Famous mezzo-sopranos

What a mezzo-soprano is

Mezzo-soprano is where the majority of women in popular music sit, and where the belt-driven pop of the last three decades lives. The interesting figure for a mezzo is rarely the highest note reached but the highest note held in full voice, which is why this library tracks the two separately.

Belting near the top of the range is the most commonly injured technique in popular singing, and the cited ceilings here are peaks rather than sustainable nightly territory.

What the 83 mezzo-sopranos here show

• Widest cited span: Christina Aguilera at C3–C7 (4.0 octaves); narrowest is Loretta Lynn at G3–D5.
• The group bottoms out at F2 (Chaka Khan) and tops out at C7 (Christina Aguilera) — 55 semitones from the floor of the category to its ceiling.
• Prominence spans 1930 to 2021, and the median cited span is 32 semitones against A3–A5 for the conventional mezzo-soprano band.

Voice categories are guides borrowed from choral and operatic practice, not boxes. Plenty of these singers are filed differently by different sources, and a category says more about where a voice is comfortable than about the notes it can reach.

• Bass3
• Bass-baritone7
• Baritone51
• Tenor127
• Countertenor4
• Contralto30
• Soprano52