The Voice that Melts Sparta: Vesselina Kasarova and Her Helenic Timbre
Click here for the sample clip (Menelaus (the baldie) arrived home unexpectedly to find his wife, Helen, sharing her bed with Paris of Troy)
The most beautiful woman on the planet deserved and got the most lusciously rich and velvety voice to verify her reputation during that 1997 run of the French operetta in Zurich. The story concerns how Helen of Sparta runs off to become Helen of Troy... and reputedly launched a thousand ships in the war Homer lamented about in his epic poem, The Iliad. Using my rickety homemade Acoustic Helenometer to measure Kasarova's ship-launching effectiveness, I am happy to report that this voice consistently registers in the acoustic *dekahelens during her invasion of the orchestra pit. And when she hops onto the bed and sings;
'Je crains leur fureur .................. I fear their furor,the wave of her sultry-ness floods the scale well into the acoustic megahelens neighborhood, causing an instant blockage of all nearby harbors due to the spontaneous mass-ship-launching... submarines included.
Va, dérobe à leur colère, ............ go and get away from it,
Mon fier séducteur, ................... my fierce seducer,
Cette tête qui m'est chère!......... your head is dear to me!'
And to think that this isn't even the hottest little thing Helen sings in the course of the opera...
(*) Referring, of course, to the metric expansion of the millihelen, a unit of beauty invented by Isaac Asimov where one millihelen evaluates a face to be beautiful enough to launch a single ship.... in her direction.
Published by M Smorg
Generation X'er lover of opera and classical music. Casual pianist & clarinetist working in laboratory medicine. Reachable at sdcmorg@yahoo.com (please put 'AC' on subject line). View profile
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11 Comments
Post a CommentHa! I see the unit is directional! What would it convert to if a woman is 'pretty' enough to cause 1000 ships to launch 'away' from her???
She used to have such a beautiful voice! She doesn't sound much like that now, tho. A different sound. Would make a great Dalila, I gather.
i know what you mean about when she hops on that bed and continues the ascent with her voice. i measure it by how many hairs standing up on my 2 arms, and there's no point counting :-).
and it's such a treat getting a hint of it in the prelude of Act II, with Frau K finishing it off at the end of the act. thanks for the clip. i bought the dvd after watching it!
How can mere mortals compare with singing like that. I love the line about the harbors being full. Great writing!
Bold Call: The Most Sensual Female Voice on the Planet.
Beautiful piece Smorg!
Such a well-written piece... Love all the allusions and erudite references... from the Trojan War to Christopher Marlowe! :)
Very well-written. You've made opera sound so seductive and exciting! I LOVE the title.
I heard she gave a great performance in "Carmen" at the Zurich opera festival last year.
I love the "millihelen" unit of measurement! That's great! Fun article :)