Italian Coloratura Soprano Amelita GALL-CURCI: Lo, here the gentle lark (1919)
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Italian Coloratura Soprano Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963) / Lo, Here the Gentle Lark (Bishop) / Manuel Berenguer - flute / Recorded: October 4, 1919
Lo, here the gentle lark ~
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from "Venus and Adonis" / set to music by Henry Rowley Bishop (1785-1855)
Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.
Venus salutes him with this fair good-morrow:
'O thou clear god, and patron of all light,
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous influence that makes him bright,
There lives a son that suck'd an earthly mother,
May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.'
******************************
In the mid-1940s, when my Father visited his Brother, he often took me along. When we would arrive, my Uncle would plop me in front of his stereo. My best memories (I was 5 or 6 years old) are of Amelita Galli-Curci singing "Lo Hear the Gentle Lark." I listened to her singing from the visit's beginning to end, enthralled. At 79, I still enjoy her artistry, and opera in general -- particularly Giuseppe Verdi. I thank God for many years of musical joy. Thank you, Amelita, for sharing your gift and keeping my attention to opera. JW-RM6 Miller SD USA
What tonal beauty and ease of production, A+
Wow!! Simply stunning.
One of the great records. Her version is light, airy and beautifully sung. She makes the song sound like the lark(!) it is supposed to be.
She has kept her, like 14-teen years old girl sound of voice for the whole life.
Bravissimo! My dear Mother was a professional Mezzo-Soprano of roughly the same era. She said Galli-Curci was unchallengeable. This shows she was CORRECT.
Wonderful Amelita ,you're voice it's beautiful ,incredible 😍
BRAVISIMA la Galli-Curci!!!
Yes, without a doubt hers is the most beautiful female voice I have ever heard. And you will not believe how I came to be familiar with her! Years ago I knew a man who at one time was an employee of Thomas Edison. He worked in the phonograph department. Years later he founded what is now the Belfer Archive of Recorded Sound at Syracuse University, where I met him in 1977. He knew I was a collector of old phonograph records, and he advised me to take an interest in the recordings of Amelita Galli-Curci, who ironically worked for Edison's greatest rival.
Her purity of tone was a great asset in the days of acoustic recording. I have read that her records were so successful that people hearing her live onstage were a bit disappointed
Very beautiful music. I like the goats.
-------Ellen
This was the first 78 record I was given , when I was a boy soprano and Chorister .
A treasure of a performance. TY Doug
Amelita Galli-Curci singing Sir Henry Rowley Bishop's 'Home Sweet Home' in the movie(animated) Grave of the Fireflies was STUNNING. It was so beautiful it was breath-taking. I really wish her rendition would show up on you tube.
One of the truly GREAT Prima-Donna's of all time! Can you imagine what she would have sounded like with modern technology? Bravo, Bravo
Thank you for the goose-bumps, Amelita's voice is so lovely!
The cleverest,sweetest sound of this excellent song !!!!
None of her contemporaries ever approached the charm of this performance. Galli Curci was largely self taught and her inspiration was listening to and trying to imitate the birds in her garden. Hence the effortless trills and roulades and her unmatched purity of tone
I first heard this record on a cabinet model Victrola at the home of my Aunt Alice in 1964. It has remained one of my favorite records over the years, and is a gorgeous example of Galli-Curci at her finest!
There are those who may crib that her voice is too light, and with a tendency to flatness, but in my book she is a top perennial favorite. Thank you!
Lovely singing and beautifully made video!
Many thanks for sharing :-)
Viva brava, Amelita!
Wade Raney - Isabel Jay has a beautiful tone and artistry from the little I have heard.Regards-John
merci très interressant .quelle évolution dans le chant lyrique.
Thanks Doug, What a wonderful song. She's got such amazing control of her voice. I could listen to this one all day. :-) 5*****
Era la cugina di mio bisnonno Luigi Galli, in famiglia la chiamavano Dina. ❤
Water in my eyes
Another masterpiece my dear Doug! I love this - such amazing and wonderful! Thank you very much!
Lovely! I doubt a lark could rival this exquisite performance. :)
This is so good, it's hard to single out a special moment, but I like 1:35-2:14-- what precise staccato, trills, turns, and the solo is stunning! At the risk of being redundant, I am still floored by her sustaining ability; she holds that last note for eight seconds (and that doesn't count the final downward run!).
Thank you for posting. :)
P.S. I do wonder, though, if Shakespeare is the best librettist... :)
With all due respect to these greats.( Melba and Tetrazzini ) the most beautiful tone was Galli-Curci's. IMO AGC's was one of the most beautiful of all time.
Sweet sounding like Isabel Jay😊
Brawississimo !!!
My mother, with a group of vocal students, met her backstage at Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh. Galli-Curci's advice to them? "Don't forrrrrrce yourrrrrr voice."
Mia madre è felice quando ascolta la voce di Dina, era la cugina di suo nonno Luigi Galli.
Maria Pini, la la Galli-Curci si chiamava Amelita...chi e' questa Dina? Non la scambi con l'Attrice?
@LibertyTreeBud
Actually, Galli-Curci's 'Home, Sweet Home' is posted on UA-cam by merrihew.
Thanks!
Cheers, etc.
Doug --
Brava and thanks nDoug.
Other great versions by Toti Dal Monte and Maria Ivogun.
John
To some extent the High Koloratur voice depends on the ease of youth. Also a very light breath pressure that keeps the high-register adjustent from separating from the rest of the voice. The weightier the voice, the more breath support it needs. The more breath support it needs, the harder it is to keep all the registers aligned.
Listen to stunning soprano Luisa Tetrazzini ,incredible,strong ,high colorature !!!Listen,please and will me say!!!
When Galli Curci went to Estelle Liebling for some repair work, the thing that startled Liebling was the lack of breath support. She said that GC knew nothing of diaphragmal breathing. She held Galli Curci's intercostal muscles and asked to sing an arpeggio, at which the Italian blinked in surprise at the results.
thank you for sharing this knowledge, i really apretiate it
@@moisessalaslopez5352 I know that my comment will be unpopular, but diapghragmal breathing is not the most advanced technique, it's just a transition to the floating breathing, which is not just floating voice, it's a breathing where your lungs don't undergo any kind of pressure, and I think Galli-Curci had reached that level (something unknown by modern singer), but after the surgery she needed help, she asked Liebling, but she was much better before.
@@fuletiopia .... Unpopular in opera in these days means good taste and true knowledge of what opera really is... I'm pleased by your "unpopular" comment and of course by that information I didn't have... Unfortunately I don't have any music studies and information about true opera, it's almost gone with the good taste... just thanks to THIS IS OPERA channel I had some preparation to be able to appreciate opera like their composers wanted or at least with the tools in the voice to transmit something (pathos) but now theres no way for me to learn more about true opera... So do you know books that i could learn from? I would be so grateful for that. Thank you.
@@moisessalaslopez5352 I learnt everything from maestro Fabio Poggi, he's got a very interesting blog "arte del canto", but it's in Italian
@@fuletiopia thank you a thousand times... I'll take a look, the italian is not a problem for me i lived in firenze for 3 months so... It's great 👍👍. Thank you so much. In boca al lupo.
I think only Isabel Jay could have sung this song as sweetly
She also sang at the Dal Verme in Milan with Schipa. It's not that she was whistled off the stage. She was received respectfully. She simply failed to have any acclaim of the kind she got in the Anglo-Saxon countries.
Yes, in fact all Victor Red Seals were single-sided up until 1922. Thank YOU!
I have this record, in 78 RPM; though generally those records were of 10 inches, that of Galli-Curci is a 12 inch one, like the later LPs of 33 RPM. Another thing curious is that it is only recorded on one side, and the other side is blank completely. In the early 1900 many records were not made "double" but only one-sided, like today's CDs. I bought it in Chile, and brought with me to Venezuela. Though a lot of my 78 RPM have broken, with our many movings, this one is still intact.
This would be hard to credit except that you can hear it in her records: she contrived her famous purity of sound by floating her tone with an absolute bare minimum of pressure. As long as she was young and her voice responsive, this worked. (It also explains her complete lack of success in Italy.) But after a certain age (say, age 38) her tone began to lose freshness and the pitch to sag.
This, and not the famous goiter, was the reason for Galli Curci's intonation problems.
Notice the huge difference in Emma Calvés voice between her regular voice and the wholly separate "Fourth Voice" adjustment. This is painfully apparent in her Mapleson cylinder of the Jewel Song. All the critics remarked on it.
This to myself is a great variation on yodeling
I agree with you. But sometimes excessive growth of one register tends to kill the others. Callas, Tebaldi and Stella would have had less trouble with their tops if they had kept their voices in greater alignement. Typically, age makes the chest heavier. That can pull the registers apart and kill the top. Milanov, with a floating method similar to GC's, managed to keep her voice in balance until age 60.
She tends to smooth out the rhythm into a dainty miniature jog because her breath support is so light, her attack so soft, she cannot point the accents with that bold, striding Melba grandezza.
I don't know the Italian word for "turkey". But this is "leggiero invisibile".
It's 'tacchino'.
Старые музыканты рассказывали,что она с Украины родом Галина Омелькина.
Why did Anna Moffo's voice collapse when she was about 40? There is nothing in her singing as heard in recordings that points to either faulty technique or unwise repertoire choices. (Live, she did have a tendency to force out her high notes.)
Like Gluck, she had a very light voice (weight) surprisingly dark in timbre. But Te Kanawa, who had a similar voice, never had a hint of trouble and sang well until she was close to 60-as did Erna Berger, an even lighter leggiero than GC.
...are you missing any of the Galli-Curci recordings? Are there ANY recordings that you don't have? Wish I could transfer the 78's as well as you do.
I didn't realise Sir Henry Rowley Bishop was such a musical expressionist.
But I do think this lark needs to carb out a bit for her jog. Birdseed or wet arrowroot?
GC had a huge goiter removed -- it changed her voice.
I had forgotten that!
That's just it, I don't think GC's decline was premature. It started about 1920, when she was 38. That is not an early age for a lirico leggiero. Sills herself started losing her voice about then. So did Ivogün and Pons. Hempel, Barrientos and Pareto had quit the stage by the time they were 40.
Did Roberta Peters ever record this? If so, we would have the definitive version.
She did, but I don't think it's 'definitive.' This is excellent. So is Sutherland. There's no one best version of anything. And every time you sing or play a piece of music it will be different from all other times you do.
She arrived in America at age 34 a completely unknown singer.
Whatever I may think bout AGC in comparison to Melba or Tetrazzini, there is simply no tangible reason why Maria Barrientos should be world famous by 1910, when Galli Curci received no acclaim prior to age 34.
I think we can agree that AGC was a good deal better than Barrientos, not that Barrientos wasn't a charming singer.
We cannot be sure of the cause. I suspect it may have to do with female chemistry, not to put too fine a point to it.
Of course it was out of necessity. Unless you are Luisa Tetrazzini, you can't sing those high notes much past age 40. They accepted it and went on.
Pons went the other way. After a while, she had nothing left but the top. Have you heard her complete Columbia Lucia?? It's quite painful, except for the High Es.
I thought for sure (hoping?) she'd go for the high F. Oh well.
Notice how singers like Pareto, Dal Monte and Sayao abandoned their High Register adjustments and became simply lyroc sopranos after a while.
Galli Curci had vocal problems which had nothing to do with age or the goiter. Gatti did not engage her in 1917 not only because he was engaged to Barrientos. Galli Curci's tendency to sing out of tune was apparently rather more obvious than usual during her audition.
Caruso didn't think much of her either.
Aulic....if that were true she wouldn't have been able to sing with the goiter at all. Her vocal problems were related to the goiter.
Not having either Melba's trill or Melba's piquant sense of rhythm, Galli Curci, as one would expect, turns this into a Light Pecking Staccato Fest. Her timbre is pretty, of course, but I just don't see the point.
Melba sings it without grace or nuance. Almost vulgar, which from all accounts matched her personality.