Soprano
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This article is about singers. For the popular HBO television drama series about the Mafia see The Sopranos. Template:Wiktionary In music, a soprano is a singer with a voice ranging approximately from middle C to the A a thirteenth above middle C (above the treble clef). In four part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, and will usually take the melody.
The word "soprano" generally refers to a female singer of this highest vocal range and to her voice. Male singers whose voices have not changed are known either as "boy sopranos" or, in the Anglican and English Catholic traditions, as trebles. Some adult male singers use a special technique without using falsetto in order to sing in this high range, and they are known as sopranistas. Template:Vocal range Historically women were not allowed to sing in the Church, so the soprano roles were given to young boys, and later to castrati, who were men whose larynxes had been fixed in a pre-adolescent state through the process of castration.
More generally, a soprano is the highest member of a group of similar instruments (for example, the soprano saxophone).
Sopranos usually play the heroine in operas: soubrettes play comical roles; coloraturas, dramatic and lyric, usually must sing very complicated music with many leaps into the upper register; lyric sopranos play the ingenues; spinto, dramatic (including dramatic coloratura) and Wagnerian sopranos play the long-suffering women of opera.
Types of soprano
In opera, the character and timbre of soprano voices are often categorized according to the German Fach system. The soprano Fächer, with examples of respective roles, are:
- Leggero (or soubrette)
- Adele (Die Fledermaus)
- Ännchen (Der Freischütz)
- Despina (Così fan tutte)
- Marzellina (Fidelio)
- Musetta (La bohème)
- Nannetta (Falstaff)
- Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro)
- Zerlina (Don Giovanni)
- Lyric Coloratura
- Blondchen (Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
- Gilda (Rigoletto)
- Norina (Don Pasquale)
- Olympia (Les contes d'Hoffmann)
- Rosina (Il Barbiere de Sevilla)
- Sofie (Der Rosenkavalier)
- Zerbinette (Ariadne auf Naxos)
- Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi)
- Oskar (Un Ballo in Maschera)
- Adina (L'Elisir d'Amore)
- Lakmé (Lakmé)
- Amina (La Sonnambula)
- Lisa (La Sonnambula)
- Dramatic Coloratura
- Konstanza (Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
- Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte)
- Königin (Die Zauberflöte)
- Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus)
- Violetta (La Traviata)
- Donna Anna (Don Giovanni)
- Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor)
- Marguerite (Faust)
- Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)
- Full Lyric Soprano
- Contessa (Figaro)
- Mimi (La bohème)
- Pamina (Die Zauberflöte)
- Micaëla (Carmen)
- Liù (Turandot)
- Nedda (I Pagliacci)
- Spinto Soprano
- Agathe (Der Freischütz)
- Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni)
- Elsa (Lohengrin)
- Desdemona (Othello)
- Leonora (Il Trovatore)
- Tatajana (Eugene Onegin)
- Rezia (Oberon)
- Elizabeth (Tannhäuser)
- The Marschellin (Der Rosenkavalier)
- Elisabetta (Don Carlos)
- Dramatic soprano
- Aida (Aida)
- Leonore (Fidelio)
- Leonora (La Forza del Destino)
- Tosca (Tosca)
- Sieglinde (Die Walküre)
- Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos)
- Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana)
- Butterfly (Madama Butterfly)
- Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera)
- Norma (Norma)
- Kundry (Parsifal)
- Wagnerian soprano
- Senta (Der fliegende Holländer)
- Elektra (Elektra)
- Brünnhilde (Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung, Siegfried)
- Isolde (Tristan und Isolde)
- Turandot (Turandot)
Two types of soprano especially dear to the French are the Dugazon and the Falcon, which are intermediate voice types between the soprano and the mezzo soprano: a Dugazon is a darker-colored soubrette, a Falcon a darker-colored soprano drammatico.
Famous sopranos
- June Anderson
- Arleen Augér
- Isobel Baillie
- Kathleen Battle
- Erna Berger
- Barbara Bonney
- Catherine Bott
- Fabiana Bravo
- Sarah Brightman
- June Bronhill
- Gré Brouwenstijn
- Montserrat Caballe
- Maria Callas
- Lina Cavalieri
- Charlotte Church
- Patrizia Ciofi
- Ileana Cotrubas
- Victoria de los Angeles
- Emma Eames
- Geraldine Farrar
- Renée Fleming
- Florence Foster Jenkins
- Mirella Freni
- Amelita Galli-Curci
- Leyla Gencer
- Angela Gheorghiu
- Edita Gruberova
- Elisabeth Gruemmer
- Hilda Gueden
- Heather Harper
- Barbara Hendricks
- Gundula Janowitz
- Maria Jeritza
- Sumi Jo
- Sena Jurinac
- Raina Kabaivanska
- Emma Kirkby
- Lotte Lehmann
- Jenny Lind
- Maria Malibran
- Eva Marton
- Nellie Melba
- Zinka Milanov
- Nelly Miricioiu
- Anna Moffo
- Carmen Monarcha
- Ma. Cristina "Kit" Viguilla-Navarro
- Birgitt Nilsson
- Jessye Norman
- Adelina Patti
- Lucia Popp
- Leontyne Price
- Ema Pukšec, (Ilma De Murska)
- Amanda Roocroft
- Marijana Radev
- Elisabeth Rethberg
- Anneliese Rothenberger
- Bidu Sayão
- Elisabeth Schumann
- Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
- Beverly Sills
- Elisabeth Soderström
- Cheryl Studer
- Conchita Supervia
- Joan Sutherland
- Renata Tebaldi
- Luisa Tetrazzini
- Maggie Teyte
- Milka Trnina
- Eva Turner
- Kiri Te Kanawa
- Dawn Upshaw
- Galina Vishnevskaya
- Ljuba Welitsch
- Kirsten Flagstad
- Sarah Beckers
Famous sopranos have often caused opera enthusiasts to divide into opposing "clubs" supporting one singer over another. The rivalry between the respective fans of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, for example, was one of the most famous of all opera, despite the friendship of the two singers.
See also
- mezzo soprano, alto, contralto, counter tenor, tenor, baritenor, baritone, bass-baritone, bass (or basso), castrato, sopranista
- music, opera, bel cantoca:Soprano
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