In an interview, violinist Isabelle Faust explained that she was lucky to have had a teacher who let her figure out things before he presented her a ready made solution. According to her, this is the only way one can find an individual voice rather than just doings things right. Those were not exactly her words, but the point is even apter when one speaks of the human voice. We often hear that many singers are technically competent, but rather anonymous in terms of personality. Yet this discussion is not so simple as it seems. There is a price for “having one’s own way” and that usually means being like a wonderful dress in a window shop that doesn’t fit anyone’s body, like an Italian designer suit (unless you’re a thin 14-year-old young man, of course). And this is a good way of describing Tatiana Troyanos’s unique mezzo soprano. It is difficult to be objective about her, for hers was an irresistible voice that quickly wins you over. A sexy voice, above all. That said, after a while one notices it was a bit short in low notes, a bit constricted in its higher reaches, a bit heavy for light roles, a bit light for heavier roles. It was definitely not a voice for Italian roles, although she increasingly sang parts like Amneris in Verdi’s Aida or Adalgisa in Bellini’s Norma. In any case, even with all those observations, it was a fascinating voice. I remember once, in a course about Mozart operas, after I had shown Levine’s video of La Clemenza di Tito, a lady in the audience was truly impressed about Troyanos’s singing of Parto, ma tu ben mio. She kept saying “her voice sounds just like the basset horn, I’ve never heard anything like that in my life”. Yes, it’s slightly nasal placement brought a reedy sound that made it sound uncannily like a clarinet. Even the slight constriction in her high register made it instrumental in tone. But that was not what made me a fan.
My “history” with Troyanos has to do with my admiration for Karl Böhm. My first recording with this American mezzo soprano was his recording of Le Nozze di Figaro. While she is not my favourite Cherubino, I wasn’t immune to her charms. It was, however, in his recording of R. Strauss’s Capriccio that Troyanos first appeared to me as a very special singer. Her first entrance made me stop the recording and hear it again and again. It was as if Ella Fitzgerald had a second career as an opera singer. I have written here about musicality and how one’s musical background – whether in classical music or not – makes a singer’s approach unique if he or she doesn’t try to conceal it. Troyanos grew up in New York and one can hear that in her voice. Her singing had the kind of spontaneous cantabile of a jazz diva. She offered a sound culture that had a sexiness and “beauty for beauty’s sake” approach to phrasing that made her singularly appealing, especially the way she was able to drain her voice from vibrato and made it sound almost pop-like. Also her keen ear for rhythms: her phrasing had a pulsation that was not necessarily connected to the text, but to the inner beat of music itself. It felt modern somehow. And Böhm saw Troyanos’s potential and made her develop it to its fullest. I would say her best recordings were made under his baton. Later heavier roles took a toll on her vocal production, high notes became too vibrant and too unvaried in dynamic. She would even then sound appealing enough, but the purity of sound of her early days shows her at her best.
Mezzos in soprano roles are an old discussion and I have written here a whole text about that. Especially in Richard Strauss. The parts of the Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier were written for sopranos, but we rarely see sopranos sing it. As Camille, a poster in Parterre Box very cleverly said, “when mezzos sing the last bars in the prologue of Ariadne auf Naxos, they rarely make that passage sound either heilig or like Musik, as the text demands”. But that was not the case with Troyanos. Yes, we can hear that those high notes do not blossom as when a soprano sings these parts, but they are still firm, connected and irresistibly clarinet-like in tone. Troyanos was the poster girl for German roles for high mezzo soprano – and Karl Böhm cast her in almost all of them. It was most curious, however, to find her together with mezzo Christa Ludwig taking both leading roles in Der Rosenkavalier in Böhm’s recording made live in Salzburg in 1969. It took a while before this recording was available on CD in Europe and in USA, and I was so curious about it that I made my father buy them in Yamano Music in Ginza during a visit to Tokyo.
Böhm had recorded Der Rosenkavalier in studio before – with Marianne Schech and Irmgard Seefried, an orchestral tour de force and still a reference in terms of clarity. You can’t do wrong with Böhm when the subject is Richard Strauss. He knew the composer, who dedicated his opera Daphne to him, and had a still unrivalled ability to see the “blueprint” in Strauss’s invention. When Böhm conducted Strauss, not only all motives were clearly shown to the listener, but most importantly the theatrical effect was unmistakable. In his recording of Elektra, we can hear dogs barking, horses whinnying, blood dripping from staircases. His 1969 Rosenkavalier does not match the studio recording in terms of structural clarity, but offers undeniable compensation in the luxuriant sounds of the Vienna Philharmonic. And there was Tatiana Troyanos’s Octavian. I am not the first person to write that she had a unique ability of being convincing both in female and male roles. When she sang Carmen, she was the steamiest seductress – and when she sang Octavian she exuded aristocratic boyishness. The pairing with Christa Ludwig is daring, but it ultimately works. Although Ludwig had the darkest (and fullest) voice, her verbal specificity in her native German created the aural impression of patrician femininity, while Troyanos’s “instrumental” sound and rhythmic buoyancy brought to life Octavian’s 17-year-old testosterone-high personality.
In 1969, Troyanos was at her vocal prime. While she sounds stylish in German late Romantic music, you can still hear her Ella Fitzgerald-like “coolness”, and that’s what makes her so special in that role. She puts in you under her spell in her very first notes – the inimitable clarinet-like tone, which you could hear even in her speaking voice is sensuousness itself. She often sang Mozart and, even in heavier roles, was able to “stop time” by the way she attacked a note with instrumental poise and let it develop. You can hear that right in the beginning when she sings Wie du warst, wie du BIST, DAS weisst niemand, das ahnt keiner”. Those days, she could sustain high lines against a full orchestra without tampering with legato, the vibration well integrated in her singing. Troyanos used to described herself as a nervous person and incapable of being on stage without being possessed by a certain electricity – and you can hear that in her voice. Selig bin ich, dass ich der einzige bin shows that beautiful vibration in her tone, the rhythmic accuracy in einzige bin suggesting boyish energy. The way she handles this conversational passage is exemplary: we can understand every word, although she chisels her syllables in broad strokes, the contour of phrases is never lost and she always surprises the listener by the way she colours her tone. For instance, when she sings aber dennoch. The tone is so rich, we can almost guess how aroused and passionate Octavian is by the way the tone acquires warmth. We know what he is going to describe next even before he begins to do it. And Böhm is not making Troyanos’s life easy there – the orchestra is together with the singer at its fullest, they respond to each other, complement each other. And yet, when the tessitura is more congenial and the orchestra relaxes a bit, Troyanos has an Ella Fitzgerald moment just for you, as in Wo ist dann dein Bub?
The end of the track shows Troyanos in an entirely different light, as she describes all the boring and annoying things that the day reserve Octavian and the Marschallin as soon as she opens the doors to her servants. Although she was not German herself (her mother was German, though), she delivers the text with complete crispiness and, by way of tiny portamentos, under the note attack, abrupt endings, shows the audience that Octavian is not happy about everything he is talking about. The contrast with the equally characterful Christa Ludwig there is priceless. The Marschallin is all small Viennese-style mannerisms in her brief interventions.
The YouTube clip below does not offer the scene in its best sound (as in the Japanese CDs my father brought me many years ago), so please turn the volume up until the sound picture acquire the right balance. Also, I have programmed it to start right before Tatiana Troyanos start to sing, but I encourage you all to listen the track from the beginning to enjoy the Vienna Philharmonic in the orchestral introduction.
I HEAR VOICES 
Have to admit to being something of a Troyanos agnostic in general and I thought her best work came before she got to the met. It was a first rate instrument that could sound sensational at it’s best and she was always up to whatever she was singing and could make her basic sound “right” in everything she sang. Most of her commercial discography, including this Octavian, I find first rate if somewhat joyless when it comes to Mozart. Her Dorabella is particular might be the most beautifully vocalized I’ve ever heard but is so sober as border on dour. And frankly as wonderfully sung as it is, I think her Carmen is pretty much your standard steam pot temptress. Many have had more interesting things so say about the role and could sing it with more individuality. It’s an uncommonly glamorous recording but very studio bound. I LOVE her Judith, the early Composer for Bohm and the first Dido. At the met I was in the minority and liked her Kundry and Venus best. She seemed to think that she was too light for them and only sang them a few times each but there I thought she found a certain repose not evident in other rep and could really vary her approach in terms of dynamics and text.
And yet…I don’t know. I thought there was something utility about her and a kind of sameness to everything she did, once she got to the met there just seemed to be a noticeable decrease in niceties both in how she sang and how she acted. There’s not much differing her Eboldi from her Didon or her Octavian as filmed. She also had infamous stage fright and what some people seemed to classify and intensity I thought was actually a tension and a default towards neurosis and twitchiness, most notably the Didon which despite some pretty sounds is IMO a very misconceived portrayal. And despite her idiomatic versatility, her diction and word pointing could be all over the place. I’m stingy, I would KILL to have a singer around like her today. But in her time I always felt one could point to singers in everything she sang who had more advantages.
We also disagree about Bohm, but that’s really a different story lol.
Hi, Peter! I understand what you say and somehow I agree. Apart from the Venus (which lacks some slancio in high notes, she was right about considering it a bit heavy for her), I don’t like any of her Met videos. There I find her voice overvibrant and tense in her high notes and the clarity of diction largely lost in the process. In her late career, she is also a bit too emphatic and no longer Fitzgerald-ish. As I said, I still find the basic sound appealing and go along to a certain extent.
I agree about the Dorabella – I would describe her in that recording with the very same words. I don’t think she felt very happy singing Mozart. It required a “spiritual concentration” a big foreign to her natural nervousness.
As for the Carmen, I have to say that I actually like Troyanos in the role for the very reasons you have to dislike. Sunny Carmens have no effect on me. I like to think that Don José singled her out among all the frolicsome girls in the cigar factory because she had this shadow on her, that she was not trying to please or impress anyone, that she was really keeping it to herself. And Troyanos, to my ears, sings it like that. She doesn’t have anything interesting to say there, because she is not interested in saying anything. She breathes her own private atmosphere.
I don’t find you’re being stingy about the Didon. I don’t like her there either. The voice – again – has undeniable appeal, but it’s overdone in an almost telenovela-ish way, especially the closing scene.
Maybe I’m reading too much between the lines in Troyanos’s artistry, but ultimately I think that her voice was – even to herself – a dress that did not fit her own personality. If she had a truly dramatic voice and could let it all out on stage, maybe it would feel a bit like “therapy’ for her. Having to sound poised (which is what her voice demand) with all that energy pent up in her must have been exhausting. In any case, I find that all this is part of her appeal. There is something unresolved there and it brings an electricity. Later – as in the Didon – it was too electric for comfort. I don’t know – I find that, in her first phase, when this was channeled somehow, that “neurotic” energy contained by her clarinette-like voice made her perfect for the Komponist, Octavian, Judith, Dido (Purcell’s, with Mackerras, right?) and maybe the Oedipus Rex. When this dichotomy became just sheer “tension”, then the whole thing became less interesting, I agree.
As for Böhm, let’s not even try – I’m like a newly born Christian when it comes to Karl Böhm hahaha (but I don’t like that Tristan from Bayreuth, if you ask me!).
I should say that I liked Bohm in Strauss best of all. So we aren’t in total disagreement there. The Tristan and ring I think are awful. But I saw him so much better in those operas in person so idk.
I don’t need a sunny Carmen, but I just think there’s a wit and elasticity I love in singers like Crespin, Michel, berganza, and De Los Angeles. I also think the sunniness of the latter two has been overstated in that I think what makes them both work in the role is that when they finally reveal their cruelty it’s all the more shocking. De Los Angeles unfortunately was quite bad when she finally sang it live, but I think there’s a kind of bitch quality to her that only makes itself apparent on repeated listenings. Maybe she doesn’t come off as a cigarette factory gypsy, but her mocking of Don Jose is all the more powerful IMO because of how clad it is in shroud of supposed elegance. Also as someone who think the Abbado recording is only ok, I can say Berganza live was somewhat different. Troyanos sounds divine but I find her sexuality just very blatant and laden in demonstrative doom that broadcasts the character as a man eater with a death wish. The other women seemed to actually enjoy life and there quarrel is that they should have to change it for a man.
Again I see your point and maybe I could agree, although I wouldn’t call Troyanos blatant in a world where there is Leontyne Price in Karajan’s recording. I have to be honest about my poor acquaintance with de Los Angeles’s Carmen. I never went beyond the fact that hers is not a voice I would associate at all to the role. In any case, Troyanos is not my favorite Carmen. I just think she has the right voice for the role, she sang it very well and had this “unfriendly” attitude that I like in the part. It’s curious for my favorite Carmen (Bumbry) was closer to the cliché, but she did it superbly. Even in Karajan’s highly artificial film, I can say that I know that woman. I’ve seen her in real life quite often.
Bumbry was fun, and she had the personality to back it all up and while she might have been blunt, the sound was deluxe enough it didn’t matter when she was behaving herself. She’s great on that video. I tend to be on the Uber-pretentious side of things with the role. I tend to prefer either sopranos (although I think Price despite some georgeous sounds is kind of at a loss and that recording is basically Karajan camp) or more lyric mezzos who don’t default to chesting their way thru it (Baltsa, whose vocal production has to be among the more bizarre of singers. She was a lyric mezzo who sang like she was a dramatic voice. She’s intriguing for Von Karajan but was a full scale disaster at the met and only passable elsewhere). I guess Crespin just kind of killed the role for me. It was late so she made some odd sounds but in voice and manner she was so captivating and complicated. I remember her card scene, genuine shock followed by processing what she was looking at which then transitioned into a kind of nihilistic acceptance that was beyond chilling. She manages to communicate all that in the distant space of the met without seeming to move any part of her body except her eyes. Her Carmen had been somewhat flippant and burnt out yet somehow easygoing. Yet the moment she saw those cards something undefinable just shifted in her. She managed to somehow be classy and charming but also deeply troubling all at once. And certain parts of the role that trouble all singers (the descending lines of the Habanera most notably but also the card scene) just sat so perfectly for her. On record I retain a great love for Solange Michel and that remarkable recording as a whole. It’s fast, nasty and quite shocking. The juxtaposition between beautiful jaunty tunes and brutal violence comes across perfectly. It’s also the most authentic, whatever importance once places on that, by an ENORMOUS margin, the only one even closely resembling what the original version would have been like.
But Carmen is an impossible role and I’ve seen many a singer I’ve loved elsewhere come to grief (Waltraud Meier sadly, Shirley Verrett etc…). And the bad ones had to be seen to believed. I remember the audience rearing it’s collective heads back when Ewing stumbled onstage. So honestly it’s kind of a case by case basis kind of thing. More recently I adored Antonacci in the part, more so for Gardiner than Pappano. But she’s basically the definition of a special case singer. So who can say.
1 – Bumbry – I find her voice irresistible and am always ready for all her MEZZO recordings. I’m not so sure about the soprano stuff, but I’m not among the nay-sayers. It’s largely unpredictable and a bit hit-or-miss, but still…
2 – Baltsa – a dramatic soprano spirit in the body of a lyric mezzo haha That’s a good definition. I like to like Baltsa, but sometimes it is a high maintenance admiration 🙂 I like her in the Karajan recording too – she personifies the “unsmiling”-Carmen approach there. But I’ve heard broadcasts in which she is basically harsh and unappealing.
3 – OK, now you got my attention. I’ve never felt tempted to buy Crespin’s studio recording, but you’ll need just 30 seconds to convince me, unless you know other Carmen with her in better company.
4 – Solange Michel… it’s been a while. I like the conducting too. Michel is intriguingly matter-of-fact to my ears. I’m not saying she is dull – she is not and, yes, it’s utterly French in an old-fashioned way – but vocally it feels almost “pop” to my ears.
5 – Meier – I find Meier basically wrong as Carmen. It seems as if she had had no patience to study the character and offered the German heavy-handed version of the cliché. I would be surprised if I heard her saying that she likes the role at all.
6 – Antonacci – I guess Antonacci was the most interesting Carmen I’ve seen live. I have to say first that Troyanos/Bumbry/Crespin/Berganza were retired before my opera-going days. We have already discussed here about how Antonacci voice has a weirdly sexy thing about it – and she is one of the best unsmiling Carmens I’ve ever seen. It’s not that she sounds depressed or bored or mean, she has just had a hard life and has become a bit tough. I’ve seen her in the boring production from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which did not require from her the earthiness as seen on the DVD from London. And yet she could make something out of it. In terms of voice, Borodina was probably the most deluxe Carmen I’ve ever seen, but she was largely out of character.
6 – I’ve just taken a look at my collection of Carmen recordings and found something I had entirely forgotten. Someone at some point said I had to listen to Consuelo Rubio as Carmen. Well, I did buy the CD (with Simoneau, Alarie and Rehfusss – Le Conte conducting), but I have never actually listened to it!
The best Crespin Carmen is the 1975 met broadcast, her first run at the met and I believe her stage debut. It’s spoken dialogue. The studio recording is fine, she’s not flatteringly recorded and as a result while it’s intriguing and musical she does a lot of crooning and sound slightly ill and ease. She had not sung it onstage at that point (just in concert) and so it’s an embryonic characterization, still compelling since it’s Crespin. It’s the recits and it’s one of those recordings where a very strong cast on paper somehow ends up being less than the sum of its parts. The live met run you get the whole shebang and while only it’s the best Van Dam and Katia R. performances of their respective roles. Henry Lewis is Jose, subbing for Domingo, and he ain’t much honestly. But it has a real pulse while also being classy. It is available commercially, though for how much I don’t know. But she is divine and her handling of the words world class.
For antonacci I’d recommend the Gardiner DVD. She’s careworn like you said but there’s also a kind of element of humor that’s Jeanne Moreau-esque. Shamelessly self involved, not bad natured but with a reproach that could kill. And Gardiner lets her sing more lightly than Pappano. I’ve never seen her to do it live.
Meier is funny because she’s so seductive in intellectualized German rep but when she was actually called upon to be blatantly seductive, she freezes up. Im not totally going to blame her for the met fiasco because that production was a Zeff nadir and precisely the opposite of what she would have needed to come close to succeeding. She had sung it a bit in Germany in her utility singer days and did have a fondness for it. But I think after the met, she did it literally only once more years later and then wisely figured it was a no go.
Michel takes some adjusting to. But Carmen was made for a small theater with a kind of pop attitude in mind. I’m not sure divorced from the context I would love her as much, but I would have loved to have seen her do it.
Peter, the live from the Met is, as Don Alfonso says, like the phoenix: everybody says it exists, but nobody knows where one can find it! 🙂 I’ve spent two hours browsing the Internet and it’s sold out everywhere. Your description of the studio recording only confirms why I haven’t bought it. If one day I find the Met one, I’ll remember your recommendation.
I’ve tried to get the Gardiner DVD – it is not impossible to find, but it’s not available everywhere either.
Yes, the Zeffirelli Carmen was a sad affair – and it depended on a very good singer/actress to make it minimally acceptable (I have never had the luck to find someone like that whenever I saw that production). But again – at the Met it seemed that Meier wasn’t even trying. It was a bit like “hand on the hip, check, wink – check; castanets, check”. In her biography, Christa Ludwig writes a lot about Carmen and how she felt awful in the role because she didn’t feel she had the sexy, wild thing in her. Until one day a director (or maybe herself) said – don’t play sexy or wild, play Carmen with what you have in yourself. And she says that only then she could make something of the role. And I believe you can make a non “folklorically sexy” Carmen (as often) and even a totally non sexy Carmen and make it happen. Carmen herself never says that sex is what she wants – she says that FREEDOM is what she wants. When she sings the habanera, she actually says “love happens when it wants – chase it and it will run away”.
And, yes, you’re right about the Salle Favart – even Madonna could sing Carmen there and be heard over the orchestra…