Among types of sopranos, the dramatic averages the greatest compass. The voice is heavier than florid soprano and incapable of being handled with the same agility. But it contains more low notes and
almost as many high ones, unless in the latter respect one compares it with florid soprano voices of the phenomenal order. Otherwise, so far as the high notes are concerned, the difference lies in quality rather than in compass. The Inflammatus in Rossini's Stabat Mater, which is written for dramatic soprano, contains the high C, and no one who has heard Nordica sing it need be told of the noble effect a great dramatic soprano can produce with it.
It is possible to sing the three highest notes of the chest register of dramatic soprano with the adjustment for the middle register; and the higher notes of the middle register with the adjustment for the head register. This option is not merely a convenience. Its artistic value is great. In loud phrases those optional notes which naturally lie in the chest register are delivered most effectively in that register; but in piano phrases they are more effective when sung with the adjustment of the middle register. The same thing applies to those optional tones which naturally lie in the middle register. In loud phrases they are sung best in their natural register—the middle; in piano phrases, in the head register. These are two capital illustrations of the value of the overlapping of registers and
the necessity of training a voice to be equally at home in both registers on all notes that are optional.
Theoretically, the florid soprano produces the three lowest notes of its range in the chest register; the notes from
in the middle; and the notes above these in the head register. In practice, however, the small larynx and the limited cup space found in florid sopranos make it difficult if not impossible for them to adjust their vocal tracts to the chest register. The problem is met by bringing the head register as far down as possible into the middle; and by singing what theoretically should be chest tones in the middle register. It hardly need be pointed out that the lower notes of florid sopranos are weak. This accounts for it. Florid soprano, the voice of the head register, is a voice of extraordinary agility—the voice of vocal pyrotechnics. To achieve it Nature appears to have found it necessary to sacrifice the heavier middle and chest registers which make for dramatic expression; with dramatic sopranos, on the other hand, to sacrifice the muscular flexibility which makes for agility. Mezzo-soprano is a voice that lies within the compass of dramatic
soprano, usually extending neither quite so low nor quite so high, but governed by the same laws.
For altos the ordinary compass is