I use to watch her rehearse at the Met during my lunch hour when I worked as one of the bookkeepers at The Met back in the day. She was absolutely 💯 magnificent 👏🏾 😍. Rest in sweet splendor, Queen 🙏🏿
Ms. Bumbry always held herself with such poise and natural dignity. She was a natural Wagnerian, IMO. Also, I believe she was the first artist of African descent to sing at Bayreuth.
_Whatever she sings, the powerful, rich & majestic sounds of her voice are extremely rare. What a truly great vocal instrument._ _Man ! Thank you for this video !_
courtneybaritone01 :: You have no idea ... no idea what you have done by showing this video ! I must have watched it 20 x's since the first. _Thank you ! Dear God ! Thank you !_
Wow! Nunca le había escuchado esta aria! Dios qué voz tan perfecta! Ahora no sé con quién me gusta más. Si con Grace Bumbry o con Jessye Norman!! 😂. Me quedo con las dos!!
For a mezzo - soprano, it 's better than a lot of soprano out there and her voice is with a spectacular volume, a metal and a voice with a fantastic voice, and B flat with a lot of luster and highlights a Wagner orchestra as it should be. I read here some critiques about her being mezzo - soprano and not a soprano, but Jessy for example is wonderful, but she never sang for example Turandot or Italian operas in the same style of Turandot with high C and she is a dramatic soprano and vocal extension of a dramatic mezzo is very similar to that of the dramatic soprano and of course some things change and Jessy Norman has serious mezzo - soprano - like likenesses and mezzo arias as well and particularly I loved Grace Bumbry singing Elisabeth 's aria here in this video and I found it too beautiful.
Alex Meister exactly. A super mezzo= a Falcon, soon becoming a true low dramatic soprano. At 23 she already was proposed such small roles as Salomé and Leonora from Trovatore by The Paris Opera, and prefered to accept Amneris to make her absolute debut. Wise idea, because she learned only this part completely the year before in the studio of Lotte Lehmann. So I think that from the begining her voice could sound a hybrid one, adding the fact that she hadn't even ended her training with her voice teacher Armen Tokatyan who coached her as a soprano. So she had to train herself alone to master her high notes and could sustain higher tessituras a few years later. Lehmann herself didn't want her to sing soprano (Bumbry used the facilities of her mentor's musical connections to boost her career but asked herself if it was jealousy from Lehmann, the fact that she wouldn't let her become a soprano).
Jessie Norman was not a dramatic soprano but a lyric soprano who over darkened her voice. Kathleen battle sounded better in their live duets singing spirituals and she's a light voice
Better if HGO had hired Bumbry for both Venus and Elisabeth here for their first season in the Wortham Center, in place of Marton, as passable as Marton was (May, 1988).
i have a very old videotape of the BAM concert, in very poor shape, bad sound and video, unfort. someone taped it from tv (PBS) and sent it to me. bumbry sang tosca and bess, then joined with estes for a duet from P&B, also various young afr-am. singers sang selections from it (they were proteges of mr. levine, i think, incl. marvis martin). there was a ballet number or two, battle sang the aria from bach. bras. #5. i think domingo and kiri were in it too. do a search and you might find it.
She seemed perfectly comfortable in this repertoire, and the high B was actually sharp, not screamed as some critics put it. I think this is much better than anyone singing now (or recently) including Voigt who has always had far too much unwieldy vibrato for Wagner. I guess just loud passes for a dramatic soprano these days.
courtney, what was the occasion for this? it seems that it was from the met opera's stage or at lincoln center? do you know also that about the same time, there was a gala at the brookyn academy of music, with both dance and music selections, also hosted by sills? bumbry sang tosca and bess, and there was a ballet number or two, as well as other opera luminaries. do you have that tape?
There is no doubt that Grace Bumbry can sing magnificently. I saw her in many performances, both at the Met and the City Opera. But my overall takeaway from every performance was that she showed how difficult the music was, and how she had the technical resources to conquer any difficulty. I never saw any characterization. Sorry.
@@baritoneblazzin1965 I heard her too at Vienna State Opera which she was completely filling with her wonderful voice - she was great, AND I think, that Dave Glo is wright. I always saw Grace Bumbry, I never saw Aida or Amneris or Norma or Santuzza or Carmen or Ulrica or Tosca - THOUGH she had standing ovations always at the end and I was part of it.
Which part exactly make you think that?. What I hear is just as good as any excellent wagnerian soprano. Where does she sound like its out of her fach?.
Oh yes! I saw Gwyneth as Elisabeth and well remember the physical impact of that opening phrase as it pinned me to my seat right at the back of covent garden.
Ms. Bumbry s due much respect for her great talent...but, I really love Ms Shirley Verrett's version of this with Thomas Schippers from 1974 or 1975..it's the definitive version for me. But that's just my opinion.
it was more towards the end of the aria not surprisingly that it started to sound a bit mroe screamed than sung... 5:00-5:36 was screamed several times
When she "transitioned" to soprano roles she developed chronic pitch issues in her upper register - sort of "stabbing" at the tone, as demonstrated here. She had a very right middle voice but once she stretched the upper and lower spread. Pity.
@FoggyRoad81 yea it was screamed especially the B at the end ... but there were many parts that sounded very pretty. her timbre is perhaps too dark for this rep.
.....screaming is a usually uncontrolled vocal outburst. I would never - unless it is an obvious vocal „accident“ regard any professional singer screaming, shouting, bellowing, whatever expression someone prefers. RDS
iamanoblewoman1 das ist ein Schwachsinn was Sie gerade schreiben! Ihr Deutsch ist furchtbar und Sie meine Liebe sind eine miese Dilettantin, die keine Ahnung von richtiger Aussprache der deutschen Sprache hat!
I'm sorry, I'm just bothered by the poor pronunciation of German by most native speakers of English - American, British, Canadian, whatever. It spoils the entire experience for me. And you see, Beverly "Bubbles" Sills can't even introduce La ci darem' la mano without sounding like a teenager in Rome for the first time ordering a pizza. Are there no language coaches on the other side of the pond?
@Bravo Luca There are exceptions of course. I just remembered that Marian Andersson pronounces Swedish as if she were a native (Sibelius songs). The value of Bumbry's consonants especially "o" is incorrect and as for Bubbles, when she says "mano" - or manow as she pronounces it, I thank God we don't have to hear her sing it. By the way, someone who has nothing substantial to say will usually revert to name-calling and foul language - you might give that some thought, if you can think that is.
Have you ever heard German singers sing in English? 🤦♂Leontyne's Italian wasnt too hot. Neither is Domingo's German. Most Italian singers just refuse to sing anything other than Italian. People have accents - so what.
Way, way out of her fach. This is where you can see how Bumbry's voice is rooted as a mezzo. The higher the tessitura, the more the voice sounds sharp and stretched. Her voice naturally isn't placed as a high soprano, so the sound always sounds forced. Bumbry was a far better mezzo.
@@ksionc100 Everything above a G is attacked and sustained at full blast. I find the performance exciting, but she can’t finesse things because she is fighting the high tessitura.
I agree with you. The perfomance was not that bad, but I have heard better renditions of this aria by Jessye Norman, Kirsten Flagstad, Montserrat Caballe just to name a few
Cliff Gaither: Chase Davidson has like everyone, an opinion and an asshole. That he’s speaking through his ass doesn’t invalidate his opinion but he should provide better support why he feels that way.
