к]

Мне очень, очень понравилось!!!

[@sixeses]

thank you

[@numetutelare]

Timbro splendido e trillo spettacolare.

[@luigipirsavele9373]

Grandissima cantante. Ciha consegnato bellissime esecuzioni che sicuramente non le rendono piena giustizia. La Toti dal Monte scrisse che fu la più grande Norma del suo tempo (anni 20 e 30) è Lauri Volpi scrisse (voce sovrana per intensità di colorito e volume. Credo sia sufficiente per darle tutta la nostra ammirazione senza trovare mende alle sue incisioni.

[@marcomicheletti9957]

3:02, variaz su regnar tu fai 4:32, Ah bello, prima strofa 5:32, cadenza poi seconda strofa con abbellimenti 5:51, variaz Ricci, p. 60

[@vegtamvanderveg]

The aria is very plodding but the cabeletta is crazy good, the greatest ever!

[@Fairpavel]

I loved it!

[@alioffe4321]

The best after Callas! This has to be what they call "old school". I'm spell-bound. She even sings the accents on the As and her coloratura is just pure joy.

[@ot8479]

After!!???? Callas couldn't do this even during her prime. She was very good and 'emotional', but nobody compares to the great voices of the early 1900s. Voices and techniques.

[@Khalid7a]

@@ot8479 Do you know who's greater? Voices from the 1500s 🤣

[@Orfeus80]

@@ot8479 so true!

[@Orfeus80]

Actually Callas comes at least second here. Raisa is steadier, has no holes in her range, sings the da capo and ornaments it gloriously. Please show us a similar Callas performance.

[@Khalid7a]

@@Orfeus80 you know she doesn't have holes in her voice from this primitive recording that captures a fraction of the frequency spectrum? You must be a genius 😂.

[@purisermonisamator]

Кабалетта меня впечатлила сильнее, чем ария. В любом случае Раиза была выдающимся вокалистом, справляясь и с Нормой, и с Турандот.

[@kemalkhan6185]

It's flat a lot in the middle range. A great sound though and magic top. Easy to see why she was (possibly) the vocal inspiration for Turandot.

[@clefnoteproductions6695]

You can tell why she was chosen to create Turandot

[@BellaFirenze]

Verismo Bellini.

[@kurtgarmaker3719]

The cabaletta is amazing... The aria.. not so good.

[@scottgrunow5201]

You could do a series on historical Jewish opera singers. Rose Pauly. Ottilie Metzger. So many others.

[@Arishenka_A]

Надо же.. Поет - как разговор телефонный ведет. Никакого напряжения, все ровно, просто, легко, открыто, при этом интенсивно и колоратурно - что верхние ноты, что низ.. Разве что эмоциональная составляющая - подкачала. В целом - замечательная техника и звучание. Жаль, что запись плохая.. И тем не менее, судя даже по такой записи - она сильнее Ponselle, очевидно. Но почему-то исполнение Ponselle мне нравится больше 🤔.. - у нее харизма сильнее. и голос темнее, видимо. Она, когда поет, как-будто все время закрывается, маскируется, убегает - а ты пытаешься ее поймать . Очень увлекательно )

[@Shahrdad]

A voice at least as big Ponselle’s, far more agile, with far better high notes.

[@numetutelare]

Concordo spesso la Ponselle è sopravvalutata

[@Orfeus80]

Steadier, clearer and more powerful than Callas you should admit! She also does the da capo and ornaments it! Something Callas never championed, despite her bel canto-reviving and composer-faithful reputation.

[@ER1CwC]

​@@Orfeus80 I must admit that this recording quality tests my limits. One can tell the evenness of her scale and her power. And her agility is fantastic. But her voice surely was darker than this. I'm reminded of the mickey mouse recordings of the turn of the century: all brightness. It's amazing how much better Ponselle's voice was recorded around the same time. Very hard to compare with Callas. Callas was so much more detailed interpretively -- and, I dare say, so much more musical. And at least in this repertory (including Casta diva!), she was able to exploit her technical issues and make them assets dramatically and musically. Ultimately, it's about the cumulative impact. Well, I guess I'm comparing....

[@Orfeus80]

@ER1CwC I hear you. I can't enjoy these primitive recordings for very long either but behind the poor technology I hear some qualities that we've now lost and I find fascinating. It also shows how much singing changed between the early 20th century and the 50s. That's only logical but it's great to hear the evidence.

[@ER1CwC]

@@Orfeus80 I wonder why Ponselle’s early recordings are so technically better than Raisa’s here. I’m listening to Ponselle’s Vissi d’arte from 1919 as I type, and the voice is all there. I agree with your broader point though. Takes knowledge, experience, and educated guesswork. Also agree that there was a gradual shift in general technique, but I’d have to do a deeper dive to put my finger on what happened, and on the timeline. It’s pretty complicated because I do think that there were variations across different traditions and even across different voice types. One immediate thought I do have is that people gradually covered more and more, perhaps the round the sound. Vibrato also became slower.

[@FrançoisRosso]

Voix très intéressante, technique impressionnante, mais pas la moindre émotion. La chanteuse semble tout ignorer du pathos bellinien et se soucier de la situation dramatique comme d'une guigne.

[@livianaotacilla1403]

non bad, but i think she was unfortunately out of the rythm

[@JozefSterkens]

in 1933 on HMV the voice was detoriating

[@ot8479]

You must be out of your mind or have some selective hearing issues!

[@gerardcohen7780]

Est-ce l'enregistrement , on a l'impression qu'elle chante dans les dents. Un henissement de jument. Et puis elle respire tout le temps, ou plutôt on entend qu'elle respire, ce qui ne doit jamais se faire.

[@EmilyGloeggler7984]

Not as good as Rosa Ponselle, but good. :)

[@coraberger4947]

??? She was the best on her time. And in these years Puccini chose her as his 1. Turandot. She had a drammatic Voice for Isolde. Do you know another Turandot-Singer since yet, who had bewared such splendid acuiti and agility in same time by singing only few chosen roles in this quality and flawlessness? Except Callas who ruined her voice by singing to much criss-cross.

[@Shahrdad]

@@coraberger4947 Callas ruined her voice by losing over a third of her body mass in less than a year. The change was immediately obvious. Prior that the voice inexorable

[@coraberger4947]

@@Shahrdad No, she lost her weight BEFOR her best years till 1953. The loss of voice quality began after 1959/1960. And losing kg has nothing to do with the singing tecnic of a portable, wich is controlled only by the fine coordination of ca. 20 muscles (for speaking 200) which allow an open palat placing and voice production in the resonance rooms in the nasal area, therefore there must be an open body till the feets, but WITHOUT any power, force or pressure. Was she made by her expression exhausting to push the breast register often over the passaggio area (speaking register between breast and head register Soprano mi-sol , which you have to use without any power , where the Stimmansatz has to be so soft as possible). And to push breath with to much power, a psychological error, during singing roles more drammatic as your natural voice potenz. And she sangs all roles between Mezzo till coloratura till highdrammatic criss cross. These maleducated technic tears apart the register facing and produces these broken voices, which have to use than still more power to stay portable and energetic, because the open position and resonance don t work anymore. And this damages the larynx and the cordes directly, which could not close exactly anymore, and than at last irreparable damage: nodules or worse: cysts which have to be operated (Dessay, Villazon, who made exactly these errors to sing over his voice character. If you have luck you can produce a Pseudotechnic to could still sing , forcing the larynx down with violence like Netrebo made or the dumplings of Kauffmann, to imitate a darker voice. Both are naturally bright, slim lyrique voices, overforced and ruined after 5-10 years singing the wrong roles. And exactly the same damage characters like Callas after 1963.,

[@Shahrdad]

@@coraberger4947 That's simply bullshit. Anyone with properly functioning ears can hear how Callas's voice changed (and not for the better) from 1953 to 1954 and afterward. There is plenty of recorded evidence between 1949 and late 1953. During that time, the voice was huge (Colossal as Bonynge called it, "It poured out of her the way Flagstad's did), full, rich, steady, with an easy top all the way up to a solid E-natural. She sounded as idiomatic in Bellini, as she did in Verdi or Wagner (as proven by her Parsifal). Then suddenly in 1954, we get a voice that is smaller, lighter, thinner, more shrill on top, and the vibrato is much heavier, and the infamous wobble shows up for the first time. Walter Legge actually told her they will need to send along seasickness pills with every side of the Forza recording. Just listening to her Trovatore from Scala in '53 and comparing it with her version of '56 shows how the voice had thinned, the trills had slowed down were were less free, and the top sounds shrill, as if it's hung onto by the teeth rather than supported on the breath. Phyllis Curtin first brought up the issue of breath support as the cause of Callas's vocal downfall back in the '80s, and Fleming also mentioned it, saying that Callas's weight must have been an integral part of her breath support system. Curtin pointed out how Callas's chest would sink and her shoulder would slump forward in her latter videos. Sutherland, who heard Callas before and after said that the slim Callas's body seemed to fragile to support the sound she had been used to making. I'm not saying that Callas's singing was bad post 1954, and indeed, she did some of her greatest singing (unrivaled to this day) between 1954 and 1959, but it was no longer the same inexorable voice that it was before she became thin. Whereas one can listen to the Callas voice of pre-1954 and imagine her being perfectly at home as Brünnhilde and Isolde (and as she proves on recording, as Kundry), the thin Callas's voice no longer sounds like one that could easily cope with the demands of these Wagner roles, or for that matter as Lady Macbeth or Abigaile.

[@ot8479]

Rosa Ponzilli was NEVER a full soprano, and she said so herself when she stated that she should have trained as a mezzo! Also, because of this exactly, she used to count all the high notes she had to reach.

[@pelleas9]

Awful.

[@paragod333]

You are