2024-03-01 18:32:42
His voice rises and rises, without limits it seems. In a mise en abyme as the opera likes them, the soprano Gloria Tronel embodies the singer Leticia Maynar, one of the characters of The Exterminating Angel, currently playing at the Opéra Bastille under the direction of its composer, the British Thomas Adès. Its coloratura range rises towards stratospheric high notes, like a rocket crossing the layers which take it away from dry land (1). In the orchestra pit, the Martenot waves also distill their highest frequencies, providing this murky sensation, sometimes fascinating, sometimes uncomfortable.
Isn’t this precisely the characteristic of high-pitched sounds when they cross the limits of “reasonable”? The vocalizations of the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute by Mozart are undoubtedly among the most famous in this area. When the performer of this ambiguous role of mother inciting her daughter to murder proves to be “up to the task”, they send shivers of pleasure and fear through the skin of the listeners.
In her first aria inviting Prince Tamino to save her daughter and even more in Act II, a rolling fire of vengeful imprecations where each note evokes the stab that she would like to see inflicted on her enemy and rival, Sarastro. The voice of the latter being, in a striking contrast, endowed with paternal bass and reassuring warmth.
I like it or I don’t like it…
Graceful, magical when they contain their excesses and do not trade mellowness for stridency, the high notes take on a superhuman, even inhuman, face if the exhilaration of excess seizes them. They become phenomenal, performative – but how does the artist do it? – like laser beams darted directly into our astonished ears, at the risk of pain. Musicians and scientists who are interested in the sound awakening of children, even very young ones, admit to banning frequencies that are too high from their practice, just as they do for dynamics that are too strong. In adulthood, it is also not uncommon for music lovers to reveal their predilection for voices and instruments in the middle range, considered more natural, more friendly.
Gloria Tronel’s performance is therefore not made for them. Unless, carried by the irresistible momentum of the music, these listeners who are not fond of dizzying heights discover that the sword strokes released by the soprano have no other mission than to announce her magnificent aria at the very end. of the work. Prayer of a fragile diva, thirsty for peace and light.
(1) Thomas Adès had also entrusted the coloratura soprano range with the role of Ariel, the spirit of the air, in his marvelous Storm (2004), inspired by Shakespeare’s play.
#higher