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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