It always amazes me that wonderful singers like Kiri can not tell students HOW they achieved their beautiful tone in their voices. They talk about "color" and "breath" but somehow miss the basic thing....where do you go to find that gorgeous sound? They never speak about the pharynx and that finding and keeping the resonance always in that high, resonant area of the pharynx...and NOT in the mouth, is where the beautiful sound is created. When a singer stays in that square position with the sound in the pharynx, then the singer can find the deep, dark and resonant sound. If you carefully watch Sutherland, you can see that she NEVER spreads her mouth...it is always square. ONLY for the highest notes does she widen her mouth. This is very simple to do...but a singer must be aware of this and also be religious about not going into a wide, smiling position. If you do, your sound becomes oral and not pharyngeal, and the sound becomes thin and disconnected from your body. Smile at the curtain calls, but not when you sing.
I actually heard Levine conduct two operas at the Met in the 1990's - Die Walkure and Ariadne auf Naxos. Without going into the interpretations, strictly on the sensuality of the sounds he was able to conjure up from the Met Orchestra, it was an amazing unforgettable experience. Today's Met Orchestra is still good but has lost that soft sexy edge imo.
The circumstances surrounding the death of James Levine have always been puzzling but they have never been investigated and barely mentioned. To begin with he died jn California, an area that has had no importance for this life or career. He was said to own a home there, but who knew? All of his very considerable medical care had been done in New York. Indeed, it was his primary care physician in New York, not any doctor in California, who told us, apparently intending reassurance in simething of a P.S. after they fact , that he had died of "natural causes". Finally and most odd, his death remained a secret for two weeks before it was announced. Is anyone able to shed some light here? Have there been revelations that I missed?
Watching this now with what the entire world now knows to be true about this man (never a secret within the classical music industry for at least 4 decades) reminds us just how easy it is to bamboozle the credulous media - very much including the arts media.
This kind of music makes it hard for me to understand/appreciate the more modern genre of 'rap' as music. How can rap be music if there is no tune or melody? And how does one tell when a rapper 'sings' off key? Simply put rap is NOT music -- it's slam poetry with percussion accompaniment. What were the Grammys thinking when they dubbed rap as a 'genre' thereby legitimizing it as music? OK, end of rant. Back now to REAL music. AND I wish that the young men in their cars with windows rolled down would turn down the volume of the rap that they are listening to. I can literally feel the vibrations of the bass in their speakers from a block away!!
6:30 Levine makes an interesting point about having to 'explain' or 'teach' what he wants. But I'm not sure that actually applies to all conductors. There's an anecdote involving Victor de Sabata in which another conductor asked de Sabata to step in during a rehearsal so that that other conductor could go out into the hall and hear how the orchestra sounded like. But the exercise was futile because the orchestra's sound radically changed the moment de Sabata took the helm. So there's an argument to be made that the more charismatic of conductors actually don't need to 'explain' or 'teach.'
If you mean great as the biggest voice I don't know who are, perhaps some big voice Madonna at The Met. It should be possible to measure the biggest voice with technical instrument and have a winner, like in the Olympics heavy lift. Listenable sopranos there are very few of. Mirusia Louwerse perhaps, Amira Willighagen, Sissel Kyrkjebö to name some of the few ones.
Opposite to you, right? 😂😂😂 Just stop this pathetic baying below every video on yt with people far more talented and successful than you, it gets boring 🙄
When Levine conducted the Ring in Bayreuth, he allowed the Bavarian Radio to film him during rehearsals. - Levine was dissatisfied with the musical situation at the Valkyrie. The prelude to Act 1 in particular gave him a headache. After all, so many decisive things happen between the entry of the gods in the finale of the Rheingold and the prelude to the first act in the Walküre, of which the storm virtually represents the glow of the weather of the events between Rheingold and Walküre. In any case, Levine hauled in a private tape and had the orchestra play three different tempos. Together with the people from Bayerischer Rundfunk, he and his orchestra listened to the three recordings and commented on them. The first, the slowest, did not please him, the dynamic of the beginning of the Valkyrie was too weak. He liked the second, middle one, but he would like it to be faster, more impetuous in "Ausdruck". The third, barked, appealed to him in speed, but unfortunately he had to find that the notes were smeared. Levine decided to play the prelude a bit faster than the medium tempo (!) And after listening to the recording he accepted: "Besser geht's nicht." - Heinz
(4:50) If conductor and orchestra are not completely exhausted after a performance of Beethoven's 5th, then they haven't played Beethoven's 5th. - Heinz
(3:22) Levine conducts Beethoven's 5th as it should be (a look at the score reveals it): wild and impetuous. Somebody hits the table with his fist! That must have knocked the listeners softened by Haydn and Mozart and other Viennese composers from their chairs. - Greetings to all musical revolutionaries, Heinz
Yes how unreasonable to judge a pedophile of many decades who ruined the potential careers of so many promising young musicians - "too harshly". Sort of how MAGA folk react to every single proven Trump scandal - wouldn't surprise me if you were one.