Roles indeed do matter. I had exactly the opposite experience with Zajick.
A wonderful Amneris, but woefully inadequate for Dalila. I believe she
gave the role up after a few tries, but before people start trashing Dunn, I
think it's admirable for a singer to test their boundaries, and Dunn was
indeed a magnificent Dalila, and I'm glad to see someone point this out in
the context of a whole career. Too often people focus on one aspect or
performance and ignore the rest of what a singer has accomplished. Dalila was
originally written for a contralto, so the tessitura is rather low. For a very
brief period, Olga Borodina was able to do vocal justice to both Dalila
and Amneris, but her voice settled lower as she got older.
John Rahbeck
In a message dated 4/2/2017 7:49:48 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Vickers sang beautifully, but it wasn't very Italian, either visually or
vocally, and Mignon Dunn was fine until the Judgment Scene, which
was a screamfest, the tessitura among the most uncomfortable
vocal fits in my experience. If you don't have an easy Ab, A and
especially Bb, you cannot sing Amneris. A few years later I heard her
sing a magnificent Dalila. Roles do matter!
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