Lyric soprano
Encyclopedia
A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano
that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre
which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura
than a soubrette
and usually plays ingenue
s and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6). There is a tendency to divide lyric sopranos into two groups, light and full.
but still possesses a youthful quality. Light lyrics often have a "full package" of musicianship, appearance and stagecraft. This voice needs to be careful in its repertory choices, because smaller houses may offer them heavier roles if they have good stage presence. Then as they become successful, if they take these meatier roles into larger houses they will damage their voices. There are a wide variety of roles written for this voice, and they may sing soubrette
, baroque and other light roles as well.
in place of vocal weight
. This is done when a more lyric timbre
is desired in an otherwise heavier role. Otherwise full lyric sopranos need be judicious with spinto
and other heavy roles to prevent vocal deterioration.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura
Tessitura
In music, the term tessitura generally describes the most musically acceptable and comfortable range for a given singer or, less frequently, musical instrument; the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding texture or timbre...
than a soubrette
Soubrette
A soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...
and usually plays ingenue
Ingenue (stock character)
See also Disingenuous, which is not quite the antonym that it may seem!The ingénue is a stock character in literature, film, and a role type in the theatre; generally a girl or a young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome. Ingenue may also refer to a new young actress or one typecast in...
s and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6). There is a tendency to divide lyric sopranos into two groups, light and full.
Light lyric soprano
A light-lyric soprano has a bigger voice than a soubretteSoubrette
A soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...
but still possesses a youthful quality. Light lyrics often have a "full package" of musicianship, appearance and stagecraft. This voice needs to be careful in its repertory choices, because smaller houses may offer them heavier roles if they have good stage presence. Then as they become successful, if they take these meatier roles into larger houses they will damage their voices. There are a wide variety of roles written for this voice, and they may sing soubrette
Soubrette
A soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...
, baroque and other light roles as well.
Light lyric soprano singers
- Mariella AdaniMariella AdaniMariella Adani is an Italian classical soprano who has had an active career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s through the 1980s...
- Barbara BonneyBarbara Bonney-Early life:Bonney was born in Montclair, New Jersey. As a child she studied piano and cello. When Bonney was 13 her family moved to Maine, where she became part of the Portland Youth Orchestra as a cellist...
- Lucia PoppLucia PoppLucia Popp was a notable Slovak operatic soprano. She began her career as a soubrette soprano, and later moved into the light-lyric and lyric coloratura soprano repertoire and then the lighter Richard Strauss and Wagner operas. Her career included performances at Vienna State Opera, the...
- Lucrezia BoriLucrezia BoriLucrezia Bori was a Spanish operatic singer, a lyric soprano.-Biography:Lucrezia Bori was born in Valencia, Spain. Her real name was Lucrecia Borja y González de Riancho and her family were reputed to be descended from the Borgias.Her voice had a unique timbre and transparent quality unlike any...
- Ileana CotrubaşIleana CotrubasIleana Cotrubaş is a Romanian opera soprano whose career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was much admired for her acting skills and facility for singing opera in many different languages.-Biography:...
- Elisabeth SchumannElisabeth SchumannElisabeth Schumann was a German lyric soprano who sang in opera, operetta, oratorio, and lieder. She left a substantial legacy of recordings.-Career:...
Light lyric soprano roles
Source:- Ännchen, Der FreischützDer FreischützDer Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
(or soubretteSoubretteA soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...
) - Annina, La traviataLa traviataLa traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
(Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
) - Clorinda, La CenerentolaLa CenerentolaLa Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
(Gioachino Rossini) - Despina, Così fan tutteCosì fan tutteCosì fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
) (or soubrette) - Euridice, Orfeo ed EuridiceOrfeo ed EuridiceOrfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
(Christoph Willibald GluckChristoph Willibald GluckChristoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
) - Gretel, Hänsel und Gretel (Engelbert HumperdinckEngelbert HumperdinckEngelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
) - Laurie Moss, The Tender LandThe Tender LandThe Tender Land is an opera with music by Aaron Copland and libretto by Horace Everett, a pseudonym for Erik Johns. The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera after viewing the Depression-era photographs of Walker Evans and...
(Aaron CoplandAaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
) - Lauretta, Gianni SchicchiGianni SchicchiGianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
(Giacomo PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
)
- Manon, ManonManonManon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
(Jules MassenetJules MassenetJules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
) - Marzelline, FidelioFidelioFidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
(Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
) - Musetta, La bohèmeLa bohèmeLa bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
(Puccini) - Pamina, The Magic FluteThe Magic FluteThe Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
(Mozart) - Sophie, Der RosenkavalierDer RosenkavalierDer Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
(Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
) - Susanna, The Marriage of FigaroThe Marriage of FigaroLe nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
(Mozart) (or soubrette) - Zerlina, Don GiovanniDon GiovanniDon Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
(Mozart) (or soubrette)
Full lyric soprano
A full-lyric soprano has a more mature sound than a light-lyric soprano and can be heard over a bigger orchestra. This more mature sound may make a full-lyric less suitable for some of the lighter roles. Occasionally a full lyric will have a big enough voice that she can take on much heavier roles, using volumeDynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
in place of vocal weight
Vocal weight
Vocal weight refers to the perceived "lightness" or "heaviness" of a singing voice. This quality of the voice is one of the major determining factors in voice classification within classical music...
. This is done when a more lyric timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
is desired in an otherwise heavier role. Otherwise full lyric sopranos need be judicious with spinto
Spinto
Spinto is a vocal term used to characterize a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large musical climaxes in opera at moderate intervals...
and other heavy roles to prevent vocal deterioration.
Full lyric soprano singers
- Maria Luigia BorsiMaria Luigia BorsiMaria Luigia Borsi is an Italian opera singer. A lyric soprano, she is especially known for interpreting operas by Giacomo Puccini andGiuseppe Verdi...
- Montserrat CaballéMontserrat CaballéMontserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....
- Lisa Della CasaLisa Della CasaLisa Della Casa is a Swiss soprano most admired for her interpretations of major heroines in major operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss, of German lieder, and for her great beauty. She was dubbed “the most beautiful woman on the operatic stage”...
- Victoria de los ÁngelesVictoria de los ÁngelesVictoria de los Ángeles was a Spanish Catalan operatic soprano and recitalist whose career began in the early 1940s and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Her obituary in The Times noted that she must be counted “among the finest singers of the second half...
- Renée FlemingRenée FlemingRenée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...
- Mirella FreniMirella FreniMirella Freni, birth name Mirella Fregni, is an Italian opera soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky...
- Angela GheorghiuAngela GheorghiuAngela Gheorghiu is a Romanian soprano opera singer. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has sung as soprano leading roles at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States...
- Ana María MartínezAna María MartínezAna María Martínez is a Grammy award–winning operatic soprano from Puerto Rico. "The most beautiful voice of Latin America", [Martínez] "requires ranking among the top lyric sopranos of the day...[with] immaculate musicality underpinning every utterance." -Early life:Ana María Martínez was born...
- Anna MoffoAnna MoffoAnna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
- Anna NetrebkoAnna NetrebkoAnna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...
- Elisabeth SchwarzkopfElisabeth SchwarzkopfDame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...
- Eleanor SteberEleanor SteberEleanor Steber was an American operatic soprano. Steber is noted as one of the first major opera stars to have achieved the highest success with training and a career based in the United States.-Biography:...
- Teresa StratasTeresa StratasTeresa Stratas, OC , is a retired Canadian operatic soprano. She is especially well-known for her award-winning recording of Alban Berg's Lulu.-Early life and career:...
- Kiri Te KanawaKiri Te KanawaDame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, ONZ, DBE, AC is a New Zealand / Māori soprano who has had a highly successful international opera career since 1968. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved sopranos in both the United States and Britain she possesses a warm full lyric soprano voice, singing a wide array...
- Tarja TurunenTarja TurunenTarja Soile Susanna Turunen Cabuli is a Finnish singer-songwriter and composer. She is a full lyric soprano and has a vocal range of three octaves....
Full lyric soprano roles
Source:- Antonia, The Tales of Hoffmann (Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
) - Juliette, Roméo et JulietteRoméo et JulietteRoméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
(Charles GounodCharles GounodCharles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
) - La Contessa, The Marriage of FigaroThe Marriage of FigaroLe nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
(Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
) - Liù, TurandotTurandotTurandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
(Giacomo PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
) - The Marschallin, Der RosenkavalierDer RosenkavalierDer Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
(Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
) - Magda, La rondineLa rondineLa rondine is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert...
(Puccini)
- Marguerite, FaustFaust (opera)Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
(Gounod) - Mimì, La bohèmeLa bohèmeLa bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
(Puccini) - Micaëla, CarmenCarmenCarmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
(Georges BizetGeorges BizetGeorges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
) - Nedda, PagliacciPagliacciPagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
(Ruggero LeoncavalloRuggero LeoncavalloRuggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:...
) also Spinto Soprano - Rusalka, RusalkaRusalkaIn Slavic mythology, a rusalka was a female ghost, water nymph, succubus, or mermaid-like demon that dwelled in a waterway....
(Antonín DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
) - Tatyana, Eugene OneginEugene Onegin (opera)Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
(Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
)