On the contralto/mezzo-soprano argument:
1) Notice that there are 5 opera anthologies, not 6.
2) Get a copy of Musical America (the annual volume) and look in the
index and see how many mezzo-sopranos there are and how many
contraltos. (There are probably 10 times as many mezzos as
contraltos.) There's a reason for that.
3) When I was an undergraduate at Indiana I studied with Martha
Lipton (a wonderful mezzo, BTW). She told us that she had called
herself a contralto early in her career in order to be "what nobody
else was. (This was the 40s.) She changed her mind, because all she
was being hired for was "old lady" parts and oratorios, so back to
being called a mezzo!
4) I did my dissertation on the songs of Sidney Homer. His wife,
Louise Homer, was a famous contralto. Let me tell you, I did HOURS of
research on the Homers, and never saw her (or any other big singer of
her time, BTW) called a mezzo. Yet she sang Amneris, Dalilah,
Azucena, Suzuki (she was the first at the Met), the Gluck Orfeo, etc.
There is no doubt in my mind that if she were singing today she would
be considered a mezzo-soprano.
5) In the words of Sarasota Opera Musical Director Victor
DeRenzi, "The problem with the lyric mezzo is that there is no such
thing." He pointed out that many of the "lyric mezzo" roles
say "soprano" in the score: Cherubino, Dorabella, Leonora in La
Favorita, Adalgisa, etc.
Just some ideas!
-JS
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