Soprano

In music, a soprano is a singer with a voice ranging approximately from middle C to the A a thirteenth above middle C (above the treble clef). In four part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, and will usually take the melody. Although some pre-pubescent boys (trebles) and countertenors may have voices in this range, the word is almost always applied to a female singer.

More generally, a soprano is the highest member of a group of similar instruments (for example, the soprano saxophone).

In opera, subdivisions of different kinds of soprano voices are sometimes used. These divisions are more to do with the character of the singers voice and timbre rather than her vocal range. The subclassifications are as follows:

• Leggero (or soubrette[?])
• Coloratura
• Lyric
• Lyric Dramatic
• Heroic

Famous sopranos have often caused opera enthusiasts to divide into opposing "clubs" supporting one singer over another. The rivalry between Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, for example, was one of the most famous of all opera (see anecdotes in La Tosca article).

Historically women were not allowed to sing in the Church, so the soprano roles were given to young boys, and later to castrati, who were men whose larynxes had been fixed in a pre-adolescent state through the process of castration.

Famous soprano singers

• Leggero
  • Kathleen Battle[?]
  • Barbara Bonney[?]
  • Ileana Cotrubas
  • Anneliese Rothenberger[?]
  • Lillian Watson[?]
• Coloratura
  • June Anderson[?]
  • Maria Callas
  • Adelina Patti
  • Joan Sutherland[?]
  • Renata Tebaldi[?]
• Lyric
  • Lucia Albanese[?]
  • Montserrat Caballé[?]
  • Mirella Freni[?]
  • Gundula Janowitz[?]
  • Kiri Te Kanawa[?]
  • Victoria de Los Angeles[?]
  • Elisabeth Schwarzkopf[?]
• Dramatic Lyric
  • Maria Callas
  • Christina Nilsson
  • Jessye Norman[?]
  • Katia Ricciarelli[?]
  • Cheryl Studer[?]
  • Renata Tebaldi[?]
• Heroic
  • Jane Eaglen[?]
  • Anne Evans[?]
  • Kirsten Flagstad[?]
  • Gwyneth Jones[?]

See also:

• mezzo soprano[?], contralto, counter tenor,tenor, baritone, bass, castrato
• music, opera