Caballe and Coloratura

I have put together clips of Montserrat Caballe singing coloratura passages (or we might call them "frilly bits"). Only live performances, except for the very first, introductory clip.
In all its weirdness and diffidence, Caballe's coloratura ability, trill aside, was quite good when she wanted it to be. The only problem was that her uppermost range not always cooperated, even early on. And LATER on, it rarely cooperated, and by 1981 was used only for isolated high notes (preferably not at the end of a scale) to be hit dead on the head, sometimes to spectacular effect.
Yet when all its parts managed to align, hearing this majestic voice execute fioritura is a great pleasure.
She did indeed aspirate (i.e., insert little bumps) to separate the notes in passagework, but hey - it's mild, and who said it's forbidden? Rossini tenors do it all the time. Horne did it too. God, Deutekom did it, and in a much more legato-unfriendly way. Gruberova did it, and she was great twenty years ago. And Bartoli. And many more.
Truth is, Caballe didn't ultimately "specialize" in anything, and few parts of her arsenal were rock solid.. yet she pulled off even very demanding parts with considerable success. The real quality of Caballe has never been expert passagework. And neither was her pianissimo, if taken as a technical feat.
I choose to look precisely into her agility so as to give people matter to judge, instead of repeating automatically other people's opinions. Or offering their own opinions which are based on very brief encounters with a singer they probably didn't like in the first place on a strictly subjective basis. I'm also doing this for my own elucidation, as the matter of Caballe's coloratura is fascinating to me, and I wanted to hear it only in live examples, as so many of the things I'd heard her do were born in the safe haven of the studio.
Cues -
00:00 - Guillaume Tell (*studio)
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VARIOUS REP

01:48 - El Barbero de Sevilla
03:00 - Mefistofele
03:50 - Giulio Cesare
05:30 - Joshua
06:27 - Faust
08:25 - Ch'io mi scordi di te K.505
10:05 - Don Giovanni
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VERDI

12:05 - Luisa Miller
13:35 - Traviata
18:45 - Trovatore
21:10 - I Vespi Siciliani
25:30 - Ernani
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ROSSINI

28:05 - La Donna del Lago
33:53 - Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra
37:48 - Semiramide
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DONIZETTI

47:00 - Anna Bolena
48:06 - Gemma di Vergy
49:56 - Caterina Cornaro
53:14 - Maria Stuarda
54:27 - Robero Devereux
1:00:05 - Parisina d'Este
1:01:35 - Lucrezia Borgia
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BELLINI

1:03:38 - Norma
1:21:30 - Il Pirata
1:32:45 - La Straniera
1:36:45 - Il Pirata - bis (first cabaletta)

-fin-

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Видео Caballe and Coloratura канала Georg M