ok now i am going to get in trouble, by egress from my areas of expertise, if any. and plus the famous opera expert lisa simeone has been known to hang about. i've never really liked opera - any of it - and i would have to suspect that's because i haven't seen the right productions of the right works, or with the right people sitting next to me. but here is one objection: vibrato. opera singers have, putting it mildly, a lot of it; all of them do, as far as i can tell. alright and a huge and perfect vibrato is, i'm assuming, a very difficult achievement about which its achievers would rightly be proud. but take, for example, these slices of recent productions of porgy and bess, from fresh air. now porgy and bess doesn't totally kill me, though it's been awhile. but it certainly has some of the very greatest songs of the twentieth century: start with 'summertime,' for god's sake. there have been astounding works of art brought up from that well, like billie's version, or janis's. but when i hear that little slice, all i hear is gigantic wavering vibrato, like a very fast yodel. i don't even hear the lyrics, just the virtuosity, not the emotion, just the technique. indeed when you're wavering that extremely on every note between two tones, i'm not even quite on the tune anymore. precisely because it is such a technical accomplishment, the delivery cannot sound natural or sincere (well, to me, anyway).
i would say, in a folk opera, and provisionally in any opera, the sheer hugeness of your vibrato is little but a distraction. at a minimum, i'd say: ok you can do that. congrats. now do you have to do it all the time? for some bits, or some songs, or some operas, perhaps it's appropriate. in others, not at all. or couldn't it be someone's style (like it is elvis costello's, for example (though only on the right songs!) and not others' (like costello's hero chet baker, who sings without a trace). if you want to create an impression of a certain kind of intensity, or you want play with or play up the sheer artificiality of the work, then hit it. if not, not. surely you are, for example, removing a whole palette of emotional effects just so you can waver at some perfect rate. say you're trying to convey the impression of black folks singing in the south in the early twentieth century. well, they just didn't sing like that, thank god.
now actually the first three of these singers employ some vibrato:. but sparingly, at the right moment, as demanded by the the song as they read it. but none of them try to stun you with sheer force of the vibrato. they do not let the technique get in the way of the music. i'm going to go out on a limb and say that any of these three versions is an infinitely better interpretation of this song than any opera singer has ever produced. perhaps there is some single ideal sound for which every opera singer is striving. there is not one ideal sound for which janis and ella and billie are striving. there is no one single right way to sing 'summertime': it depends on your idiosyncratic style and emotional life, your audience, the moment.
what an extraordinary voice that kathleen battle has: weightless. but i say the interpretation is mannered, artificial in the extreme, detached in its perfection from the human context of the song.
[the great clarinet solo on the billie version is, i think, by artie shaw. for that matter, listen to the way louis uses the vibrato in the intro to the ella version: tremendously varied, unpredictable, intensely expressive: sometimes almost choking the horn, sometimes letting the note ring clear. let that be a lesson to you!]
