Roles and Vocal Style
Malibran is most closely associated with the operas of Rossini. Among other operas, she sang Tancredi (title role), Otello (both Desdemona and the title role (??)), Il turco in Italia, La Cenerentola, and Semiramide (both Arsace and the title role), but also sang in Meyerbeer's Il crociato in Egitto and enjoyed great success in Bellini's operas Norma, La sonnambula and I Capuleti e i Montecchi (as Romeo). She also sang the Romeo role in two other then-famous operas: Giulietta e Romeo by Zingarelli and Giulietta e Romeo by Vaccai. Bellini wrote a new version of his I puritani to adapt it to her mezzo-soprano voice and even promised to write a new opera especially for her, but he died before he was able to do so.
Malibran's tessitura (comfortable vocal range) was remarkably wide, from G below middle C to high E (G3 – E6), and her extreme range extended from D3 to F6 in altissimo, which allowed her to easily sing roles for contralto as well as high soprano. Her contemporaries admired Malibran's emotional intensity on stage. Rossini, Donizetti, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Liszt were among her fans. The painter Eugène Delacroix however, accused her of lacking refinement and class and of trying to "appeal to the masses who have no artistic taste." Describing her voice and technique, French critic Castil-Blaze wrote, “Malibran's voice was vibrant, full of brightness and vigor. Without ever losing her flattering timbre, this velvet tone that has given her so much seduction in tender and passionate arias. Vivacity, accuracy, ascending chromatics runs, arpeggios, vocal lines dazzling with strength, grace or coquetry, she possessed all that the art can acquire.”
Read more about this topic: Maria Malibran
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