And both I and the “This Is Opera” entity are immediately in trouble with N-S’s advice, which is based on two quite preposterous perceptions. One is that the lower range of the soprano voice is of its nature “weak,” and that great opera composers like Mozart and Verdi knew this and wrote accordingly. The first of these assertions is true only of immature soprano voices that have not developed the chest register function. The second is contradicted by every scrap of evidence of practice that we can assemble—internal evidence of the texts; vocal theory as embodied in historical pedagogical tracts, particularly in regard to matters of registration; and countless recorded examples of singers who have sung such music, and whose relative success with it (or lack thereof) has at least in part depended upon whether or not they do in fact have musically effective chest-register action at their command. This Weakness Hypothesis relates to an interpretive notion N-S has had about Fiordiligi, which he now refers back to in his discussion of this opening phrase of “Tu che le vanità.” According to N-S, although Fiordiligi is proclaiming herself strong and immovable against the winds and tempest, she isn’t really, and that Mozart, knowing this, therefore set the opening line of “Come scoglio” in this “weak” lowish tessitura. I don’t even know where to start on this idea. Yes, we can plausibly argue that Fiordiligi isn’t as confident of her adamantine chastity as she asserts—that the lady doth protest too much. That, in fact, would be a fine justification (though not the only one) for the over-the-top, range-conquering setting of this piece, one of the iconic tests of balance, security of attack, bravura floridity, and up-and-down strength and security, notable for its excursions to the extremes of the compass, for the operatic soprano voice. Nézet-Séguin’s premises, both interpretive and vocal, are simply without foundation here.

The second absurdity advanced by N-S has to do with Elisabetta’s frame of mind (and observe how his interpretive and technical ideas work to reinforce each other). N-S proposes that Elisabetta is “scared.” Au contraire. After a series of wrenching encounters that have tempered her spirit and placed her beyond earthly intimidation, she has given her royal security team the slip (“Perchè sola la Regina?“) and come at night to a familiar place of refuge for this final meeting. (We have seen her here earlier, in the company of her husband and some monks, as they progressed through the cloister, and this can hardly have been the only such visit. She has chosen the place and time.) There is not so much as a hint in plot or character, in the verbal text, or above all in the music (could Verdi write female fright?—I think so), that she is “scared.” It turns out that it is N-S who is scared. He has used this whole specious line of thought to prop up his women-are-weak-down-below theory. “So, don’t scare us with your low C-sharp,” he implores. But of course she hadn’t. She’d only sung a clear, well-balanced chest note, not at all raw or out of line, but sufficiently projective to dispose of the weak low range nonsense. Now, she obediently sings a marginally more modest version (still a light chest), unlikely to register in the opera house, with which N-S is evidently satisfied. We’re one phrase in, and I’m already feeling queasy about the advice being dispensed.