Popra?

A student sent me this video of Danielle de Niese singing V'adoro, pupille from Handel's Giulio Cesare. Her question dealt with one of the comments: "She's beautiful, but I'm sorry to say her singing is vulgar and inconsistent. She is not an opera singer, but a "popra" singer. No subtlety. Also,the arm-flailing was just horrible. She was like those inflatable-arm flailing advertising things."

Another comment:

"The costume is the biggest issue here. There is no way that anyone could fall in love with a woman wearing this.
Pah!
I saw this brilliant production, one of the most memorable nights I have ever spent in the theatre, and both of the subsequent revivals. I don't think you would find a single audience member of either sex who was not beguiled by Miss de Niese. . . And the crazy Bollywood dancing was part of the magic of this show too.

(The 'crazy Bollywood dancing' has some historical validity:  Rome, Egypt and Greece all traded with India, by the way.)

Now, I've spent the last few hours listening to many, many versions of V'adoro, pupille (sadly, never one of my favorite arias to begin with) and have arrived at a few conclusions.

A friend has said that opera is broken. And I think that this may be part of what he means. Ms de Niese is not a bad singer. Her singing is neither vulgar or inconsistent. What she is, or was when this was recorded was very young. 24 to be exact. An opera singer performing leading roles at 24. Yes, she's lovely and fills the costume very nicely, without overflowing in any direction. Her operatic debut was at the age of 15, in Los Angeles, where I would have thought they knew better.

For contrast; here is Montserrat Caballe singing the same role. (Ignore the fact that the first Cesare is a woman, and the one here is a man - that's a whole 'nother blog.)
Ms Caballe would probably never be cast today. In 1982, she was relatively thin, but even then, would be considered far too fat to have the role today. She also would never have consented to that much movement. The more you move, the harder producing beautiful sounds becomes. Ms de Niese has not only the arm movements to contend with, but she begins singing in a kneeling position, bending and scooping with her arms.

And while it makes for interesting theatre, it doesn't necessarily make for good opera. Yes, opera is about the spectacle, and hopefully, it's also now about good acting, but primarily what makes it "opera" is the singing. And singing at this level takes years to develop.

A concept that is often difficult for students to understand is that their voice is an instrument. And at the age of 15, the instrument is still growing and changing, just as a 15 year old's body is still growing and changing. An acoustic guitar must age before it reaches it richest tones. Why can we not allow the same for young singers?


As a vocal instructor, I am very careful with young voices, not wanting them to develop too much, too quickly. It is so easy to cause damage. While Ms de Niese obviously has a lovely instrument, it needed to grow up some more before it was put to such strain.

Operas were written for older, more trained, seasoned performers. But, in our youth and beauty oriented society, we are putting microphones in the ceilings of theatres so that younger and smaller voices can take on roles that were never meant for them. Opera has become more about how it looks than how it sounds. And for that, opera is broken. 

To me, "popra" has to do with some of the groups that are making opera more approachable and popular: Amici, il Divo. I actually like some of these, although I mentioned il Divo negatively last week, it was for their performance of that particular song. 

But "popra" can also mean this: Luciano Pavarotti was scheduled to sing Nessun dorma at the Grammy's in 1998. He got sick, and had to cancel at the last minute. Aretha Franklin bravely stepped up to the plate. I won't gripe about all the things she did wrong. She was in a very unfortunate position and did what she could. I can only imagine the shock of the orchestra and chorus, however when they found out who they would be backing up! 

But this, also, is part of what is wrong with opera today; the feeling that anyone can do it. I have worked with a singer who primarily does jazz. She reads not a lick of music, and has never had a lesson in her life, and she has told me that she doesn't see why opera singers make such a fuss about training. She can do everything that we do without all the wasted expense. 

And, that, my friends, is popra.