Susan's singing
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jschillig — 10 years ago(July 29, 2015 08:36 AM)
I don't think it was so much that Susan's voice was
bad
it just wasn't
operatic.
When we saw the movie on the big screen years ago, my friend Rick said that Susan would probably have done well in a decent musical comedy. It's just that her voice doesn't have anywhere near the power, control, and projection needed for opera singing. Especially not in a dramatic, tragic opera like Salammbo would seem to be. (Who knowsmaybe Susan would have also done decently in a Gilbert and Sullivan role.)
It's interesting to speculate on Kane's motives for pushing Susan into opera. By trying to present her to the public as a Great Artiste, suddenly she's no longer some young chippie whom he dumped the President's niece for. Suddenly she's a higher class of being, a creature of art, and their love story is grand opera in itselfor at least that's how Kane wants the public to see it. -
HarvSoul — 1 month ago(January 31, 2026 03:20 AM)
You’re exactly right that Susan isn’t necessarily "untalented"—she is simply being forced into a world where her natural abilities are hopelessly outmatched.
The audience’s "hatred" or discomfort actually comes from a few calculated production choices and narrative themes:
The Impossible Aria: Composer Bernard Herrmann intentionally wrote the aria for the fictional opera Salammbô to be nearly impossible to sing. He set the orchestration at "full throttle" and placed the notes in a range that was too high for actress Dorothy Comingore’s natural voice, making her sound strained and small against the massive sound of the orchestra.
A "Lightweight" in a Heavyweight Ring: As you noted, Susan might have been charming in a musical comedy, but opera requires extreme volume and projection to be heard over an orchestra without a microphone. The audience cringes because they can see and hear her struggling for air, making the performance painful to watch rather than bad in a funny way.
The Resentment of the "Chippie": Your theory on Kane's motives is spot on. By building her an opera house, he wasn't trying to make her happy—she never wanted it—he was trying to rebrand her as a "Great Artiste" to justify his own scandalous choices. The audience sees through this instantly; they hate that she is a vanity project occupying a space meant for masters of the craft.
The "mystery" of Susan’s voice is that she is a victim of Kane’s ego, literally being drowned out by the very stage he built to "elevate" her. -
dalton-22403 — 10 years ago(December 27, 2015 11:14 PM)
Here's a video of Salammbo's Aria, the operatic piece that Bernard Herrmann wrote specifically for
Citizen Kane
, as sung by a competent opera singer so you can compare:
You can clearly recognize after listening to this that although Susan in the movie sings generally in key and hits all the notes (except for that top D at the end), her voice is very weak and untrained in comparison. The good thing is that Welles had enough respect for his film's audience that he didn't make it
too
obvious how bad Susan was. It had to be believable that Kane was just deluded enough (without being stupid) about Susan's singing talent to keep forcing her to do it. -
TVippy — 9 years ago(April 24, 2016 07:26 AM)
The question is why did people still go and see her sing, if they knew it was gonna be bad.
I own you.
https://goo.gl/0avZjB -
OzOverTheRainbow — 9 years ago(June 02, 2016 08:24 PM)
Her voice was too small for opera. She had a pleasant voice, but she lacked depth and power. It takes a big voice to fill a 3,000 seat opera house. She would have been ok in a smaller theater singing light musical comedy roles. And apparently she was doing alright as a nightclub singer at the end.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Schrodinger's Cat walks into a bar, and doesn't. 