Re: Heppner forced to halt performance in Toronto

Mike Scott Rohan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> The message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> from [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Muriel Cooper) contains these words:
> 
> > What was to be a 
> > triumphant return
> >  turned to disappointment
> >  for the audience at Toronto's
> >  Roy Thomson Hall last thursday night.
> > Heppner struggled through the entire performance 
> > and apologised for his poor efforts.
> > I knew the 47 year old singer
> > had had voice problems last year,
> > So did the Wagner destroy his voice?
> >  Muriel
> 
> I'm afraid this concept of Wagner "destroying" the voice is a relic of
> the kind of wilfully ignorant trash his contemporary enemies used to
> write about him -- for example, about how "Tristan" exhausted and killed
> Schnorr von Carolsfeld, and the early Wotan Emil Scaria lost his voice
> and died insane. In fact Schnorr died from a lung infection possibly
> brought about by undiagnosed diabetes -- he was monstrously overweight
> -- and Scaria, though he did indeed have a mild nervous breakdown on
> stage, recovered and returned to sing Wagner for many years afterwards.
> Wagner is no more inherently "destructive" than any other heavy operatic
> roles -- many in Verdi, for example, 
> One or two roles do impose vocal problems because of their sheer length
> -- Tannhauser and Siegfried, in particular -- but Heppner hasn't sung
> Siegfried, more the light heldentenor roles such as Lohengrin and
> Walther, which are within the compass of smaller, more lyrical voices --
> Nicolai Gedda, for example, and Rudolf Schock -- and unlikely to strain
> a voice the size of Heppner's. Tristan is heavier, but still not so very
> demanding.
> 
> So please can we have no more rubbish along these lines?

 Yes of course ,I had always wondered why this was said of Wagner's
music being hard on the voice.I have heard and read this often but
have always felt that a well trained singer could sing anything.Every
role must have it's challenges .
Another music myth exploded.