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oriental

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She has become a sensation.

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Nessun Dorma

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Along with Jackie Evancho, Connie Talbot the three are child singing prodigies.


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[video]http://www.flixxy.com/9-year-old-girl-sings-opera-on-hollands-got-talent.htm[/video]

[h=1]O mio babbino caro[/h]

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After winning Nessun Dorma

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Connie talbot in Germany. I will always love you.

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I've been trying to let this one slide, Oriental, but I just can't...:)

I mean no disrespect to you or to these children, but, in my humble opinion, children of this age should never be singing opera. For one thing, these girls, all of whom have some talent, are going to ruin their voices. For another, they have neither the technical expertise nor the vocal or emotional maturity to perform the music in the way that it deserves to be performed.

Any of the wonderful performances highlighted in this article show what Nessun Dorma should sound like:
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/puccini/guides/best-nessun-dorma/

My current favorite is Merli. Marvelous performance, not least because he sticks to the score! A translation into English appears on the screen. I also really like Placido Domingo's performance...he acts it as it's supposed to be acted. The clip in the article is actually from a live opera performance. Mario Lanza's version is also surprisingly good and quite charmiing.

 
As for Mio Babbino Caro...My Darling Father...all the greats have performed it. I'm currently on a Montserrat Caballe kick, but on balance, I don't think anyone does it better than Maria Callas.

There are a lot of versions of her singing it on Youtube, but this is high quality...

 
I really hope I'm not coming off as obnoxious here, Oriental. It's very nice to encounter another lover of opera on the site, but it's precisely because I love it so much that I care what people are exposed to...

Anyway, that clip of Domingo in the article was really very poor...and he deserves to be seen and heard in all his glory...this is a much better quality clip from the same performance, and an English translation appears on the screen. If someone can listen to that ending and not have the hair on their arms stand up... And now I'll shut up about it. :)

 
Oops, sorry I figured a true opera person might feel offended. I just like music of all kinds. I don't really know that much about opera. It was just the sensational aspect. I do like some arias especially by Puccini. I have a CD and a few others. I never took music so I just go by ear and tune. I also like some Bollywood songs mostly the Gold Era in the 50, 60, 70 and 80s and a few of the 90s. Of course, Bollywood standards are different in that they have playback singers. Yeah, I know it is silly but I was 14 years old when I finally realized the actors and actresses weren't the singers as they all seemed to sound alike. I found out it was Lata Mangeshkar who did all the main female leads and her sister Asha Bhosle who did the comedy and female Western vamp songs. Mohammad Rafi was the main male singer with Mukesh for Raj Kapoor with his nasal voice. Raj Kapoor made a movie in Italy. He had blue eyes and a fair complexion so he fit in very well in Rome. None of the Italians stared at him in scenes where he walked around Rome iconic places.

Yes, getting back to the young singers Jackie Evancho is taken well of by Mr. Ben Foster who represented some famous singers so he will ensure Jackie won't be pushed and have her vocal cords damaged. As for Amira Willighagen (Amira is Persian for princess) she came under the wing of the Dutch André Rieu. He will take care of her. I don't know much about Connie Talbot.

Deanna Durbin just died recently. She was child prodigy and she sang opera in her teens.


She became a movie star and saved the studio (Universal Studio?) from bankruptcy. Another studio (Fox Studio) produced "Cleopatra" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton that was a flop. It was saved by another singer Julie Andrews with "The Sound of Music" which ran for five years and the top grossing movie at that time surpassing "Gone with the Wind" with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in that classic about the American civil war. Julie Andrews was also a child singer.
 
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Deanna Durbin singing.
 
Nessun Dorma but words are different

 
Jackie Evancho and Connie Talbot were born in 2000 so they are 13 and are approaching 14

Jackie in 2011 singing Nessun Dorma in PBS. From comments in the videos Jachie is told to avoid singing too many high notes to prevent damaging her vocal cords.

 
Jackie is growing up fast. She looks a lot older although she is 13 in this video.

 
It seems any singer who feels or thinks he is a singer tries to sing Nessun Dorma. Michael Bolton even sings it.
 
Yes, I grew up with Mario Lanza. I never thought anyone could have such a powerful voice and sing like that. I saw most of his movies as a kid and was shocked when he died rather young of heart failure. It was his style that I associated with opera. My favourites were cowboy movies at the time.:embarassed::LOL:

Here is Julie Andrews at 13:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPnwENZaX8U
 
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I'm glad that neither of us is offended. I'm really not one of those classically trained or overly critical technically obsessed types who burn up you tube in Callas type wars and get threads closed to comments. These songs were my lullabies; I was apparently a very fractious infant, and my father sang virtually the entire canon of Italian opera to me when I was a child, as well as folk songs and the popular Italian music of his and my grandparents' day.

Opera is meant to be sung and enjoyed on all sorts of levels. I just have a problem with children singing it in this way, and if people aren't that familiar with opera, they should start with the "greats" so they know how it is supposed to sound.

If you liked Mario Lanza you had great taste in my opinion. He had a wonderful voice, good technique, and absolutely fabulous diction, which not even all the greats have, again, in my opinion. And if you give him a try on youtube in other arias, don't pay attention to all the blather about how he wasted his gift singing mostly in movies; the man was paralyzed by stage fright.

I think a lot of the anti-Boccelli stuff is very snobbish too; I think he has a very clear and attractive tenor voice, and sings with great feeling, although I do agree that he has problems with the higher register, and so makes me very nervous when I hear him sing some of these arias live. He absolutely embarrassed himself at the Pavarotti memorial, for example.

I don't know if you have this CD, but if you don't, and you like Puccini arias, this is a good one. You can even listen to samples to help you decide if you want to own it. Be advised that as one of the posters comments, this isn't high studio quality. Of course, if you just like certain arias and performers you can find a lot of it on youtube. For me, I listen to opera in the car, as I'm working, everywhere really, so I need the downloads.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Puccini-Collection-G/dp/B000007OU1

Just generally, in terms of operatic tenors, "my" ranking (not that anyone but me really cares :)) is Caruso, of course, first, and then below him, Pavarotti and Jussi Bjorling, and then Placido Domingo.

Here is Jussi Bjorling singing Nessun Dorma. I like it very much, although obviously some people didn't, as they had to close the thread to comments!

 
Interesting that you mention Andre Rieu...I really admire what he does to popularize classical music.

I saved this video years ago. Carmen Monarca nails the performance in terms of the acting, affect etc. I also love it because they filmed the audience reactions. Every time I see the older man start crying I tear up as well, and the baby at the end is a hoot. I used to do the same...or so they tell me...my father's attempts to put me to sleep didn't always work.:LOL:

 
Yes, I do have Puccini's CD and Pavarotti CD. When we left India I was sick of Bollywood songs as the restaurants played those constantly and very loud. You could hear it yards away. People didn't mind it. During the Depression musicals were big. There is so much poverty in India that all Bollywood movies must have 4 or 5 songs and the music directors wanted the best so the top singers sang all the songs regardless who the artist was. Lata Mangeshkar is a soprano and Rafi was a baritone. It was Raj Kapoor who started this trend. He owned a film studio. He was the top star in his time and started a "Tramp" Charlie Chaplin kind of persons on the screen. His brothers Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor also became movie stars. They are a handsome family. The Kapoor family still dominate Bollywood. Ranbir Kapoor the grandson of Raj Kapoor and granddaughter Kareena Kapoor (from another son of Raj Kapoor)are top stars.

It helps to know Italian to appreciate Opera as the lyrics tell the story. Unfortunately I don't know Italian so I hear the beautiful sounds. Anyway I don't listen to lyrics that much. Most songs even English ones I don't know what they are singing about unless I get the lyrics.

Ah yes, Enrico Caruso. Mario Lanza starred as Caruso as the movie The Great Caruso. Probably it was in that movie he sang the Nessun Dorma aria. Caruso dies of a heart attack as well and Mario Lanza death from the same was eerie and scary.

I read a little bio of Caruso. There is a funny little tidbit there. He was panned in his own hometown when he started. I think it was Naples. He never sang in his hometown again when he vacationed there. He went to eat, sleep and relax but never performed. He was so angered.

Junglee - Mhd. Rafi and Lata:

Actors Shammi Kapoor and Saira Banu

 
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Opera doesn't have to be stuffy the way it is in so many countries. You can and should sing along with it, sway to it, dance to it, laugh and cry with it.

This is another clip from that Rieu concert in Cortona, one of the loveliest of the Tuscan cities, by the way, where they do all of that and more.

 

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