Things to like

This, "Di tanti palpiti" from Tancredi, was Rossini's first big hit.



Horne

Annotated.  I hear a more leggiero technique than I thought before.  If you listen to the same music a lot, gradually it changes.  Almost all of how Horne's voice sounds is due to her technique, a magical combination of low, exquisitely floated larynx and high in the mask placement.  This sounds most like a nasal whine, but it is this whine that makes everything else possible.  Somewhere I explained all this.



Kasarova

I included this because it is simply amazing.  She sings with this low throatiness that you or I would not be able to turn into coloratura.  You cannot help feeling that she is laughing at us.  You cannot help wondering what the words mean:

"Oh Homeland! Sweet and ungrateful homeland! At last
I come back to you! I greet you, oh dear
land of my ancestors: I kiss you. This is
for me a happy day:
My heart begins to breath in my chest.
Amenaide! My suave thought,
the only cause of my sighs,
of my vows, at last I came; I want to earn you,
defying my fate, whatever it was,
or die, my soul.
You who kindle this heart,
you who awake my valour,
blessed glory, sweet love,
heed my desire,
may an impious traitor fall,
crown my faith.
For all these heartbeats,
for all these pains,
from you, my beloved,
I hope for mercy.
You'll see me again...
I'll see you again...
in your beautiful radiance
I will have plenty.
Delires- sighs...
happy voices!...
It will be glad, my heart tells me,
my destiny - near to you."

I think.  She is playing with them.  One would never question whether or not Kasarova was sufficiently mad.  Sorry, the film I posted before, my favorite, has gone. Here is another.



 

Podleś

Ewa is simply a miracle.  There never was or ever will be anything like her.

I find this set of recordings fascinating.  I consider each of them spectacular in her own way.



I find I cannot leave this without including the very early Bartoli version.  She never possessed the wonderful weight of the others.  The fascination with her lies in the details of the coloratura and the spectacular length of her phrases.

I love them all and would not want the singing world to exist without all this variety.