Libera Dreams

Try "Don Giovanni" (Mozart), try "Manon Lescaut" (both Puccini's and Auber's compositions), try "Carmen" (Bizet). And then come back and tell us.

There are good operas then there are bad operas. The worst operas are the modern late 20th century ones. The ones which throw aside all semblance of melodic structure in the pursuit of achieving an all new noise.

Steffan Llewelyn is quite impressive. Unfortunately most of the videos of him performing seem to be recorded on a phone's microphone.

However he has a reverb nation account: https://www.reverbnation.com/steffanllewelyntreble although the recording isn't great on some of those tracks either.

john45 wrote:(in thread "Walking In The Air") A soprano is a fat lady, often seen wearing a horned helmet, who, to Yorkie's ear, screeches with an excessively wobbly vibrato and gives him a headache.A treble is a pre-pubertal boy, often seen wearing a ruff. who pronounces R as RRRRRRRR, silver as seelver, and emphasises the T in Christmas.

Concerning Yorkie, I'm afraid he's in serious danger now of being taken to an opera next time in London. 　
However, I admit that Puccini most probably would be too much for a reluctant beginner, but he could get into it with a baroque opera, so why not Händel, why not "Whene'er you walk", and why not Libera? 　



"Semele" is something between an oratorio and an opera, but it doesn't really matter concerning the way of singing.

[quote="j8000"]Steffan Llewelyn is quite impressive. Unfortunately most of the videos of him performing seem to be recorded on a phone's microphone.

However he has a reverb nation account: https://www.reverbnation.com/steffanllewelyntreble although the recording isn't great on some of those tracks either.

Very nice voice, after watching this on YouTube, I come accross this performance in the recomendations.

Aidan Hutson-Hill, singing O Mio Babbino Caro

Another great treble.

Still on the subject of trebles, I found these.

Jorian appeared on a German TV show called Super Kids.



Also, a wonderfull performance of Bach, Air

john45 wrote:

Yorkie wrote:. Opera is the problem and nobody should sing it

Because it's only for toffs. Right? Don't knock it until you've tried it - and I don't mean on YouTube.

As the old saying almost goes "I'll try anything once, except incest and Opera". You misrepresent me John My dislike of opera is not class based, far from it (although I'm reminded of the Yes Minister episode and suspect there is more than a little truth in it); people are free to spend their money and time as they choose. No, my aversion is completely encapsulated in the fact that they use vibrato like it is going out of fashion. It goes through me like a dentist's drill.

paul wrote:Still on the subject of trebles, I found these.

Jorian appeared on a German TV show called Super Kids.



Also, a wonderfull performance of Bach, Air

Didn't care for the Aiden one as he struggled to keep in tune despite the excessive use of vibrato. and I think the other two may be from a Dutch TV show rather than German ( I don't speak either language but it sounded Dutch to me)

Seeing the 'O Mio Bambino Caro' reminded me of Anthony Muresan. He's on a separate thread here, and here's his rendition. He obviously leans toward the operatic style instead of the choral, but he does a nice job and seems very comfortable with it.

Here's another singer to keep an eye on. Only 9 when he recorded this last year. He was the youngest ever to get grade 8 in singing apparently, and he's a bit good on the piano too.

Yorkie wrote: ↑<span title="Tue Apr 08, 2014 9:15 pm">10 years ago</span> Not a choir that has featured much on here. Not sure what I make of the pieces that mix soprano & trebles...

Jesus College Choir

Just been listening to them. They have two choirs, the college choir with women sopranos and the chapel choir with boys. Normally they would perform separately however they sometimes give combined performances outside of regular services.

It is quite unusual to have women and boys in the same choir so it is certainly interesting. Here is Away in a Manger where they all start singing together but then the boys sing alone with the women humming and then the men come in. I think it works great, it's always good to have variety. If boys singing with mixed adult choirs means they get to tour America then that's another plus point

A very old CD, bought in Japan (Hiroshima). Very nice choirmusic, very natural Sound, recorded in the GDR, very nice collectors item!

Brandur Enni is a singer from faroer Islands, who released a CD 2002 as a 12year old boy. Unfortunately his CDs are currently not available, but I was lucky to get a CD in china. Some Songs are in danish, very nice!! Especially the song "Gooa sig maer" is a very intense warm song. You can find the song "Waiting in the moonlight" on YouTube, but this is very britney-spears-like. Better he is singing in his mothers language danish...