Sopranos Becoming Scarce?- Page 2

[catstagestud]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 5:49pm

We should not forget Christine Andreas or Rebecca Luker. They've got great legit voices. Andreas has this hefty tone to her but sings high stuff and it's got that classical training sound to it. Luker is just wonderful; I saw the Show Boat revival in '96 and being to young to appreciate it I hated the show, but wish I could go back in time and really sit down and watch it now.

[twogaab2]

Posted: 3/3/05 at 5:56pm

These are artificial catagories. These are still sopranos. Listen to Nancy Opel in Urintown. A mezzo could not do this (belt mix a high c).

Baritenor is also a made up catagory. They are either tenors with no high range or high baritones who mix too much.

These are simple pedagogical fact and not open to opinion or interpretation.

Updated On: 3/3/05 at 05:56 PM

[Broadway Style]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 2:25am

Excuse me may I just interject and point out that the full name would be mezzo-SOPRANO!! Sure, coloratura parts are scarce but trust me, true altos could not hit those high belty notes. Am I completely off base in considering many of these women sopranos(Idina aside)? I think we need to be more specific when we are saying there are no soprano parts..if we say no LEGIT soprano parts that would make much more sense.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 3:07am

Broadway, mezzo-sopranos are not sopranos. No more than basses and baritones being the same. It's a totally different part. Voice parts have nothing to do with range actually and everything to do with timbre. Hence the made up Baritenor. They're not tenors with no high notes, they're baritones WITH high notes. Tenors with no upper range are just poor tenors. It's actually a great time to be a tenor. There's more now for tenors then there has been in the past. That having been said it is the age of the Belt Mix true, but that's only in big splashy Revivals. If you want good soprano roles, you need to look outside the big stuff. Composers like Michael John LaChiusa, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Adam Guettel are all examples. Light in the Piazza's coming and it's a quasi-operatic score. Clara is a soprano, her mother is a mezzo and Fabrizio is a tenor. They all sing legit. If your looking for soprano, look at these composers. I miss the legit shows too. I suppose balance is good. Belters, mixers and Sopranos co existing. I wanna write THAT show....wait I think that's Wicked...and LOTS of other shows around.




PS. I think I read in a post that someone had Bernadette Peters down as a soprano and umm I think that wrong... Updated On: 3/4/05 at 03:07 AM

[shira467]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 4:46am

Bernadette Peters, Patti Lupone, and Audra McDonald, are all classified as mezzo-sopranos, I believe. Audra for sure.

I used to be more of an alto. Case in point, I just found a recording of myself singing "Movie In My Mind" from Miss Saigon. Besides the fact I was so nervous, and I was over-vibrattoing like a nutcase, because I had no mix and it is a soft song, I used my 'soprano' high voice - and man, did it suck! It was weak and yucky. When singing the lower stuff, it was fine.

A couple years later, I'm still untrained. And my mix still bites. And I've lost my belt. But I'm now a bonafide soprano. Apparently, if I train, I'd be a lovely lyric coloratura - we'll see what happens.

Anyway...

I remember when "Wonderful Town" came out, many people critisized Jennifer Westfeldt for having a "weak" soprano, when indeed, she simply has a soprano. The way it is supposed to sound. Lovely, lilting, and beautiful. It seems now that is someone was to write songs for classic sopranos, they have to be on the highest notes possible. There's no classic voice writing anymore. If you're an alto, you have to belt an E, and if you're soprano, you had better be able to sing High Ds or Es night after night in almost every song.

Bring back anything Rodgers and Hammerstein - let's see what happens.

In answer to the question, I don't think sopranos are scarce - there's just no writing for us anymore. It's either coloratura or nothing. So off we go to classical...and it doesn't look like I'll have a career in that!

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 11:44am

i disagree with 2 things you said Shira. Firstly Audra is def. NOT a mezzo, she's a bonafide soprano. As a matter of fact she's a lyric soprano. She's got F's. She may happen to have a meatier sound but she is def a sop. IF you have any doubt I send you to "Conversation Piece" from the London Studio recording of Wonderful Town. Audra has said herself that she's a soprano. NOw I saw Jennifer and her soprano was weak, esp in that piece. I don't think sopranos are all light and wistful. Kristin certainly has a full sound. I think it all depends on what kind of soprano you are. I think most people's problem with Jennifer Westfedlt wasn't that she wasn't loud, but that she wasn't good. She couldn't handle the runs, they brought the part down for her and she just sounded awkward. Like I said in my previous post, search out these new composers. They're all writing for sopranos and you never hear them write anything over a high B. So if you look there are parts for sopranos out there. They're just not on Broadway.

[bjivie2]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 1:40pm

Twogaab. I think you just need to realize that there is no official stance on the matter. It will be different to every vocal coach you see.

For example...

I've heard vocal coaches say that Nancy Opel is a) belting the high C; b) mixing the high C; and c) screaming in her head voice. There really is no definitive answer on the topic. Maybe your vocal coach or your school teaches it a certain way, and that's fine, but that's definitely not the only way.

And "baritenor" is an odd little name. For some people they treat it like a Tenor II. For others (like me), they don't want to be stuck in one category or the other (Baritone or Tenor), so they go by baritenor. Again for this term, there's no final say on how to categorize it.

It's just different people's takes on the same subject.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 3/4/05 at 2:35pm

Actually if you listen to Jim Caruso's Cast Party, Nancy says that she's mixing the high G but the High C is all head. You can't really mix a high C. That's waaaaay too high. If a vocal coach is telling you that I wouldn't go to them. However I must say the vocal classifications for Musical Theatre are a bit different from the "legit" vocal world. A baritenor exists in musical theatre but not in Opera. I say do it on a song by song basis. can I sing this? Sure then I'm gonna do it. To each his own.

[suchclumsytime]

Posted: 3/5/05 at 9:44am

Thanks for the composers, Jazzy and Sasha. I'll definitely be hunting around for some of their work!

And Audra is SO a soprano! ^_^

Also, I do agree with the idea that it is important to broaden one's horizons--learn to belt, and sing outside of your strong point and such, but there's nothing I love like a song that goes *way* up there, something I can sing the hell out of. That said, again, I'm all for trying new things and such. Yes, I'm a soprano, but I've played the Narrator in Joseph and Golde in Fiddler, too.

About Opel belting the high C--some people simply apply the term liberally, using it to encompass loud singing in general, regardless of whether it's in head or chest. A personal example: I was rehearsing Unexpected Song for a showcase (that got cancelled...but I'm strangely happy about it?), and after singing through the ending (in my head voice), the director said, That's great that you have that soprano belt! I suppose some people use it to describe a general full, robust sound, no matter what 'voice' it's coming from (for example, Cheno in the opening).

[buffyactsing]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 8:13pm

I agree. I get even more frustrated because I'm a fat soprano, which means few roles for me in musicals because all the roles for sopranos are ingenue roles. Well I do play alto rolls sometime, but it's really not a strong part of my voice.

I think part of it is the pop influence on musical theater...it's just pretty omni-present. I mean, there are no sopranos on the radio really and in pop. Young people don't have the ear for it sometimes...it's different and sometimes that's viewed as bad.

Shira, like Jazzysuite said, I think Audra is classified as a lyric soprano. She uses a lot less chest voice generally than Peters and Lupone.

[mattvcrewse]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 8:53pm

The best thing is to be able to sing it all. All of the girls in my voice class (even the altos who can sing an octave below middle C) can hit the Eb past the C 2 octaves above middle C. I'm a bass, but I can go from C 2 octaves below middle C to F an octave and a half above middle C. I can "belt" (in quotations because the only true belters are mezzo-sopranos) up to a high G#. That's 3 1/2 octaves, and I'm never going to have to use that. Singers like Peters, Foster, Chenowith, etc. may be classified in a certain soprano/mezzo/alto, but they can sing it all.

But yes, parts written especially for "legit" sopranos are becoming scarce. The sopranos are not.

[ForTheLoveOfLea]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 9:09pm

Soprano's are definitely not scarce, My choir is loaded with them.

Roles for legit soprano's definitely are, which is a shame because listening to a great soprano in their element is quite an experience. I just got out of a production of The King and I and our Tuptim was FANTASTIC.

I am definitely a true Mezzo, but I don't consider myself a belter. I sing second soprano in choir and I definitely get more joy out of singing the higher notes than the low ones. Eh, most music I would want to sing is within my vocal range, so I'm not complaining.

[mattvcrewse]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 9:15pm

I forgot to mention, the whole span of the human voice (from the lowest note an average bass should be able to sing to the highest note an average soprano should be able to sing)is only four octaves. Bass to tenor should span 3, and alto to soprano should span 3, with one overlapping in the middle. An average vocal range is 2 octaves, 2 1/2 is good, 3 is fantastic, and anything more is amazing.

[babygiraffeboots]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 9:21pm

Parts now a days are less and less created for soprano's but for me personally I am surrounded by more soprano's than mezzo's and alto's, I meet very few alto's. In the past year or so I've found myself becoming more comfortbale singing the higher part over the lower even though I'm a Mezzo, maybe it's just because I can't harmonize for ****. Or maybe singing the middle part in "the sound of music" (the song the rest of the show I was pretty okay with) has caused me to go insane.

[One Song Glory]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 9:24pm

well soprano parts are very important since they sound louder than any lower parts but i must admit that soprano and soprano parts are becoming a bit scarce and i'm an alto so i wouldn't really know about it.

[Fizz]

Posted: 3/21/05 at 10:51pm

I think its more of soprano PARTS getting scarce... Theres one show not many people mentioned- Chess. Florence I'd say is alto-ish and requires a belt to E... but the chorus parts- DANG. The alto parts sometimes have to stay up in soprano range for a good while, particularily in Endgame... and the sopranos go even higher. While some of the songs are rock-y and belt-y, a lot of them have a legit sound.

When I was younger I used to be a soprano, but as I got older my voice deepened quite a bit(shouldn't this only happen to guys? Haha...) and I'm more of a alto belt, so I'm quite happy with all of the alto leads coming out.

Within my high school is a performing arts academy which you have to audition for, and most of the girls in the vocal focus are sopranos... with awesome legit sound. And they can double as alto belts and I'm insanely jealous. (It seems like most of the only-alto-belts are in the drama focus, like me. But we have our share of sopranos too).

[rmposey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:13pm

I shall join my fellow sopranos in a support group! It seems there is a need for, what I like the call, the "high-note woman" in many shows. You know the one, during big chorus numbers she can be found letting if rip with a high B flat or C. =) It is rather sad that there aren't many meaty soprano songs. They all seem to be fluffy or "oh, big strong man, please save me!"