The 4th of my 4 tickets to see Guleghina. In some ways, this was her best of the 4; in others, it had some weaknesses. Overall, an 8 or even 8.5. What most notably lacked, sadly, since it’s one of my favs, was chest voice. She raunched out some great ones in her entrance aria/duet, and then the chest part of her voice closed shop for the night. In the scary cabaletta following her famous aria, the voice just stopped working below a certain point as she made pathetic gasps to sing so low in her soprano voice.
Where she lacked in chest, she more than made up for in everything else. The middle area of her voice was more in tune, less gross semi-tone-in-either-direction vibrado than usual. The highs were glorious. Lasers but with nice tone. It was even more youngish and floaty than I’ve ever heard coming from her. Spectacular. For her big aria she tried, and succeeded brilliantly, in taking huge phrases in one breath. The cabaletta, though chest-less, was incredible, and faster than usual. The scream at the end of the first Act was not screamy, but actual singing, and perfect-pitch, loud, and long. Soaring, rather than exploding, is the right word.
Tenor, still don’t like, sorry. Nabucco, getting woofier each time, but oh-so-elegant. Bass dude was the usual middle-of-the-road. And the mezzo was someone new. None of the scary-death-defying act this time, and slightly less memorable singing, but crap role anyways.
Act II duet was, as always the highlight. Not only for the spectacular life-changing E-flat at the end which soared and was not screamy and in fact was really just perfect, but the whole thing. She’s such a crazy lunatic in this role, it suits her so well. Anyways, I suspect it will be a long long time until another Abigaille comes along that’s as much fun as this, so glad I got to see a bunch of them. And the chorus was good, as always.
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