How competitive is a soprano when we come to Lieder? Most people would not hesitate that low voices have a clear advantage in this field, especially the baritone, whose more spontaneous vocal production, less problematic passaggio and the darker tone colour the text in a more varied and immediate manner. The mezzo-soprano would take a second place: she does have a complicated passaggio to deal with, to start with, but some would prefer the floating quality only a female’s mezza voce can produce. When it comes to a tenor, some would point out that the voice rarely soars above a g in this repertoire, precisely when it acquires its hallmark plangent quality. On the other hand, dealing with the first fifth of the second octave, a tenor would generally be less at ease to deal with tone-colouring. All that said, if we put that to vote, I am sure almost everyone would say the soprano will be the less popular in the list. Sopranos are generally singing in the less favourable part of their voices throughout a whole Lied. Their break into low register is more awkward than a mezzo’s, their middle register rarely has the richness of a mezzo soprano’s and, as much as a tenor, they are rarely required to produce their trump cards in a song, i.e., top notes. More than that, unlike tenors, the soprano voice excels in what is larger-than-life but works hard to suggest the Innigkeit, the half-tones a Schubert song requires.
When one thinks of an ideal Lieder-singing soprano, one thinks of a light, bright-toned singer with very smoothly connected registers. For example, Elly Ameling. Choose any Lied written by Schubert specifically for the soprano voice and you won’t resist her effortlessness and loveliness. But even a paragon of exquisite singing such as Ameling will probably sugest less spiritual depth in the Schwanengesang than, say, Christa Ludwig or Hermann Prey (to keep with the sacred names in the field of Lieder singing).
I am writing all that to express my astonishment with Christine Schäfer’s singing of Schubert’s Winterreise in a CD recently released by Onyx (it was in fact recorded some years ago). Although the low notes are not ideally focused and the voice does not feature a wide tonal palette, I could not help realizing that maybe this is something new, totally disconnected to the former tradition of the “prima le parole”-school (Schwarzkopf, F-Dieskau) and the “prima la musica”-school (Janowitz, Baker, Prey). I could say Brigitte Fassbaender’s approach was new in its expressionistic effects, but Schäfer makes me think that the XXIst century has begun to the art of Lieder singing.
There is something of a contemporary songster in her whole method - the way she plays words and notes to produce theatrical and musical effects instead of portraying feelings as if they were fresh before your eyes. I chose the word “theatrical” because you can almost see the actual stage performance through sound alone. I try to think of an example, but I can think only of a Brazilian pop singer - Adriana Calcanhoto, who always handles text and melody in a detached way that goes beyond affectedness to achieve a whole personal atmosphere, more than that, an attitude. When Calcanhoto sings an old song, it does not sound like an old song, but a modern view of an old song - you can see the contemporary touch in this song and suddenly it sounds as if has been composed by her and expressed new, immediate ideas. To find this in a Schubert disc is admirable. Bravissima. In this, she is ideally partnered by the multicoloured playing of Eric Schneider, whose imagetic approach, direct style and unfussed playing is also quite modern as well.
PS - Onyx Records is a prejudice-free company, i.e., you can buy the whole CD through downloads no matter where you live in this planet. Bravissimo.
Ahh, quero ouvir… me manda por MP3?