These differences continue to hold throughout the 1925 performance, and will be taken a baby step farther in the 1929 rendition, whereon the the lowest notes are treated to an even gentler mix and the upper F# “schön” has inclined yet further toward “schohn.”  (By 1929, electricity is also on the scene, and I have a hunch that with the mike and its assurance of amplification now available, Lehmann may have eased off some of the lower transitions in a way she would not have allowed in the theatre, or in front of the acoustical horn.) Breathing decisions continue to jump around (in 1925, for instance, “Engelschaaren” becomes a unified word, the breath being sneaked in earlier) and appoggiaturas come and go, but with no effect on registration dynamics.

But let’s remember that “Leise, leise,”  the very first aria Lehmann ever learned, was increasingly on the lyrical side of her repertory as time went on, and that a strong, defined chest voice remained on call. In Opera as Opera, I use a single phrase from Die Walküre to model the roll of the registers in a dramatic context. ^(I) Or: if you’re trusting but verifying, seek out the 1927    Fidelio aria, with its smoldering excursions below the passaggio, intense and sharply delineated but never marked with a break, whether rising or falling. Or again: for similar behavioral demands in a contrasting expressive mode, we can look at the other “display piece” I mentioned last time, from Otto Nicolai’s now-neglected setting of the “Falstaff in love” story. That will also give us a handy return to our debate topic, “Resolved: that there are three registers in the female voice,” on which I am arguing the negative.

The structure, though not the tone, of this extended number is not dissimilar to that of Agathe’s Act 11 Freischütz scene or, for that matter, Marguerite’s double aria in Faust: an opening sequence in which recitative ( “Nun eilt herbei,” etc.) alternates with more songlike episodes that approximate a cavatina, followed by a lively tune  (“Frohsinn und Laune”), with considerable ornamental variation, that constitutes a cabaletta lite. Unlike Agathe’s B section, Frau Fluth’s entails a fair amount of genuine floridity—passagework vocalized on a single vowel, several different ones: the “üh” of “Verführer,” the “ie” of “Liebe,” the “a” of “ja” and “tat.” None of this is at a breakneck coloratura pace, but it goes right along, with many little easements of tempo and allowances for rubato, over a range from the middle C to the high B-flat, and it should be noted that, with her instrument of young-dramatic calibration, Lehmann executes it with accuracy and panache, and a couple of fine trills on the upper F and G. At the lower-middle juncture, there are only a few descents below the transition center, but where they occur (e.g., a D-natural at “zu bestrafen,”  the rapid scale down to middle C on “Verführer!”, the F-flat/E-flat at “ist schwach),” the response  is always the same, with open chest tones of light weight but clear definition.