Charlotte Church Album: “Charlotte Church”

This CD is much better technically than the first which sounded like it was done in a garage using an old tape recorder. Ms. Church is also better technically. I enjoyed most of the cuts on the CD because I find listening to her to be relaxing. I do not expect perfection in her 13 year old voice; what I find is a lovely voice worth listening to coupled with a certain charm and innocence. If you want the voice of a 40 year old soprano DO NOT BUY THIS CD you will be disappointed. If you want sweetness in an uncloying way this might be your choice.

When I heard Roberta Peters sing "Lucia" at the Met in the sixties I thought I died and went to heaven. When I first heard Joan Sutherland's flawless technique I was sure the opera world had outdone itself. When Kiri, Cecilia, Renee and Leslie came along I was again mesmerized. The very mention of Maria Callas still causes my heart to skip a beat.

So am I some high-falutin' music critic about to warn you all to stay away from this MADNESS called Charlotte? Guess again.

I have played Charlotte Church's self-titled album several times. To start with, I am beyond floored, beyond flabbergasted. She has, unquestionably, one of the most glorious high soprano voices on the scene. It's much too green for opera stages -- let's agree on that -- but it's utterly magical in its present realm, the recording studio and TV venues. Most of the songs on the CD are enormously appealing. I took extreme pleasure in Miss Church's Mozart aria... I know she'll learn Italian and take it to the next level eventually, but it was brilliantly performed nonetheless. I see her owning several Puccini roles outright somday. When she actually begins to perform opera, I hope she'll continue to record sacred music and never forsake her delicious Welsh/Celtic repertoire.

Finally, it's fascinating that so many critics disagree about Charlotte Church. In the end, after all the ecstatic praises, the warm fuzzies, the cynical put-downs, the condescending encouragements, the "give me a breaks", it still about people reacting (and over-reacting) to a 13 yr. old adolescent girl living her dream. No marketing saavy in the world could have planned this.

I wouldn't rank Charlotte Church in the same league as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Magda Olivero, Marilyn Horne, and Frederica Von Stade---but she does have a pretty voice. Her renditions of "O mio babbino caro" and "The Jewel Song" were quite good. I could care less for the English translations of "Voi che sapete" and "Barcarolle," though. Those songs should be sung in their original languages. The biggest drawback: Church shouldn't have sung both parts in a duet like "Barcarolle"(that's tacky)---rather, her producer should have found a mezzo to sing with her... The album is a balanced mix of opera, hymns, and folk songs. Church certainly knows how to show off her talent and skills with these carefully chosen songs. The song written for Ford---"Just Wave Hello"---is a strange mixture of pop and classical. But, because it's sung by someone so young, the song actually works. Interesting. I can't wait to hear what Church's voice will sound like in ten years...

It is funny how the Charlotte Church phenomenon has spawned a never ending debate at this site!

After listening to this album I have a few comments to make, technical and otherwise (I am a singer myself and a great fan of sopranos so like to think I know a bit about what I'm talking about!).

I strongly recommend this CD for people who do not have an appreciation for classical music. As a reviewer below mentioned, Charlotte certainly cannot be classified as an 'opera singer' (because she's never sung an operatic role in her life!) but she does belong in a category of her own. She has a pure voice that delights people unfamiliar with soprano voices and will hopefully lead them to experiment with more classical. The songs are beautiful that she sings, classics in the true sense of the word.

However, I have noticed that the majority of people who think this album is "heaven sent" are not fans of classical music. In fact, most of them profess not to have liked classical at all before Charlotte came around. This is good in one sense: Charlotte has made a realm of music formerly reserved for a minority of people accessable to a larger majority. However, we must also note that these people who have never spent any time listening to sopranos or opera can not possibly be qualified to judge the quality of Charlotte's voice.

Here's the mean (although realistic) part of this review, coming from a person who spends 90% of her day engaged in this incredible art form:

Charlotte does not have a spectacular technique, and if you know something of what great voices are supposed to sound like, I think you will be disappointed. She has absolutely no sense of how an art song or an aria is supposed to sound (understandably of course, she is only in her early teens) and thus, if you were to compare her versions to those of seasoned singers you would see the startling difference. Technically speaking, her intonation is poor, and her support of high notes is shakey. Her attack of high notes is always extreme. Not once on this album did she succeed in building to a crescendo using soft tones as well as loud ones, and I never heard her produce a soft "angelic" tone in the high range, only loud overly belted out ones that have a tendency to become sharp. Her runs in the coloratura pieces are unclean, and she has no sense of vocal colour. I found her timbre surprisingly ordinary and this habit she has of swallowing her tongue to produce a 'dark' tone quality is not at all healthy (I know---I tried it for years and ended up having to take a break from singing to recover and come up with a safer and more natural vocal approach). Every song on this album sounds exactly the same, because she attacks all her notes in an identical manner. Marguerite from Gounod's Faust is not supposed to sound the same as Lauretta from Gianni Schicchi, and these characters should certainly not sound the same as Cherubino from Figaro! A poster below remarked that sopranos frequently sounds angry or sad, and thus unpleasant to the majority when they sing these songs. Well, he/she is right. These arias, particularly the Puccini and Gounod pieces, are highly dramatic songs written to be sung by an a singer of high calibre. They are not happy songs in the least (well, Marguerite's is, but the story turns rough very fast so even the light happy jewel song must be sung with a sense of foreboding doom) and if Charlotte makes them sound happy (which I believe she does) she is doing a serious disservice to the music. The only thing that makes a singer different from an instrumentalist is the fact that music written for singers has WORDS. It has drama, tragedy, comedy, etc. Charlotte doesn't seem to have any idea of the words she is singing, even in the pieces that have been translated (most unprofessional, by the way) into English.

But all these criticisms are understandable. Charlotte is very young and I have never heard a singer of her age who is able to tackle the Jewel song or O mio babbino caro in a way that makes them worth listening to. Besides being damaging for the voice at such a young age, these songs require more than a pretty voice and the ability to execute high notes to make them sound good.

If you have any knowledge of the history of opera, you will understand that when Monteverdi and the others decided to write down what opera should involve, they did not make space for people like Charlotte. Opera is an art that has extremely defined boundaries that are the product of time and space (history, in other words). Simply said, if you do not follow the rules, you are not a good opera singer. So while Charlotte has a pretty voice that is obviously appealing to a lot of people, the fact that she labels herself an "opera singer" is utterly preposterous. As I said earlier, she is something else. Appealing to some and not to others.

I actually feel that perhaps my critique of her vocal technique was unjust simply because she is so young and obviously could not possibly achieve such control over her instrument. However, I feel they might also illustrate that if you are expecting to discover an operatic soprano in this recording, you are going to be very disappointed. If you are expecting to be charmed by a pretty voice and a celebrity personality, or know very little of classical music, you will probably enjoy this recording. I do find it offensive that Charlotte describes herself as an opera singer, however. Opera is about drama and performance, at the heart of which lies the aria. The aria is a climax that involves, for the audience, a final outburst of emotion. Composers were, for the most part, not very creative in this respect. Nearly all arias involve a climax of basic human emotions: anger or pain. Sometimes love, but then, at the root of the love there is almost always angst and pain :) Like it or not, an opera singer must have a voice that is "angry" sounding, or what many people here have described as "unpleasant." If you don't like such voices, that's perfectly fine, maybe Charlotte is an alternative for people who do not like opera. But please do not make the mistake of thinking you like opera simply because you like Charlotte Church.

I had my doubts about Ms. Church. How could she ever top the magnificent, otherworldly beauty of her "Pie Jesu" and "In Trutino?" Well guess what, she's actually done it! Now, I don't care what anyone -- no matter how musically well-informed they present themselves to be -- says, her "O mio babbino caro" is entirely brilliant, richly voiced and totally moving. If it doesn't cause you to well up, check yourself for a heartbeat. And then there's her incredible "Songs my mother taught me." For lighter stuff, her "Tell me what love is" is so delightfully sung in English, who really cares that it's not Italian? She hits the notes so elegantly, SHE's the one that other sopranos ought to emulate. And besides, Mozart would sound good in any language. Her "Jewel song" is diva-city and I was majorly impressed. I think the operatically-sophisticated people that are judging her are not feeling in the least the essense of her appeal: the sheer pleasantness of her sound. It's a voice that many of us could listen to all the time and never get tired of. She brings such an unabashed freshness to classical music, I can almost understand that it must upset the purists. I found her operatic arias to be the finest, most exquisitely rendered parts of this album, anything but plowed through. Her managers are letting her deliver the goods as only she can, as only she would have it. Putting Charlotte in her place is a no-brainer for those who take themselves too seriously. Appreciating her takes a little more imagination and heart, but believe me, it's hugely worth it.