Opera's new breed of slight, scantily clad sopranos take the plaudits at the Salzburg festival.The much-parodied large, Wagnerian soprano, resplendent in a horned helmet, may soon be a fond operatic memory. This summer pundits are hailing the birth of a new breed of female opera singers – all of them sylphs compared to the conventional Brünnhilde-type.
At the world-renowned Salzburg festival, the heaving bosom of a traditional, generously proportioned opera diva has been replaced by slim waists and scanty outfits. The streets and shop windows of the Austrian city are papered with posters celebrating the svelte figures of international stars who have flown in to sing. And three of them together would fit inside the voluminous costumes once worn on stage by great singers such as Joan Sutherland and Montserrat Caballé.
Opera-goers at the festival have been wowed by a succession of sleek singers, including the Australian-born soprano Danielle de Niese, who has welcomed the new emphasis on the visual as well as aural experience.
"In opera we needed this breath of fresh air," de Niese said recently. "We could not go on being elephants on stage." Latvian singers Marina Rebeka, a soprano, and Elina Garanca, a mezzo-soprano, both appearing at Salzburg, are one step closer to Hollywood than such established slimline divas as Anna Netrebko and Magdalena Kožená, the partner of the conductor Sir Simon Rattle.
