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A spinto soprano (also lirico-spinto or "pushed lyric") is an operatic soprano
Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four part chorale style harmony the soprano takes the highest part which usually encompasses the melody....
 that has the brightness and height of a lyric soprano
Lyric soprano

A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenue s and other sympathetic characters in opera....
, but can be "pushed" to dramatic climaxes without strain, and may have a somewhat darker timbre
Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices or musical instruments....
. It generally uses squillo
Squillo

Squillo can mean:* the Italian language word for "ring" * a resonant, trumpet-like ringing sound in the voice of opera singers* in current Italian, a slang term for prostitute...
 to "slice" through a full orchestra (rather than singing over it like a dramatic soprano). It also handles dynamic changes
Dynamics (music)

In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note , but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional ....
 very well. Spinto sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6).






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A spinto soprano (also lirico-spinto or "pushed lyric") is an operatic soprano
Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four part chorale style harmony the soprano takes the highest part which usually encompasses the melody....
 that has the brightness and height of a lyric soprano
Lyric soprano

A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenue s and other sympathetic characters in opera....
, but can be "pushed" to dramatic climaxes without strain, and may have a somewhat darker timbre
Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices or musical instruments....
. It generally uses squillo
Squillo

Squillo can mean:* the Italian language word for "ring" * a resonant, trumpet-like ringing sound in the voice of opera singers* in current Italian, a slang term for prostitute...
 to "slice" through a full orchestra (rather than singing over it like a dramatic soprano). It also handles dynamic changes
Dynamics (music)

In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note , but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional ....
 very well. Spinto sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6). The spinto repertoire includes many Verdi, verismo
Verismo

Verismo was an Italian literary and, by extension, operatic movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s. It was mainly inspired by Naturalism ....
 and Puccini roles, some of which are very popular in opera. The fact that spinto sopranos are uncommon means that these popular roles are often performed by singers from other classifications, and more than a few lyric sopranos have damaged their voices singing spinto roles.

Examples of Spinto singers

  • Michelle Crider
    Michelle Crider

    Mich?le Crider is an United States lirico spinto operatic soprano.She studied singing at the University of Iowa with Dr. John Van Cura. After Iowa, she studied music at the Z?rcher Opernhaus and in 1989 won the Geneva International music competition....
  • Susan Dunn
    Susan Dunn

    Susan Dunn is an award winning American spinto soprano who has graced many of the world's finest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters in operas, oratorios, and concert performances....
  • Emma Eames
    Emma Eames

    Emma Eames was an American soprano. She sang lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and enjoyed a brilliant career in New York, London and Paris during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century....
  • Dorothy Kirsten
    Dorothy Kirsten

    Dorothy Kirsten was an American opera spinto soprano....
  • Zinka Milanov
    Zinka Milanov

    Zinka Milanov n?e Zinka Kunc was a Croatian-born operatic Voice type.Born in Zagreb, she studied with the Wagnerian soprano Milka Ternina and her assistant Marija Kostrencic....
  • Aprile Millo
  • Leontyne Price
    Leontyne Price

    Mary Violet Leontyne Price in Laurel, Mississippi in the United States is one of America's most beloved and widely recorded operatic sopranos....
  • Elisabeth Rethberg
    Elisabeth Rethberg

    The Germany soprano Elisabeth Rethberg was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s....
  • Hina Spani
    Hina Spani

    Hina Spani, Argentine soprano, born Pu?n, Province of Buenos Aires, 15 February 1896; died Buenos Aires, 11 July 1969. Her real name was Higinia Tu??n and she enjoyed a major opera career centred on Italy during the 1920s and '30s....
  • Renata Tebaldi
    Renata Tebaldi

    Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano, popular in the post-World War II period. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved opera singers of all time, she primarily focused on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires....

Spinto roles

  • Adriana, Adriana Lecouvreur
    Adriana Lecouvreur

    Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the Play by Eug?ne Scribe and Ernest Legouv?....
     (Cilea)
  • Aïda, Aïda
    Aida

    Aida an Arabic female name meaning "visitor" or "returning") is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette ....
     (Verdi)
  • Alice Ford, Falstaff
    Falstaff (opera)

    Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from William Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, Part 1....
     (Verdi)
  • Butterfly, Madama Butterfly
    Madama Butterfly

    Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa....
     (Puccini)
  • Desdemona, Otello
    Otello

    Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on William Shakespeare's Play Othello. It was Verdi's second to last opera and is considered by many to be his greatest tragedy....
     (Verdi)
  • Elisabetta, Don Carlos
    Don Carlos

    Don Carlos is a five-act Grand Opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph M?ry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller....
     (Verdi)
  • Leonora, La forza del destino
    La forza del destino

    La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don ?lvaro, o La fuerza del sino , by ?ngel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager....
     (Verdi)
  • Lisa, The Queen of Spades
    The Queen of Spades (opera)

    The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on a The Queen of Spades by the poet Alexander Pushkin....
     (Tchaikovsky)
  • Manon, Manon Lescaut
    Manon Lescaut (Puccini)

    Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel Manon Lescaut by the Abb? Pr?vost.The libretto is in Italian....
     (Puccini)
  • Margherita, Mefistofele
    Mefistofele

    Mefistofele is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera by the Italy composer-librettist Arrigo Boito.Boito began consideration of an opera on the Faustian theme after completing his studies at the Milan Conservatory in 1861....
     (Boito)
  • Maria/Amelia, Simon Boccanegra
    Simon Boccanegra

    Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the Play Sim?n Bocanegra by Antonio Garc?a Guti?rrez....
     (Verdi)
  • The Marschallin, Der Rosenkavalier
    Der Rosenkavalier

    Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai and Moli?re?s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac....
     (Richard Strauss
    Richard Strauss

    Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic music and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems. Strauss was also a prominent Conducting....
    )
  • Rusalka, Rusalka
    Rusalka (opera)

    Rusalka is an opera by Anton?n Dvor?k. The Czech language libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil based on the fairy tales of Karel Jarom?r Erben and Bozena Nemcova; a Rusalka is a water sprite of Slavic creatures of folklore, usually inhabiting a lake or river....
     (Dvorák)
  • Floria Tosca, Tosca
    Tosca

    Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Victorien Sardou drama, La Tosca....
     (Puccini)
  • Santuzza, Cavalleria Rusticana
    Cavalleria rusticana

    Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story....
     (Mascagni
    Pietro Mascagni

    Pietro Mascagni was an Italy composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece, Cavalleria rusticana, caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and singlehandedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music....
    )
  • Tatiana, Eugene Onegin
    Eugene Onegin (opera)

    Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and is based on the Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin....
     (Tchaikovsky)

Further reading