coloratura

As she scrabbled for a laser pointer in her large handbag, her coloratura was comically on point, though she was inaudible in her middle range during the cabaletta.

“But I so love what her voice does on it — how open her coloratura is — that I’ll leave that for her,” she adds.

She was a coloratura soprano with an almost freakish vocal range — nearly four octaves, it was said, a voice capable, if any voice is, of the wineglass-shattering stunt of legend.

“She is a lyric coloratura, with a relatively small voice that carries in a big auditorium by virtue of its concentrated tone. And she is a complete actress, in voice and movement.”

She was admired for her coloratura singing and feared for her business chops.