Leontyne Price sings La Traviata * now with English translation! Conducted by Fausto Cleva Tenor - Ryland Davies I own nothing (for educational purposes only)
I'm around the same age and I've never trusted another soprano to deliver on the big Verdi roles. However I'm coming around somewhat after hearing Lise Davidsen in LA Forza a few weeks ago.
All of this is just the best to ever be heard, because, not only did Ms. Price have (and still has) the gift, but she worked hard all of her life to keep her voice and gave it to us. I am eternally grateful to her for her singing and her artistry. I return to her constantly because there is no one who matches her in my estimation. WOW!!!
Nobody has such a beautiful voice as her. Her voice taste "bitter" at low and middle range and is angelic at the top. She is my number one, and always will be. She is responsible for my opera admiration. She amazed me with her voice almost 40 years ago. I am the Leontyne fanatic. The first opera love is the love forever.
I was able to see her in the early 90's doing a recital at the Reseda Center in greater Los Angeles, I am so grateful she was as amazing as one would hope for .... Diva forever.... amen....
One has to remember that Ms. Price did all that she did while under the microscope created by being the first really big Black opera star. Of course, Marion Anderson had been invited to the Met as an honor after her career was mostly over previously, and Mattiwilda Dobbs (another great and also underappreciated singer) and two other Black singers (Robt. McFerring and Glory Davy) preceded Price, but the spotlight was really on Price at a very turbulent time in race relations. The fact that she negotiated the treacherous political waters as well as singing as wonderfully well as she did, is amazing and makes her a great artist and a great human being. And she is still with us! Thank you for all you've done, Ms. Price!
I did a master class with Mattiwilda Dobbs in Kansas in the late 70s (as an accompanist) at my college. I bought her LP of Pearl Fishers (Cetra), and when I saw her again in NYC in the 80s, she signed it for me! Such a lovely singer!!
I was privileged to see Grace Bumbry in a wonderful debut as Carmen in San Francisco in the Adler days. After which she hardly came back to America. If I have it wrong, forgive me. It just seems she couldn't be the star she was, black in America.
Get your facts straight. Marian Anderson’s career was not “mostly over” when she was invited to The Met to sing the part of Ulrica. She was no longer in prime voice being nearly 60 years old, but her career was as active as ever. She was still active on the concert stage and as a recording artist. Put some respect on her name.
@@direfranchement I don’t believe the poster was trying to disrespect Marian Anderson. However she only sang one role at the MET at a time when there were others that she could have been offered. It is true that the voice for operatic purposes was not in prime condition. Many singers will end a stage career but continue with recitals where material can be chosen to their advantage regarding repertoire and range. And yes, Miss Anderson’s career continued until the mid-sixties. But a true contralto is very rare and sadly she was never appreciated in her vocal prime in her own country only because she was African-American.
No one...no one could spin high notes like Price. But it's not just about singing high notes. It's about leaving the earth when she spun the marvel of her voice. The greatness wasn't in her acting. The color and spirit was inherent within the voice itself. Her grounded mastery took all of us off of the earth.
Critics have said: "Among actresses with the voice alone, she has few if any peers"; "She leads with her Voice [meaning she commands the drama with the voice]."
There is no other like Leontyne Price. Her brilliant tone and musical phrasing is beyond compare. Oh that she could still be singing today ! What a treasure it is though for those of us who never heard her live but worshipped from afar.
And there it is, in all of it's glory. That's an Eb for you. So beautifully executed, and lingered upon by the primo lyrico-spinto. Gloriana, Leontyne Price.
Absolutely brilliant performance!!! I'll never forget hearing her live in the late 90's....there wasn't a dry eye in the house as we sat spellbound on the edge of our seats!
Divine. Simply DIVINE. I was blessed to hear Ms. Price recital at Purchase College in the late 90s, meet and hang out with her (and my voice teacher) afterwards. Her voice sings as if from another Heavenly realm. Still can feel the high from that night.
What everyone is forgetting is that Ms. Price was an excellent judge of her vocal abilities and thus sang in a way that prolonged her voice probably at least a decade or more than any other soprano... what she demonstrated here is not that she should sing this particular role, but that she did indeed have the ability to hit the stratosphere with her voice...and frankly Callas, Sutherland, nor any other soprano I've heard matched the sheer power of Ms Price's voice. I think she had the most FULL BODIED voice of any soprano albeit lyric, coloratura, sprinto or any other in the last 150yrs... that doesn't mean she should sing any role or would be the best at any role. It does mean she was indeed the absolute best in several roles but could adapt her voice to many others if she so chose to...
The role is this aria. Everything else violenta sings is easy. So what do you mean, it wasn't her role? She was typed into heavier Verdi. But she started off singing summertime. Some People think she was really a coloratura. Personally i think ponselle is better for srmpre libera. But if you can sing this aria, you can sing the role.
I like Price but to this 'I think she had the most FULL BODIED voice of any soprano albeit lyric, coloratura, spinto or any other in the last 150yrs' is definition of delusional. When voices like Callas, Boninsegna, Tebaldi, Ponselle, Muzio, Zeani, Bruna Rasa, Traubel, Flagstad, Caballe, Caniglia, Steber and so many others exist how can you say that Price of all people is the most full bodied. Anyone with a trained ear will be able to hear that she is literally lacking vocal fold closure in this very clip. It is her biggest voice flaw, one that you can hear in her first recordings and one you can hear in her latest. A voice so lightened and one with closure problems is not 'full-bodied', no matter how beautiful of a timbre she has. Let's be honest and not use phrases that simply and objectively do not apply.
They are not even closely related and had no connection for most of their lives. Dionne didn’t even find out they were related until around the time of Oprah’s Legends Ball in 2005.
I have been listening to leontyne price for decades and I had no idea that she had this kind of vocal range. I guess I should not be one bit surprised that she was able to hit these notes with such Agility and Laser Focused Power.. This is probably one of the best I've ever heard if not the best I have ever heard...❤
Brava to Miss Price, and bravo to a rarified world where the blue color of the Hope Diamond suddenly becomes some other extraordinary color. That type of extra ordinariness is what is presented here. I am so very grateful to Miss Price for fitting this event into her performance life, and for the world to wait until her time indeed arrived to record the performance so that all categories could relish in becoming believers that her gifts were once-in-a-lifetime extraordinary. God, may we come to value the same more than war; in the name of Jesus.
She was the greatest American soprano. Erect statues all over the United States in her honor as the greatest. Or America is the greatest country with no sense of greatness. For splendid high notes, listen to her "Caro nome".
@@nathandavis3002 Callas born american to greek parents made her career mostly in europe. Difficult to claim as ones one fore any one, but maybe just the greatest soprano period. Always a matter of personal taste and no one singer is perfect, but her achievment is so exceptionell.
@@robertcecilmorgan-wilde No - I am going by reputation, from what I have read and recordings in her prime. Ponselle's voice was much larger, more even from top to bottom, and vastly more agile than Price's. According to critics who heard both in their prime, tended to favor Ponselle in terms of vocal beauty. Also, Ponselle was a decent actress as well.
Can't quibble with the E flat! Yes, this is not her role, but you have to admire that a lot of it is sung far better than many of those for whom it is a staple. In the 80s, when she was singing the concert circuit after she had retired from the Opera stage, I heard her in recital at UCLA's Royce Hall. As a college student with a limited budget, a friend who worked back stage offered to get me in. When I approached the backstage door, I heard vocalizing up to G above high C, thinking 'that couldn't be her." I peeking through a window, and there she was, in all her glory and ease vocalizing into the stratosphere. Guess it makes sense when you have a high C that easy. On so many levels--a class in vocal pedagogy.
I heard the same kind of thing in San Jose in the 1970's. Price was warming up inside the hall. The audience was massed outside the door of the hall waiting to gain admittance when this incredible voice arose within in sounds such as I had never heard in my life, not even from Price, a voice bigger than any I had ever heard, moving with the speed of light, a voice that could do literally anything. Someone asked, "When can we go in?" The concert hall person answered, "When she's finished warming up." Needless to say, the performance was astonishing! I have never forgotten it. No one really knows the power and extent of the Price voice until she is heard warming up. You and I are very fortunate indeed.
Jean-Marie de la Trinite Yes, a once-in-a-lifetime voice. I waited around for about an hour after the performance in the receiving line to meet her briefly, and she was incredibly gracious too, listening to every person as if they were the only person in the room. Remarkable.
Yes, that's how she is, extraordinarily gracious to her fans, not to mention to other singers. I have never heard anyone praise her colleagues, and other sopranos, as greatly and as generously as does Price.
SteveL2012 - Yes, most singers are taught to hold something in reserve when we sing so that we know we can sing something higher, louder, softer, longer than we do in performance. So when I hear people sounding strained in public performance, I can tell they are not abiding by that dictum. Miss Price was an excellent Leonora in Il Trovatore and on records she recorded a peerless Caro Nome and Sempre Libera with the interpolated Ebs and high E (at the end of Caro Nome). One wonders why she never sang these roles on the stage? But I believe she did not see herself "physically" in these roles which is why she limited herself to a few roles.
This is an example of a world class "A" voice doing their best in a category not quite right for them....but very well done. What an INSTRUMENT!! She did some very nice things here in this - the "coloratura" realm...the hardest of all music written for the human voice. The High Eflat was among the greatest above High C notes I've ever heard...really only Callas and Sutherland had such opulence on that note. Miss Price was a "voice of the century"!
WOW!!! I'm speechless. There's no need of another singer to sing this beautiful aria for me; I have heard the ultimate. Thank you for sharing your priceless recording of Ms. Leontyne Price. We will forever have her magnificent voice to enjoy down through the ages.
Oddly enough the E Flat is not in Verdi's score. It was first interpolated for Nellie Melba,and after that most sopranos samg it that way. Sadly,when a soprano decides now to use Verdi's original intentions (uneducated) people assume (wrongly) that she just cannot achieve the E Flat!
Somethings become traditional. If you don't sing the e flat, it is because you don't have the note, no one beside maybe Muti decides to skip the note for artistic reasons. Sometimes if you get to hear a specific voice that wouldn't sing the note, that is fine.
jmahlon Very true. It makes you wonder,if we had access to operatic scores just how many other interpolations etc there are (many I would think)but as you say things become traditional.The worst offence was (and maybe still is) the number of cuts in an opera.
Unfortunately the majority of the public is uneducated, which is bad enough, but if that's not bad enough, they're so arrogant in their ignorance they pretend like they're not ignorant, you are. It gets to the point they're not worth educating with the truth, e.g. the ignorant who mistakenly equate a cappella with unaccompanied, not knowing it was later discovered the singers read over the shoulders of the instrumentalists.
Agreed... most people assume that... wach singer has their own staple.. Ms. Price is one of the geeatest to perform. I am pretty sure if she wanted she could have peeformed this role as well as other colortura parts.. Also she wanted to perserve her voice as much she could not to damage her instrument... Many singers did not do that and voices were runined and careers ended....
Brava!!!!!!! Brava!!!!!!!!!! This took my breath awa, such much vocal artistry and brilliance compacted into one human being! You will forever be the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) Dramatic Soprano! Wish I could have seen her in her prime! Sidenote: do not listen to this while driving! Lol
