I'll take a stab at this. Please argue, correct,
dispute.
Shawna, there's a fantastic book out there called The
Singing Voice, by Robert Rushmore. It's out of print
(here's a link to have Amazon try to track one down
for you, or you can search used and OOP bookstores
online:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0934878501/
), but it has a great description of the different
voice types and what literature they sing.
Here is a link to an explanation of the highly
structured German fach system:
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1450/fachlist.html
Very basically, I would say the different fachs (not
the German system, but a "general" classification that
people seem to use in the US) are:
coloratura
light lyric/soubrette
lyric soprano
lirico-spinto soprano
dramatic soprano
lyric mezzo
dramatic mezzo
contralto
light tenor
lyric tenor
spinto tenor
heldentenor
lyric baritone
dramatic baritone
bass-baritone
bass buffo/lyric
dramatic bass
These break down... lyric coloratura vs. "true"
coloratura vs. dramatic coloratura, or middle lyric
vs. full lyric, or Italian spinto vs. Italian
lirico-spinto vs. Germanic spinto vs. young/high
dramatic.
In terms of classifying people, you're probably going
to get two different types of answers (i.e.,
Sutherland): What they *were* and what they sang.
Sutherland sang the lyric and dramatic coloratura
repertoire. Her voice was, I would say, too large to
be a lyric coloratura voice. Was hers an essentially
dramatic coloratura instrument? Some people say that
she was developing into one of the greatest Wagnerian
singers (i.e. a dramatic mezzo or soprano) ever until
Bonynge found her and mutated her into a freak canary
bird (I don't necessarily agree with this, just giving
an example). So some people would say that she "was"
a dramatic voice, who trained herself to sing the
coloratura literature.
There are the two branches of Finding Your Fach. How
your voice is trained, and where it will be its best.
You can take a basic young soprano and train her to be
a coloratura -- developing the high D's and E's,
emphasizing brilliance and agility, giving her a
stunning top and a rather cold middle. You can train
her to be a lyric -- giving up the high E but allowing
a warmer, fuller middle, going for blossom and space,
training in a sense of swoop and grace and warmth.
You can train her to be, perhaps unsuccessfully, a
full lyric or spinto -- pushing the voice into a full
thrust in the middle and lower voice, sacrificing
loveliness of tone for power and cut. Unfortunately,
that young soprano can't look into a crystal ball and
compare these three finished products to see which one
she likes the best. A good voice teacher will hear
where the voice would be happiest and most beautiful,
and train it in that direction.
A student can find a teacher who will train you out of
fach, or will "hear" the wrong fach in you (usually a
teacher of that same fach) -- and it might work, and
work well. The young soprano above might be trained
to be a brilliant, lovely coloratura and have a good
career, but, if she had been trained as a lyric
instead, she might have had an even better career, if
that's where her voice would have been happier.
Faching famous singers is difficult and that's how
fistfights start. Not only because singers sing
across fachs, growing into larger fachs as they age,
but people disagree with how they used their voices.
Callas is the greatest example of fach fistfights --
dramatic coloratura, lyric who pushed herself into
dramatic roles, dramatic with a high extension that
allowed her to sing dram-coloratura roles as well?
Cecilia Bartoli -- lyric mezzo, or
artificially-darkened soprano?
Are you a soprano? Here's my opinion for a start:
"True" coloratura (acuto sfogato): Natalie Dessay
Lyric coloratura: Ruth Ann Swenson (or "should" she be
a lyric?), Beverly Sills, Erna Berger
Dramatic coloratura: Cristina Deutekom, Joan
Sutherland
Light lyric/soubrette: Barbara Bonney, Lucia Popp
Middle lyric: Victoria de los Angelos, Mirella Freni
Full lyric: Renee Fleming, Leontyne Price
Italian spinto: Renata Tebaldi, Zinka Milanov
Germanic spinto: Leonie Rysenek, Anja Silja
Dramatic: Birgit Nilsson, Krsten Flagstad, Jane Eaglen
Just some opinions.
Isabelle B.
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Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
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