This pattern, of either no discernible chest register engagement, or of chest activation some presentable form but with the lower head range either simply left weak or darkened in the coperto manner, is, with minor variations in effect and degrees of functionality, the standard soprano template du jour. The only exceptions to it met with over the span of these posts would be Camilla Nylund, whose basically bright but not very tensile Jugendlich voice essayed Isolde’s Act 2, and Brandie Sutton, the enjoyable lyric-coloratura who took on Respighi’s Rautendelein, who could herself have benefitted from stronger Lower-Family participation, but at least did not noticeably darken in compensation. Lyric-coloratura exemplars of the pre-Callas, pre-Sutherland days (Galli-Curci, Bori, Tetrazzini, et al.) put forth stronger chest-register development and a much tauter bond to the midrange than do current singers attempting spinto and dramatic roles. That doesn’t bode well.

Though we’ve aggregated something less than a critical mass this season, what we have supports the presumption that among lower women’s voices, the situation is perforce healthier. For while the “lyric mezzos” who so abound can skirt the problem of bringing out the chest and then blending it at the passaggio—albeit at the cost of ineffectiveness except in the lightest roles (see Joyce di Donato’s attempt at Adalgisa)—mezzos and contraltos of operatic dimension can’t do much at all without coping with chest of some strength. I have already sketched the technical arrangement of Rachvelishvili, whose Azucena I would nominate as Year’s Best Female Singing in a Leading Role, leaving open only the idle but tantalizing question of whether or not a more reinforced chest range and more depth of position just above it would bring her into lassoing distance of Stignani or Minghini-Cattaneo or, come to think of her, Arkhipova. I’ve also noted  (Apr. 26) the booming, rather blunt Brangäne of Miholo Fujimura, who, like several of our sopranos, secures some of her lower-midrange tonal body via artificial darkening (the drop of a fourth from“Einsam to wachend” at the beginning of the Watch, for instance, emerging as “Einsam wohchend“). More evidence is needed regarding both her and the promising Alesya Petrova. (See above. Concerning mezzodom and dramatic voices in general, refer to Zajick’s observations on the post of Dec. 22.)

Surely, we would suppose, this reluctance to tackle the chest and the sometimes vexing issues of balance it brings with it, obviously at the root of the patchy results being obtained by some of our best female voices, cannot also account for male predicaments. After all, even the higher men’s voices (always excepting falsettists) spend most of their time in Lower Family territory. Alright, let’s not call it “chest voice” per se, but “laryngeal vitalization,” the directing of energy into the larynx as resonator, at the base of the human acoustical complex. That’s where brilliance and “ring” come from. It’s also at the top of the “support” system, the glottis itself being the valve that regulates the air pressures below, even as its edges vibrate to produce pitch. And this energization is inseparable from chest register engagement—it cannot be accessed from the head side, even though ideal vocal integration is ultimately achieved from there.