Deborah Voigt as Isolde - Gotta give her credit

I have always had interesting feelings about the talent of Deborah Voigt. However, I've really got to hand it to her for her Isolde in this season's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE from the MET.

I won't go into great detail here with my long-held opinions, based on years and years of careful listening, about Voigt's voice. Suffice to say that I admire her art immensely, and I very much respect but don't love her voice. She also -- thank God for her, overall health-wise -- recently lost a significant amount of weight, quickly, through surgical procedures, and it has definitely altered her vocal instrument.

However, I listened to the MET radio broadcast of the TRISTAN when it aired in early Spring, and just watched/listened to the PBS (NYC WNET) telecast of the opera, and I have to give Voigt a lot of respect for her work. Again, despite certain things that I probably would not have liked very much before her recent physical changes, despite the effect of those changes, and despite the fact that she basically does not have a voice large enough to sing Isolde in the "traditional" way (I won't elaborate--I'll save that topic for another post), she sang with her version of power and with pathos and drama. She was tireless in the role--unflinching even at the most overwhelming of James Levine's Wagnerian orchestral tidal waves; singing with "her voice" and still getting over the orchestra rather handily. I even found myself caught up in the drama and not thinking about the voice on numerous occasions throughout her extended scene in Act I and the Act II Love Duet. Voigt's "Liebestod" at the conclusion of the opera was also immensely heartfelt. I must also say that she looked beautiful.

I actually ran into Voigt at a restaurant near Lincoln Center after the radio broadcast--that evening, I was meeting another great soprano (a dear personal friend) in the same restaurant where Voigt had her post-performance dinner. Another mention of how she looks: she not only lost such a dramatic amount of weight that she is now very slim, but she even looks somewhat small. I always saw her in the past as someone of a certain height but the weight loss made her, at least on the occasion of that evening in the restaurant, seem to be a more of a "compact" person.

When, as I awaited my other diva friend, I saw Voigt giddily leaving the restaurant -- as well she should! -- with a group of her friends, I did something that I would not ordinarily do. I grabbed her by the shoulder and just said "awesome today". She very sincerely -- I mean genuinely so -- said "thank you so much".

One minor note on the telecast: I noticed that they must have cut in a different take of the "Liebestod" for the telecast--the radio broadcast performance was the one transmitted live in HD to movie theaters around the country/world. I remember that Voigt flubbed the final climactic note of the "Liebestod" (on the words "in des Weltatems") on the radio broadcast, which, frankly, didn't matter because her overall performance of the aria. On the telecast, the flub on the grand note on "Welt" was not there. Ah, digital technology! :-)

Here is her "Liebestod" (audio only) from YouTube:

Alessandra Marc - Diva Assoluta

I have been a champion of the great American Dramatic Soprano, Alessandra Marc, for two decades. When I first heard a very young Alessandra Marc in 1987, on a scratchy "live" recording of Respighi's LA FIAMMA from a Carnegie Hall performance with Robert Bass and the Collegiate Chorale, I was blown away. In 1989, I first experienced this magnificent talent live: a thrilling Carnegie Hall concert performance of Richard Strauss's 1938 opera, FRIEDENSTAG, with the same ensemble. Half way through the opera, this voice soared through the theater in a way I had never experienced before in my life.

I've followed her complex career ever since. MET appearances in AIDA and her signature TURANDOT, countless concerts, particularly her truly grand, to-the-manor-born Strauss and Wagner.

This is a voice, still in its prime -- audiences don't realize that she is still a mid-career singer because she started her career so young and her contemporaries were more than a decade older -- which should not be missed. She will sing her TURANDOT again in July at the 2008 Puccini Festival at Torre del lago (http://www.puccinifestival.it/eng/categorie.asp?idcat=1) and has concerts in the Washington, D.C. area in the 2008-2009 festival that are must hear/sees. It is time that the arts scene in New York offers her the recognition that she deserves--honoring this remarkable artist with an appearance in one of the great theaters (the MET, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall) with companies like the MET, the NY Philharmonic, other major international orchestras, etc.

(Alessandra and me, March 2008, NYC)

Check out an example of Alessandra in glorious voice in Maryland at a special gala 2008 concert honoring U.S.-based artists from China. She sings "Io son l'umile ancella" from Cilèa's ADRIANA LECOUVREUR. (see below)