I could cite many more examples among earlier Russian sopranos of all types of this essentially bright-toned approach. If you want evidence of a soprano whose “original” voice was purely lyrical, but one degree larger and lower than Netrebko’s, and whose repertory overlapped with hers, then went in a more dramatic direction, you have to look no further back than Vishnevskaya. From that same Netrebko Russian album, you can make direct comparison with Galina of excerpts from Tsar’s Bride, War and Peace, and Eugene Onegin (V.’s early recording of the last), listening especially for the treatment of open vowels—and most especially “a”—in the lower-middle range, and how that corresponds to the same vowels when they enter the chest adjustment. I’m not saying you should like or dislike one or the other, and Vishnevskaya deconstructed her own voice soon after coming West by throwing herself emotionally into big roles. I’m only debunking this notion of “Russian equals darkened vowels.” In the West, of course, older examples abound (especially if you’ve become acclimated to acoustical recordings) of sopranos, including coloraturas, passing in and out of chest without vowel modification, and thus possessing lower-middle ranges of clarity and carrying power. It’s Nurture, not Nature.

These more shadowy, less tensile attributes, and the “turning over” of the voice at the passaggio, as with tenors who use that technique ( a positional shift, not just a registral one), mimic the colors and body of more voluminous voices of the modern sort. On recordings, in a studio, and possibly in the singer’s own ear, they may seem to imply dramatic-soprano possibilities. But the structure hasn’t the underpinning to withstand the onslaught of such energies. An experienced professional of Netrebko’s evident smarts surely senses that in herself, when not enmeshed in the fabrications. As a good soprano I recently talked with said, “She has a few roles she wants to sing now, and because she’s done what she’s done, they have to let her.” Alas, that’s true. I hope she nixes the Salzburg Turandot. Except that then Cecilia herself is apt to sally forth, complete with learned essay by way of apologia. ^(I)

If ever we’re in need of evidence that voice is as voice does, that the “original” is not necessarily the “true” voice, and that a re-do of technique, unrelated to any factor of age or overuse, really can render a voice unrecognizable, we’ll always have Jonas Kaufmann as Exhibit A. The radical change in format that Netrebko would like us to think has happened for her did happen for him, and as the result not of a “natural” or “normal” progression, but of re-study after a career of some promise was already in progress. Certainly there have been previous instances of such re-structurings, some audible to even the casual ear. But I know of none, even among singers who have changed category, as thoroughgoing as Kaufmann’s. ^(II) Lately, the assumption of heavier repertory has contributed a snowballing effect to the changes he made. While this has not threatened dysfunction, it leaves us pondering where this fine talent goes from here. Granted that Kaufmann’s “original” voice was clearly not the “true” one, and that the re-designed one has enabled his remarkable career, we (“we,” at least, who are forever lured along the tangled pathways of voice) also wonder: what was the true voice?