For the following I had to look up many words in the dictionary and I hope that I chose the technically correct English expressions to make myself understood.
I don't intend to persuade (not: convince) you, Yorkie, of something you really, really don't like for reasons that you have cleared for yourself. However, I found the word "hate" very hard. Does it really feel
that bad to you? There is a wide range of completely different music inside the genre opera and also within one single opera. My favourite operas are “Don Giovanni” and the two mentioned “Manon Lescaut” (Puccini, Auber), but even in all three of them there are also some passages which I like less or even don’t like. And the singers are so different.
I just would like to ask you to stay open, because there are so many different musical pieces, and I cannot imagine that there is absolutely nothing that could meet your taste. Yes, I know that it is the vibrato you do not like at all. But maybe sometimes it's just a question of finding an interpretation that you like and not the music itself is the problem.
One has to play or sing music in different ways depending on epoch and genre. There are different styles of singing. The romantic art song accompanied by piano is sung using another technique than the orchestrated art song later, or: You sing a Schubert song in a different way from how you would sing a Wagner song. This is why I recommended the baroque period to you. There are a lot of discussions if there should be a vibrato, only a slight vibrato or none at all in baroque music. But I agree with the opinion that baroque music should be sung with a much more “slender” voice, the music is too delicate for a big voice, a strong, dramatic vibrato. If you are sure that you don't like opera, but nevertheless are prepared to test an approach, then you could look for something of that period. Sometimes you have to dig for a long time until you find an interpretation that you like.
I do not like a very strong vibrato either. But a slight, unobtrusive vibrato is a pleasure for me. (I do like Cantus Cölln very much, they perform baroque music, but no baroque operas.)
I don't think that it is the vibrato itself that keeps a voice in health. The way how it is produced is what matters. The body must be relaxed, then the voice swings freely, the tone is floating above the breath, and this causes a natural vibrato and not a trembling or shaking of the voice which is no vibrato. The voice stays healthy if you let it flow freely. Pressure and forcing are dangerous for the voice. I like the flexibility, the naturalness of the singing voice. A pressed, forced or wobbling vibrato is horrible, that's true; I would never defend that! But a natural, authentical, fine vibrato by an adult singer or an older boy can be so beautiful.
Yorkie: I'm particularly curious if you like Ben Crawley's singing in general? I do, in fact, like his very unostentatious vibrato. To me, it sounds natural beyond all doubt, and at the same time you hear that it is a boy’s voice. His voice and his vibrato fit together perfectly in my ears.
I do not like children singing like adults. They sometimes are able to do that in a mere technical way. But they don't own the mental and emotional maturity yet. I for myself cannot bridge this gap when I listen to a younger child that has the technique of an adult. Close your eyes and you hear an adult, open them and you see a child - no! I don't like that at all. And this is one of the reasons I LOVE Libera and prefer the Libera soloists to nearly every other boy I have heard so far. They sing in a completely natural way which is different from so many (all?) other boys choirs. This does not exclude a Ben-Crawley-like vibrato which is the most beautiful boy's vibrato I have ever heard (glad that it was him to be a member of Libera
).
And: I have always admired the gentle and protecting way of singing by the Libera boys. This is a characteristic which already was very obvious and striking for me when I listened to Libera and watched them on youtube at my very beginning last year.
This thread has pretty much moved off-topic, but it doesn't bother me, because I find it very interesting that the meaning of the two words does not seem as clear as I thought and it is alright with me also that it started an opera/vibrato discussion. In German, we don't have that difference between soprano and treble, we just say soprano and mean the range and the voice's colour. So a female singer who is able to sing very high might rather be a mezzo just because of the voice's sound.
And the opera issue is mixed within the two threads but I don’t have a solution for this. Or maybe I should change or extend the subject line of this thread but I have no idea how to do that.