 Aria of the Week #163 "Pien di contento" by G. Rossini Performed by Sara Mingardo. Score: IMSLP (pg 12 of score, 20 of viewer) Uploaded by LindoroRossini.
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Instead of an Aria of the Week, I would like to present six Arias for the Easter period. I hope you enjoy them: 1. Erbame dich, mein Gott 2. He was despised 3. Crucifixion 4. Stabat Mater 5. Saget, saget mir geschwinde 6. Thou art gone up on high
 Aria of the Week #85: "Cum dederit" by A. Vivaldi. Performed by Sara Mingardo. Score: None (but is on video). Uploaded by margotlorena2.  Aria of the Week #83: "Ombra mai fu" by G .F. Handel. Performed by Sara Mingardo. Score: IMSLP. Uploaded by Accademia degli Astrusi.  Aria of the Week #71: "L'occhio, il labbro, il seno, il core" by A. Vivaldi. Performed by Sara Mingardo. Score: None Uploaded by oltre il barocco.  Aria of the Week #52: "L'occhio, il labbro, il seno, il core" by A. Vivaldi. Performed by Sara Mingardo. Score: None. Uploaded by oltre il barocco.  Nathalie Stutzmann, contralto On Friday 17 October, Nathalie Stutzmann will perform in recital with her orchestra, Orefo 55. The recital is part of the Early Music and Baroque series, and will include arias such as the furious "Gemo in un punto e fremo" and the heart-rending "Scherza infida". Hilary Summers will perform as the Alto Soloist in the Christmas performance of Messiah at the Wigmore Hall on 23rd December, with the incomparable Christian Curnyn conducting. In the January to March booking season, Sonia Prina returns to the Wigmore Hall on 3rd January with Roberta Invernizzi to promote their album Amore e Morte dell’Amore, published on the Naive record label. The Spring Season also sees the arrival of the French-Canadian Contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who will perform in recital on 27th Febuary. Finally, in the Summer Season, regular Wigmore Hall performer Sara Mingardo will perform as part of the BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Recital Series on 11th May, with a programme to include works by Falconieri and Monteverdi. This week's Aria of the Week is "Mentre Dormi" from A. Vivaldi's L'Olimpiade. The singer is the Venetian contralto Sara Mingardo. Enjoy! Hello everybody. Having seen quite a few contraltos in concert recently, I thought I would post a few lovely voices that are capable of reaching those wonderful tones below F3. All of these lovely ladies have full and powerful lower registers, and it is a pleasure to listen to them. Most of the very low notes are at the end of the videos, but where possible I have put in a time reference for at lease one of the notes in each video. I hope you enjoy them. Oh, and if you know of other videos with ladies hitting notes below F3, why not pop them in a message at the end of this post. The first video comes courtesy of the great British contralto Dame Clara Butt. The song is The Enchantress, by J. Hatton, and in it she hits a wonderful E3 at 0:52. Next up we have the Swedish contralto Anna Larsson, singing the role of Daphne's mother, Gaea, in Richard Strauss' opera Daphne. In it she hits an Eb3 a number of times, but a good example is at 2:18. Giving us a fantastic D3 is American contralto Marian Anderson, singing the song Der Tod und das Mädchen, by F. Schubert. It happens at 2:15. To guide us by the hand in to the realm of the contralto profundo is the Venetian contralto Sara Mingardo. In an interpolated ornament at the end of "Fac ut Portem" from the Stabat Mater by G Pergolesi, she saunters down to a stunning Db3! The ornament starts at 4:01. The holy grail has been reached! Swiss contralto Ursula Ferri gives us a rock solid C3 (contralto bottom C) in the song "No,no, non si speri", by Carissimi. It happens at 5:41. But to take us into the realms of the baritone, we can only rely on the force of nature that is Polish contralto Ewa Podleś. In "Pour Une Femme De Mon Nom" from La Fille Du Régiment, by G. Donizetti, she hits an interolated A#2: yes, that's right, A#2, at 0:39. All hail the contralto profundo! But wait, it's not over yet... Back in the early to mid 1700's, Antonio Vivaldi was in charge of an institution known as the Ospedali Pietà, which housed abandoned and unwanted babies. For those female children that stayed in the Ospedali, those with musical potential could join the Figlie di Choro (musicians), the élite of the Pietà. The chorus was all female, with known contraltos and female tenors, and also female basses, like the famed Anna dal Basso. In this excerpt from the "Vivaldi's Women - Gloria" DVD, Margaret Jackson-Roberts sings the bass role in the "Gloria Patri" from Vivaldi's Dixit Dominus, in which she sings multpile A2's. A nice long-held A2 comes at 1:23. Margaret states that she can sing "down to F[2] below the [bass] stave ... and ... down to C[2] below the [bass] stave on a good day." Wow! Go Margaret! I hope you enjoyed this trip into the contralto depths. Until the next time! James.
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