Word: vibratoed
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Under "Antics at the Met" [TIME, Dec. 8], your critic makes note of Soprano Erna Schleuter's "sickening, undulating vibrato." No doubt what he meant was a ... tremolo...
...vibrato is a regular movement in the voice . . . coming from an off-&-on impulse of the diaphragm in tension. ... A tremolo is a very irregular movement in the voice . . . deriving from a fluttering movement of the tongue. As this movement grows worse it includes the jaw, larynx and, in advanced cases, the entire head...
Soprano Schleuter sang bitingly sharp, and with a sickening, undulating vibrato. Tristan's frayed baying could only be heard when Isolde was swooning at half-voice. Minor characters lurched about the stage cataleptically. The orchestra got into the spirit of things by burbling and sputtering. Wrote the New York Times's Olin Downes: "One of the dullest performances of Tristan that we recall, with a new Isolde who is certainly, beyond doubt or peradventure, the worst impersonator of the title part in our considerable experience of the opera...
...concert reached a terrific climax with the coming of Billie Holiday dressed in a dazzling evening gown. Each time after her thin, vibrato-less voice had gone through its intense phrasing of a gaunt little tune like "Good Morning Heartache" the crowd clapped ardently and stamped their feel. Finally she did a simple, stark presentation of "Strange Fruit," which carried more punch than Lillian Smith's novel, and then she disappeared despite her howling admirers. They stamped, and shricked, and ranted, and raved. Finally Louis, anxious to get on with the show, said, "Take it easy, she's just gone...
...vibraharp (or vibraphone, or "vibes") is a modern variety of glockenspiel (metal xylophone) played with felt hammers and fitted with electrical resonators which impart a mechanical vibrato to its bell-like tones...