Wicked - Elphaba and Glinda's songs

If you mean that Elphaba gets higher notes when the two sing together, that is only true in For Good. In What Is This Feeling, Glinda sings higher, which leads me to think Stephen Schwartz did that on purpose, maybe to show the evolution of the characters?
Hopefully that's what you meant, I apologize if it wasn't. It's something that I've always noticed in listening through the cast recording that during For Good, the "normal" part division is flipped.

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Updated On: 12/8/05 at 02:02 PM

i think it allows the character of elphaba to belt those high notes. glinda is a soprano. when she sings higher notes, they are in her head voice usually. so the character of elphaba sings the higher line in certain songs, so that belting can be used.

I see where you're coming from, Elphaba, but the show itself typecasts pretty, popular Glinda as the soprano and has Elphaba singing the lower parts most of time. I think the first poster was just curious as to why it's sometimes different.

Anyway, I don't know why they chose to do this, but I think that it's kind of nice. cathywellerstein might have a point in that a Glinda is more likely to have to go into her soprano range when taking the higher part, whereas a crazy high belt is basically one of the requirements to be cast as Elphaba. I think that, story-wise, it shows that they are equals and co-leads.