TromboneChat

Not sure if any of you like opera.

Garanca and Netrebko are possibly the prima-donna queens of this century (so far), I have especially enjoyed following Garanca for the last 24 years or so.

Contrabass trombone @ 3:14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HupnMOWKTU

Probably the only note he played in the entire concert.

The guy on the far right? Looks like a cimbasso to me.

I think you're right Aidan, it might well be a folded cimbasso!

Still, they typically get like 371 bars of rest in a 372 bar piece, just like the contrabass.

Cimbasso is a bit more common in opera than Contra (except of course, for Wagner). Much of the Italian repertoire like Verdi and Puccini was written for Cimbasso.

Lots of rests in the arias, but there can be some serious licks in the big tutti passages.

Jim Scott

Aida definitely has some stuff - 16th runs that would be impossible on trombone. Plus an unusual walking bass line kind of thing that goes on for several bars. I don't think it goes below B, which would be the limit for a 3-valve F instrument.

Depends on the opera though - a few cimbasso parts lack anything technical and can be covered by contra or even bass.

I have heard that Verdi adds a comment in some of his scores along the lines of "sans bomba": no tuba.

Without getting into the full Cimbasso discussion (30 pages and counting on tuba.net), a lot of those verdi parts would have been for an ophicliede judging by the range. And, yes, a big tuba isn't right.