This duet, Montserrat Caballe and Marilyn Horne, sing "Lasciami, non t'ascolto" from Rossini's opera, Tancredi. The song title translate to "Lasciami, I do not listen to you". Not knowing anything about this particular opera, the music sounds like it is telling a sorrowful story from these two women's prospective. The music itself shows a wide range of intervals. The performers help with the ornamentation of some of the notes. The contour of the song is very complex but consists of mostly conjunct motion. Some of the disjunct motion could be due to the singer's vibrato. When there is that much vibrato present, it tends to be hard to dictate the constants. Although its hard to tell what they are saying, there is a beautiful section of harmony executed when they sing together. The singers show more of their skills as a duet when they show their execution of the dissonance around minute 7:00. The performers themselves interact with each other to give that feeling that both women are going through the same thing. The first perofrmer interacts with the audience to tell her story, then the second singer interacts with the other singer, then the audience together. The whole piece is basically a polyphony, whether it is between the first singer and the orchestra or between both singers.
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I really agree with your insight about the conjunct motion and the vibrato. Although I would have to disagree about the polyphonic nature of the song. To me the parts sound homophoneous, even though there are sections where the two voices play sepatate notes. Its interesting to see two divas on stage.
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