Hardest Song You've Ever Had to Sing...

The one I'm studying at the moment for my HSC... the Telephone Aria from Menotti's opera, "The Telephone". It's scarily fun to sing - basically a coloratura ditz singing a one-sided phone conversation - but staccato between high A and C? A gliss running to a sustained high D, and then a chromatic run downwards? I know I'm not a coloratura or anywhere near good enough to be considered thus, so I don't know why I'm singing it - but it's so much fun!

One of my other pieces is rather avant-garde; nearly completely atonal (ever tried singing one atonal melody to an atonal accompaniment?) and the voice part is half spoken and filled with odd quirks like note bends and Sprechstimme. It's just hard to get out of the classical mindspace and into this weird piece.

I must say, this year my choir at school did Carmina Burana, and that is hard to sing. Its that the rythems or anything is hard, its the fact that you need so much energy for 25 movements and the range for all the singers is insane.
I was blessed to sing it, but i was hard!!

The Competition Duet from The Four Note Opera.

Basically, it's the tenor and soprano trying to one-up the other on a simple four-note phrase that gets more and more complex.

Also "Flying Home" from Songs for a New World. Full-voiced high Fs for the tenor.

(By the way, the Phantom's part in Phantom of the Opera is considered a tenor role. And it's not very high - only an Ab. Nor is a high G. The hard part of the Phantom's songs, and indeed most of that show, is that Andrew Lloyd Weber put his high notes on awkward words.)

Originally Posted by Christopher Dunn-Rankin

(By the way, the Phantom's part in Phantom of the Opera is considered a tenor role. And it's not very high - only an Ab. Nor is a high G. The hard part of the Phantom's songs, and indeed most of that show, is that Andrew Lloyd Weber put his high notes on awkward words.)

that's not how I'd categorize that action... but I know there are still people here who LIKE A.L.W.

[quote=Christopher Dunn-Rankin;168307]
Also "Flying Home" from Songs for a New World. Full-voiced high Fs for the tenor.
/QUOTE]

Ah, how I long for the times when those were a piece of cake to me...

Full voiced high Fs on the top line of the treble staff (not 8va down) shouldn't be easy for any male!

Except pre-pubescent ones...

And castrati.... yes, I was generalizing.

definitely 'litergies a la vierge noire' by poulenc, for a choir, it starts on unpredictable notes and moves suddenly to completely unrelated keys. and for solo soprano, the hardest i've ever had to sing was a recit and aria from wagner's 'siegreid'.

Originally Posted by Daniel

Full voiced high Fs on the top line of the treble staff (not 8va down) shouldn't be easy for any male!

Even speaking as a counter-tenor, it's difficult getting the notes out in any kind of volume once you reach that part of the range...