Kerstin was born in Venjan, Sweden and is buried in Hedemora in Dalecarlia. She did not have much money as a young student of singing in Stockholm so her mother in Dalecarlia sent her food by placing her packets of homemade food on the rackets in a railwaycar bound for Stockholm. There, Kerstin went into the car and fetched it and then enjoyed her mother´s cooking. She was a staunch antinazi and when employed at the Vienna State opera in the 1930s she met Hitler she refused to greet him. She left that opera when her jewish collegues were fired and then disappeared. She was not only a great singer, she was a great person as well.
There is NO ONE on the OPERATIC STAGE TODAY who can SING as THORBORG sang because the Vocal Teachers (?), Universities/Music Conservatories have NO CONCEPT of what constitutes the ART of SINGING which is that of BRILLIANT FOCUSED TONES and SPONTANEITY.
If the score was not intoxicating and outright gorgeous enough Thorborg amplifies it by one million more times making it soul shakingly beautiful. My head falls in my hands hearing this. It’s just wonderful.
The recordings from her best years are not of the best quality, unfortunately. But anyone who listens to archive Wagner will hear her at some point and then will never forget.
My grandmother, Ethel Lister, sang this at a Proms concert at the old Queens Hall in 1900. How I wish I could have heard her! She was soprano though, how come?
@Sshelly34213 You can hardly compare contralto with soprano, with all my respect to great sopranos, you cannot deny that contralto is an uncomparably more seldom sound. And if a contralto is also beautiful in timbre - than it's real treasure. It's also not a secret that many sopranos try to pretend a mezzo-soprano or contralto (not vice versa :) ) , so when you hear pure contralto posessing all this beauty - it's fabulous.
@OlenaGlynka No, you are wrong about the breath's importance..it is the most fundamental part of any singing technique that preserves the voice. Because, among other things, in the 365 days of the year, we only have about 3 when everything is perfectly in place and we are relaxed perfectly etc. The technique is for tose 362 other days when there is singing to be done.And also, a truly good technique brings out more feeling and colour in the voice than the singer even knew was there...
Obiously the vocal teaching is not the same. The old voices has a different quality than the singers of 2013. Something has got lost. If not by some strange incident the voice talent are less today than yesterday. Old voices where more rich and beautiful, now it´s more sharp and metallic. Strange.
It is not that the old voices had a different quality. The Vocal Approach was changed by those who deemed themselves Voice Teachers since then. The ART of SINGING is NON-EXISTENT today. It was the training back then. A long period of Vocalizzi and Concone was standard, finding the Center of the Tone much like a violinist, It never occurs to the powers that be in opera today that HEIFETZ with 1 VIOLIN STRING, backed by a full orchestra, could be heard in a major hall. It is the same with the voice.
They don‘t audition in the right places anymore. Auditions are not on stages anymore and these voices need a stage to come into their own. There are many voices like this that just aren‘t being given the work and there are instructors who are teaching them with this technique.
It’s not so strange. Nowadays people are trained to sing in the mask which gives a nasal and more edgy tone but less squillo. Oldtimers knew better, singing with chestvoice coordination, clarity and therefore natural darkness and chiaroscuro.
@OlenaGlynka Dear Olena. I read as many of the old singer's books about singing as I could find. And imitated the birds and their extremely resonant sound, high placed, narrow produced (it blooms after it gets out of your body, for the listener...if you hear alot of sound, not a good sign..) listen to the singers from the 30's-1955 and let their voices' technique teach you where to go.Then I did find 2 wonderful teachers. but they taught what I had heard and read of..Use your legs, keep supple.
@Sshelly34213 The singing higher has more to do with breath control, body posture and technique of placement etc than with voice category..one of the greatest contraltos of all times,Pauline Viardot, had the same range as her sister, Malibran, a great coloratura..It's where you r comfortable a long time that "places" a singer, & where the natural breaks are, before the voice is trained to smooth them over.My range is 3+ octaves, but the easy staying in high range at length makes me a soprano..
Hello Olena, no i DID mean use legs and keep supple on them to sing..It is vital that there be a counter balance to the effort of controlling the breath, and often that counter effort goes right into the shoulders and makes it very hard for the poor cords to do their work correctly.The kind of singing you are talking about is natural walking down the street singing that is also very lovely. I am speaking here of voice technique for professional voice use on a stage.
@Sshelly34213 interesting discussion.I was classed as coloratura soprano (Königen der Nacht), contralto, early music singer, mezzo, lyric soprano! until I learned to breathe in a new and much simpler way.. found myself singing Wagner easily for 2-3 hours a day (if I had enough steak!) at 23 years old.Now, years later, the voice is still clear (though I still need the steak for the body strength!). So my dear it may be that you have a Hochdramatischersopran voice that is quietly getting ready..
@Sshelly34213 I must say, that real opera occurs very seldom, it's always been like this, I guess :))), I've been to different opera houses in different countries, but very seldom I could see real opera. If you are a contralto, I sincerely congratulate you!
The right place is the high placement for voice health. All the other singers get the famous wobble, that is a sign of tiredness, of the muscles in the cords being forced to move while being tense at the same time, ususally, and n the end often brings the callusses on the cords called nodes, if not careful. Low placement means that there is alot of stress and strain put on the cords also. But the terms may not be so clear to you also..eh that needs more than words! Best of luck !
I'm writing you a response re voice identification. Acc to my experience it's hard to find a good voice teacher unless one is really lucky :), I had been looking for more than 10 years, went through voice distruction and wrong voice idetification, so disappointed in teachers I started to study the subject myself on my own material :) and I think I don't need a teacher it's just a pleasure to take the lessons. I'm aware about general approach in my country-I can teach these professors myself :)))
@Sshelly34213 I can talk a lot about voice identifying and there can be real supprises here, but if the most comfortable for you to sing is around G,A below middle C, then you are 80% contralto. I leave 20 % for the case that training can correct it and rise your singing register to the mezzo-soprano, I doubt about soprano here :) still you never know. This is impossible to say by correspondence :))) and actually the voice is identified not from the compass and timbre, but from its structure.
Thorborg was not called the mezzo Flagstad for nothing. Brangäne is really too high for a mezzo, but Thorborg manages the too-high tessitura extremely well. I would hope that a great conductor like Clemens Krauss or Furtwängler recorded Beethoven's Ninth with a top-class orchestra and chorus and with the solo quartet consisting of Flagstad, Thorborg, Melchior, and List.
@Sshelly34213 I think it's really great to take singing lessons, I personally cannot do it because the only person I trust in my city unfortunately cannot work with me due to her circumstances, and the rest I tried to apply to know about it less than I :-D, so I have to train my voice myself at home irritating my neighbours :) when I have time and strengths. As for the voice structure I suggest that you sent me an email becuase although I try to be as brief as possible it's difficult to fit in.
But why is that the case? The vocal training is the same isn't it? The resources for singers should be greater than ever, but we produce lackluster voices. I do not even go to the Met anymore, I always leave uninspired.
Hi Michel4121963 I don't think the training *is* the same. Singers with less complete foundations end up teaching the next generation. I had ten teachers and I now realize only two of them really had a complete understanding of how to teach most voices. That said, maybe the Beethoven / Callas / Flagstad voices of the present decide to go into some newer vocal art form......
The vocal training has completely changed. Singers today learn wrong stuff, they cannot keep their larynx low as they used to do and tongue position is completely wrong too. They also cannot raise their soft palate anymore even if they think they do. I'm a singer myself and i struggled a lot to find a good teacher because nobody today knows how to teach correctly anymore. Its a disgrace what you find in universities and such. Just horrible!
@Sshelly34213 Make sure that one, the teacher TEACHES you breath use and excercises, the most important in the end. not only talks about it. I have found diaphragm breathing the most moving for voice quality & the sanest for the voice, but there are other ways too.If your voice ever hurts, walk out.No excuse, ever, for that and a teacher can be intimidating.3.Work with someone who places high, higher than the cheeks and wide smile of today, that stiffens tone and brings down the sound.good luck
What a beautiful voice ,what a boring music.What a great Azucena or Ariodante she could have been ,whole generations of singers wasted with Wagners vocal and sinfonic Stammelei ,
Kerstin was born in Venjan, Sweden and is buried in Hedemora in Dalecarlia. She did not have much money as a young student of singing in Stockholm so her mother in Dalecarlia sent her food by placing her packets of homemade food on the rackets in a railwaycar bound for Stockholm. There, Kerstin went into the car and fetched it and then enjoyed her mother´s cooking. She was a staunch antinazi and when employed at the Vienna State opera in the 1930s she met Hitler she refused to greet him. She left that opera when her jewish collegues were fired and then disappeared. She was not only a great singer, she was a great person as well.
There is NO ONE on the OPERATIC STAGE TODAY who can SING as THORBORG sang because the Vocal Teachers (?), Universities/Music Conservatories have NO CONCEPT of what constitutes the ART of SINGING which is that of BRILLIANT FOCUSED TONES and SPONTANEITY.
Thorborg är helt enkelt underbar!
If the score was not intoxicating and outright gorgeous enough Thorborg amplifies it by one million more times making it soul shakingly beautiful. My head falls in my hands hearing this. It’s just wonderful.
Amazingly beautiful.
Oh my God! What a fantastic contralto!!! And nobody know her nowadays...
The recordings from her best years are not of the best quality, unfortunately. But anyone who listens to archive Wagner will hear her at some point and then will never forget.
Schocking - beautiful! And ... word for word understandable. Beside "Liebestod" (Lovedeath) one of the most beautiful peaces of music ever written!
Breathtaking.
how i love thorborg! she's mesmerizing.
An unsurpassed performance by the great Thorborg
This Brangaene would steal the show! - John Austin, Australia
This is the best memento of a very distinguished Swedish contraslto. - John Austin, Australia
Gorgeous flow of hefty and luscious sound. Absolutely beautiful, effortless and supremely musical. Thanks for the great post.
My grandmother, Ethel Lister, sang this at a Proms concert at the old Queens Hall in 1900. How I wish I could have heard her! She was soprano though, how come?
Fantastisch!
We don’t hear this today because the training is completely today and it’s the most noticeable with the dramatic singers
Without a doubt you are correct.
Stunning- a flow of even velvet sound.
Regards-John
@Sshelly34213 You can hardly compare contralto with soprano, with all my respect to great sopranos, you cannot deny that contralto is an uncomparably more seldom sound. And if a contralto is also beautiful in timbre - than it's real treasure. It's also not a secret that many sopranos try to pretend a mezzo-soprano or contralto (not vice versa :) ) , so when you hear pure contralto posessing all this beauty - it's fabulous.
@DragTas This is Brangäne's passage in the middle of the love duet in the second act of Tristan. And then Isolde sings - Lausch, Geliebter!
Incredible.
Fantastic!!!
@OlenaGlynka No, you are wrong about the breath's importance..it is the most fundamental part of any singing technique that preserves the voice. Because, among other things, in the 365 days of the year, we only have about 3 when everything is perfectly in place and we are relaxed perfectly etc. The technique is for tose 362 other days when there is singing to be done.And also, a truly good technique brings out more feeling and colour in the voice than the singer even knew was there...
Wonderful!!!!!!!
Obiously the vocal teaching is not the same. The old voices has a different quality than the singers of 2013. Something has got lost. If not by some strange incident the voice talent are less today than yesterday. Old voices where more rich and beautiful, now it´s more sharp and metallic. Strange.
It is not that the old voices had a different quality. The Vocal Approach was changed by those who deemed themselves Voice Teachers since then. The ART of SINGING
is NON-EXISTENT today. It was the training back then. A long period of Vocalizzi and Concone was standard, finding the Center of the Tone much like a violinist, It never occurs to the powers that be in opera today that HEIFETZ with 1 VIOLIN STRING, backed by a full orchestra, could be heard in a major hall. It is the same with the voice.
They don‘t audition in the right places anymore. Auditions are not on stages anymore and these voices need a stage to come into their own. There are many voices like this that just aren‘t being given the work and there are instructors who are teaching them with this technique.
It’s not so strange. Nowadays people are trained to sing in the mask which gives a nasal and more edgy tone but less squillo. Oldtimers knew better, singing with chestvoice coordination, clarity and therefore natural darkness and chiaroscuro.
@OlenaGlynka Dear Olena. I read as many of the old singer's books about singing as I could find. And imitated the birds and their extremely resonant sound, high placed, narrow produced (it blooms after it gets out of your body, for the listener...if you hear alot of sound, not a good sign..) listen to the singers from the 30's-1955 and let their voices' technique teach you where to go.Then I did find 2 wonderful teachers. but they taught what I had heard and read of..Use your legs, keep supple.
@Sshelly34213 The singing higher has more to do with breath control, body posture and technique of placement etc than with voice category..one of the greatest contraltos of all times,Pauline Viardot, had the same range as her sister, Malibran, a great coloratura..It's where you r comfortable a long time that "places" a singer, & where the natural breaks are, before the voice is trained to smooth them over.My range is 3+ octaves, but the easy staying in high range at length makes me a soprano..
Hello Olena, no i DID mean use legs and keep supple on them to sing..It is vital that there be a counter balance to the effort of controlling the breath, and often that counter effort goes right into the shoulders and makes it very hard for the poor cords to do their work correctly.The kind of singing you are talking about is natural walking down the street singing that is also very lovely. I am speaking here of voice technique for professional voice use on a stage.
@Sshelly34213 interesting discussion.I was classed as coloratura soprano (Königen der Nacht), contralto, early music singer, mezzo, lyric soprano! until I learned to breathe in a new and much simpler way.. found myself singing Wagner easily for 2-3 hours a day (if I had enough steak!) at 23 years old.Now, years later, the voice is still clear (though I still need the steak for the body strength!). So my dear it may be that you have a Hochdramatischersopran voice that is quietly getting ready..
@Sshelly34213 I must say, that real opera occurs very seldom, it's always been like this, I guess :))), I've been to different opera houses in different countries, but very seldom I could see real opera.
If you are a contralto, I sincerely congratulate you!
The right place is the high placement for voice health. All the other singers get the famous wobble, that is a sign of tiredness, of the muscles in the cords being forced to move while being tense at the same time, ususally, and n the end often brings the callusses on the cords called nodes, if not careful. Low placement means that there is alot of stress and strain put on the cords also. But the terms may not be so clear to you also..eh that needs more than words! Best of luck !
Bin sprachlos...
I'm writing you a response re voice identification. Acc to my experience it's hard to find a good voice teacher unless one is really lucky :), I had been looking for more than 10 years, went through voice distruction and wrong voice idetification, so disappointed in teachers I started to study the subject myself on my own material :) and I think I don't need a teacher it's just a pleasure to take the lessons. I'm aware about general approach in my country-I can teach these professors myself :)))
Please notice the version of Sabine Kalter!
@Sshelly34213 I can talk a lot about voice identifying and there can be real supprises here, but if the most comfortable for you to sing is around G,A below middle C, then you are 80% contralto. I leave 20 % for the case that training can correct it and rise your singing register to the mezzo-soprano, I doubt about soprano here :) still you never know. This is impossible to say by correspondence :))) and actually the voice is identified not from the compass and timbre, but from its structure.
Thorborg was not called the mezzo Flagstad for nothing. Brangäne is really too high for a mezzo, but Thorborg manages the too-high tessitura extremely well. I would hope that a great conductor like Clemens Krauss or Furtwängler recorded Beethoven's Ninth with a top-class orchestra and chorus and with the solo quartet consisting of Flagstad, Thorborg, Melchior, and List.
@Sshelly34213 I think it's really great to take singing lessons, I personally cannot do it because the only person I trust in my city unfortunately cannot work with me due to her circumstances, and the rest I tried to apply to know about it less than I :-D, so I have to train my voice myself at home irritating my neighbours :) when I have time and strengths. As for the voice structure I suggest that you sent me an email becuase although I try to be as brief as possible it's difficult to fit in.
But why is that the case? The vocal training is the same isn't it? The resources for singers should be greater than ever, but we produce lackluster voices. I do not even go to the Met anymore, I always leave uninspired.
Hi Michel4121963 I don't think the training *is* the same. Singers with less complete foundations end up teaching the next generation. I had ten teachers and I now realize only two of them really had a complete understanding of how to teach most voices. That said, maybe the Beethoven / Callas / Flagstad voices of the present decide to go into some newer vocal art form......
The vocal training has completely changed. Singers today learn wrong stuff, they cannot keep their larynx low as they used to do and tongue position is completely wrong too. They also cannot raise their soft palate anymore even if they think they do.
I'm a singer myself and i struggled a lot to find a good teacher because nobody today knows how to teach correctly anymore. Its a disgrace what you find in universities and such. Just horrible!
@Sshelly34213 Make sure that one, the teacher TEACHES you breath use and excercises, the most important in the end. not only talks about it. I have found diaphragm breathing the most moving for voice quality & the sanest for the voice, but there are other ways too.If your voice ever hurts, walk out.No excuse, ever, for that and a teacher can be intimidating.3.Work with someone who places high, higher than the cheeks and wide smile of today, that stiffens tone and brings down the sound.good luck
What a beautiful voice ,what a boring music.What a great Azucena or Ariodante she could have been ,whole generations of singers wasted with Wagners vocal and sinfonic Stammelei
,