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Candice Z Luo

Barbara Dunn-Prosser
Studio writing assignment
April, 2021

Write 2 short essays (max. 1000 words each) on 2 different internationally acclaimed singers whose
work appeals to you. You should listen to at least 2 CDs or watch 2 recitals or operas for each
singer. Your research and report would include a brief biography, discography, analysis of the
artist’s vocal qualities and fach. Be very careful not to plagiarize on-line articles and make sure you
cite any sources you have used. This assignment is more suited to third and fourth-year students.

Topic singers:
Ermonela Jaho, soprano
Dorothea Röschmann, soprano

Notes: I chose to research and write about Ermonela Jaho and Dorothea Röschmann
because they recorded a great amount of arias I have been learning both for academic
purposes and for collaborative projects over this past year (Röschmann: Non piu di
fiori, Dove sono, Mi tradi quell'alma in grata. Jaho: Son pochi fiori, Senza mamma,
Tu, tu, piccolo iddio). Both singers excel as lyric sopranos, although they each
specialize in largely different areas. Röschmann is significantly more inclined to
singing Classical, especially known for her accomplishments in singing Mozart. On
the other hand, Jaho frequents Romantic-Era repertoire and heavier, closer-to-
dramatic soprano roles like those by Puccini. In the short essays I will give brief
discussions, analysis and appreciation for each of their expressions, techniques, and
other artistic vocal approaches.

Works listened to for Ermonela Jaho:


La traviata, Verdi (Violetta, conducted by Antonello Manacorda at the Royal Opera
House)
Suor Angelica, Puccini (Suor Angelica, conducted by Antonio Pappano at the Royal
Opera House)
Madama Butterfly, Puccini (Cio-Cio-San, condycted by Antonio Pappano at the
Royal Opera House).

Works listened to for Dorothea Röschmann:


La clemenza di Tito, Mozart (Vitellia, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt at
Salzburg Opera Festival)
Le nozze di Figaro, Mozart (Countessa, conducted by Antonio Pappano at the Royal
Opera House)
Don Giovanni, Mozart (Donna Elvira, conducted by Bertrand de Billy at the Salzburg
Opera Festival)
Ermonela Jaho
Ermonela Jaho is an Albanian soprano born in 1974. Jaho has performed lots
of operatic roles and frequently starred in the Royal Opera House performances.
Jaho was born in Triana, Albania. She began singing at the age of six, and studied at
the Academy of Fine Arts in Triana. After that she went and studied in Italy at the
Academy of Mantova, and joined the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Jaho never stopped studying and taking lessons, her current teacher is mezzo-
soprano Catherine Green, whose husband is Jaho’s manager. She has won many
competitions and sung in many opera houses internationally. Jaho is remarkable for
her beautifully emotive singing. As she famously said in the BBC Music Magazine,
“when I have to cry, I do cry, for sure. If I have to scream, I scream for real”. This has
helped her accomplished many convincing performances. When performing an
operatic role, Jaho is often visually observably compelled by the drama, unlike some
singers (Röschmann sometimes can be one of them) that can seem to be focusing
more on the technique therefore not fully in character.
Jaho has sung lots of roles which are usually assigned to dramatic sopranos.
However, her instrument is quite unique: it is very resilient, and very different from
those of many big sopranos with grand voices. Jaho processes vocal colours that are
sweet and sparkly, her tone is always well-projected and breath at ease all the time.
Her sound is a lot less harsh than Callas’ and Netrebko’s; with freedom and flexibility
similar to Flemming’s voice, Jaho uses a lot less front-facial and nasal resonance
than Flemming does. She is one of the many very underrated singers because her
performance in Madama Butterfly almost redefines what the general public would
expect from Cio-Cio-San’s big soprano sound. Her singing in both Cio-Cio-San’s
famous suicide aria and her love duet with Pinkerton much more effortlessly lighter
sounding than Callas and Huang (in the movie version). Jaho uses a lot of cranial
resonance, which allows for an almost innocent sound, which is more suitable for the
role. Frankly, her lighter tone is more sparkly, and seem to carry better through the
longer phrases and grand orchestration than those big sopranos whose sounds seem
to anchor in a darker and lower part of the body.
In collaboration with other singers, Jaho never seems to push her sound to be
heard over the other/other singers. Tenor Marcelo Puente, singer for Pinkerton with
Jaho in the Royal Opera House’s production of Madama Butterfly, has a much
pushier spinto sound than Jaho’s. However, there were many beautiful moments in
the love duet between the two singers. The duet itself is demanding for both the
soprano and the tenor, but for the soprano especially, the piece sits outside of the
tessitura almost the entire time. Many of the phrases either sit entirely in the bottom
of the soprano range, or entirely in the top of the soprano range. Many other
sopranos who have sung in this piece would have a tendency to push on the sound. A
contrasting example is Angela Gheorghiu in her recording with tenor Jonas
Kaufmann. Gheorghiu’s top notes are much harsher to the ear, without much sparkle
carrying through the performance hall, even though Kaufmann’s singing is more
resonant and sparkly than Puente’s. The balance between Gheorghiu and Kaufmann
is very off-balanced due to Gheorghiu’s overt effort in pushing her sound to achieve a
more dramatic and unified tone throughout a piece that spreads all over the range.
But Jaho and Puente’s performance is much more blended and pleasant to the ear.
Because Jaho made the artistic choice to ‘float’ her upper notes, and not
overcompensate for her bottom notes (while staying supported, of course), the vocal
beauty and colour stayed true to the character in a way that is intended by the
composer through his musical writing. Jaho’s voice is almost the perfect example for
‘less is more’, her authentic and effortless singing allows for delicious overtones, thus
creating fuller harmonies. Madama Butterfly is one of the best known of Jaho’s
works, and it showcases her instrument beautifully.
It is interesting to watch Jaho’s performance in Suor Angelica and La
Traviata back-to-back, and really appreciate what a wide range of repertoire she
excels in. Violetta is one of the roles that almost require completely different singers
of different fachs to sing for each act of the opera: Act I is very flourished
(coloratura), going into a very lyrical second Act, and ending in Act III very strongly
based in dramatic-soprano singing. Jaho’s acting is exceptional throughout the
opera, she does a sublime job portraying Violetta. On top of her acting, Jaho’s singing
goes through a whole journey throughout the opera, as well. Violetta, being one of
the most famously known and loved soprano roles, is almost overdone by too many
singers. Again, Jaho’s vocal portrayal of the character is much different from those by
other divas (such as Netrebko, Callas, and Flemming). A very noticeable difference is
in the way she acts and experiences the story and emotion onstage: Jaho is a lot more
reflective and submerged within her senses. She closes her eyes a lot more than
Flemming and Netrebko, which makes the emotional moments just that much more
intense. She almost acts in a way that does not acknowledge the maestro or audience
at all, there is a lot less looking into blank space, looking out into the audience, or
‘being the pretty diva’ moments in Jaho’s singing. Her body language and gestures
are also a lot more inward (crossing arms across the chest, arm movements towards
the torso, etc.), which can be a lot more affective, allowing the story to be owned by
the character and audience to come to the emotions.

Dorothea Röschmann
Dorothea Röschmann is a German soprano, born in 1967 in Flensburg. As a
young child, Röschmann sang in the Flensburg Bach Choir. She studied at the
Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Hamburg, and started singing at the Berlin State
Opera soonafter. Röschmann sang numerous Mozart roles internationally.
Röschmann is one of the best Mozart sopranos alive, she has a powerful, versatile,
and very well, classically trained sound. She has performed a wide range of roles,
ranging from those of soubrette to those of dramatic sopranos. Röschmann is a
native German speaker, but she sings Italian frequently and beautifully.
Röschmann’s Countessa in Le nozze di Figaro is magnificent. Although
Röschmann’s German training makes for a harsher (than say, Jaho) sound, her
singing is still incredibly emotive and full of nuances. She is one of those singers
whose performances are greatly enhanced by the visuals. Röschmann uses her facial
expressions and body language expressively. While her instrument lacks more agile
nuances (i.e. overtones, conrtasting colours and dynamics like Jaho), she uses every
aspect of singing in her acting: every breath is in character and infused with drama,
every consonant is well established in the emotional tone. Röschmann brings a very
raw kind of feeling into Classical-Period singing. Although her voice is well polished,
she is not afraid to give audible, sharp breaths, and have “imperfections” (breaking of
legato lines, glottals and so on) in her singing. She uses her voice in such a raw and
powerful way that characters who are so different from what people encounter in
their modern daily life (like Countessa and Vitellia) seem real and relatable.
Röschmann’s Vitellia in the 2003 Saltzburg Opera Festival is one of the most
remarkable performances of the role. This production in particular does a great job
of not antagonizing Vitellia, and Röschmann beautiful portray a vulnerable side of
the ‘villainess’. Röschmann’s singing in the opera is beautiful and filled with
profound emotions. Aside from the two challenging arias, Dorothea really indulges
both vocally and emotionally in every ensemble number. Röschmann never tries to
upstage her fellow singer(s), which allows Mozart’s beautifully textured and full,
almost-instrumental writing to shine. The performance chemistry between
Röschmann and mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova (Sesto) is incredible. Both
singers are fully engaged in character at all times, and there is a constant
bond/connection throughout the entire opera. Throughout their recits, duets, trios,
and even solo arias, Röschmann and Kasarova never break connection by
maintaining eye contact, always addressing and acknowledging each other through
body language and even subtle manipulations in vocal projections. Kasarova,
beginning an exceptional singer herself, also portrays her Sesto to be a lot more
reflectively sensitive, emotionally aware and inwardly analytical than Elīna Garanča
and Susan Graham’s performances of the role. This remarkable pair (Röschmann
and Kasarova) really does a sublime job portraying the tension between the two
troubled characters, which makes both of the characters that much more lovable, and
make the emotions bring physical pain to the audience. Both singers are masters at
being raw and vulnerable, there are no guards put up (exccessive facial expressions,
snarky gestures, overt acting). Especially in an opera like La clemenza di Tito, the
doomed pair, Vitellia and Sesto are usually seen as the vengeful villainess and her
stupid hopeless admirer, who only exist to contrast the goodness of Tito and of the
young couple, Annio and Servilia. But both Vitallia and Sesto are such complex
character, their stories are better told more through performance chemistry in acting
than in singing.
Röschmann’s Vitellia comes across as much more blunt and heart-on-her-
sleeve than Barbara Fritolli’s and Catherine Naglestad’s versions. Röschmann almost
never plays the manipulation-card for her Vitellia. Truthfully speaking, even as an
adult, Vitellia is a helpless orphaned princess, whose entire bloodline and homeland
has been overthrown and taken over by Tito’s family. She is still living through that
trauma and trying to navigate her way through this whole new world in which there
is no support or anyone to trust other than Sesto. Everything about her situation
stunts her emotional maturity and stability, which leads her into making
irresponsible choices. The entire opera presents Vitellia’s journey of maturing and
learning what it means to be not the throne of Rome, but a true queen who is able to
make peace with her past, and lead a life of justice and love. At the end of the day,
Mozart was hired to write this opera as a political propaganda in favor of the
coronation for Leopold II, the King of Bohemia at that time. The beautiful irony of
the opera is that Vitellia is the true representation of justice and clemency in the end
because of her conscious choices and willful conduct to become a good person and
make amends; unlike Tito, who is handed the crown, getting by each day without
much of a will other than to not actively harm people, and completely oblivious to his
bloodline’s cruel crimes that landed him on his throne. Dorothea Röschmann’s
portrayal of the character teaches the audience to understand and emphasize before
making a judgement on a person. This deliciously troublesome and achingly touching
delivery of Vitellia makes her that much more solid as a character, and makes the
entire opera more authentic, captivating and compelling.

Resources:
https://www.metopera.org/user-information/Synopses-Archive/la-clemenza-di-
tito/
https://www.metopera.org/discover/synopses/madama-butterfly/
http://www.roh.org.uk/people/ermonela-jaho
http://www.roh.org.uk/people/dorothea-roschmann

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