Singer vs. Technique

I don't see how you can draw such a conclusion. I don't think he implied that. It's true that beautiful voices are fragile but that's not because they lack technique. There is a huge gap between someone who has a pleasant, beautiful tone and someone who maintains such beauty when singing difficult passages. Caballe for example admitted she had to work hard for her legendary pianissimo. Yet people take it for granted as if it was something she could do since she was five. Pavarotti worked for a long time on his passaggio to make it as even as possible, he perfected one of the most difficult things in singing, yet people often accuse him of just singing beautifully.Beautiful voices are fragile in my opinion because once heard, any blemish can spoil them. So the moment the singer ages, any change in tonal quality is noticeable and immediately compared to the younger voice. Personally I find that "unpleasant" voices have more technical problems and that is why they end up sounding "ugly". Because many singers who have the so called ugly voices, have on certain occasions sounded beautiful to me. But only when they are able to control their voices. The difference is, these singers don't care enough to reach their full potential vocally. So squally notes become their strong points and a few more go unnoticed because they don't walk on thin ice like beautiful voices.Takis