Earlier this season when I heard soprano Jennifer Check singing the role of the Priestess in AIDA at the Met, I remembered an off-the-air recording I had made of her singing Barber's KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915. And I recalled the sensation at the time of hearing a current voice that had that evocative sensation I refer to as:
The Rapture is what I call an elusive vocal quality which can't truly be defined; it's a shining feeling underscored with sensuousness or passion that is somehow contained. It doesn't pour out of the singer on a grand scale but instead seeps mysteriously into the tone colours as the voice responds to the text. Some singers have it, some don't...some can only find it it certain music, others tend to bring it to everything they sing.
It was December 7, 2003; a live performance from Marilyn Horne's Wings of Song series was broadcast on WQXR featuring Jennifer Check and pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson. We had recently moved up here to Inwood and the radio reception was unpredictable. I didn't know that the recital was to be broadcast but for some reason I flipped on the radio just as it was being announced. Luckily the reception was fairly clear and I quickly slipped a cassette into the deck and recorded it. While listening, I remember thinking, "She's got it...the rapture!"
After the AIDA, I wanted to hear the KNOXVILLE again; an extensive search thru my three huge boxes of cassettes last month finally located it. It wasn't until this cold, rainy afternoon that I found time to sit down and listen to it again. And there it was, that indefinable feeling of being almost transported by the voice. So it is not just a quality that one hears in voices from the past (and not only in French repertoire, though previous singers in this series - Suzanne Danco and Nan Merriman - were both singing in French in the examples cited).
It's good to know the rapture can still be experienced in this day and age; I feel that it's not something many contemporary singers can convey.