This is a little bit off topic, but this thread, especially R13's clip (thank you, R13!), has got me thinking:

Montserrat Caballe is one of my favourite singers. I've been asking myself whether I would trade my kind of scrawny, nothing-special body for Montserrat Caballe's body if it meant I also gained her miraculous voice, technique and artistry. (In this scenario, saying you'd trade and then simply lose the extra weight is out, because it makes the choice too easy.)

I imagine that being heavy would make me uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally. It's not only harder to move around, find clothes and maintain good health, but you're also not supposed to care what people think of you or be wounded by their mocking comments. I know that, in reality, it would hurt an awful lot. Weight can be a burden in more ways than just the literal one, that's for sure.

On the other hand, those objections seem really shallow. Possessing a talent that moves people down to their souls with that "rightness", that purity- you can't explain how you know that you just experienced greatness, and it happens rarely, but you recognize it as if a bell just rang deep inside you- how would it feel to be someone who can do that for others?

I hope I would have the courage to trade, but that's easy to say in a hypothetical.

Do you think you'd trade for a great talent if you had to accept some condition that you would consider a serious drawback (like living with an extra150 pounds or something more serious -maybe losing one of your senses or ability to walk) as part of the deal? How far would you be willing to go and for what ability or talent in return?

To answer the OP, Montserrat Caballe and Mama Cass and even Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand, no matter their actual weight at a given moment, had a similar build around the diaphragm area,. You could call it barrel-shaped. Even Ethel Merman had that kind of ring-of-rounded-steel look from the inverted "v" of the sternum to just below the navel. I guess it's to do with a very muscular diaphragm and maybe it's genetic (?). Even when Judy Garland was pitifully thin everywhere else, that area still looked strong and somewhat rounded..