From: Isabelle Bracamonte
Subject: Re: Interesting Renee Fleming quote from Opera News...
To: vocalist
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

In response to the comment:

> If one listens to the old recordings, you also hear
> "bright" tinney quality coming from the instruments.
> What does that tell you?

I wasn't actually referring to old, old recordings,
but to singers around the 50s or so. Roberta Peters
-- bright, pointed voice quality. Tebaldi -- singer's
formant out the wazoo. Both of these singers were
recorded in mediums that are much more faithful than
the era I think Mr. Cheeseboro was referring to.

I have this great recording of Tebaldi singing
Cleopatra's aria "V'adoro, pupille." She sings it
with an incredible amount squillo and clarion-ness
(what I call "ping"). Nowadays, we are used to
hearing Handel sung with delicate, floating pianissimi
and "oooey," luxuriously rounded tones. Proponants of
today's singer's would probably say that Tebaldi
blasted her way through the aria. I far prefer the
vocal tone, however.

To my interpretation, Fleming was making a comment on
the way audience's ears have changed over the years.
I, too, believe that a tone heavy in singer's formant
(I call that brightness -- some people use the word
"bright" to refer to a childlike and breathy sound,
but what I call "bright" I also call "ringing,
pointed, focused," etc. Dr. Hanson and I may have had
a problem with the semantics of the bright/dark vs.
formant issue)... where was I? I, like Fleming,
believe that a very pointed tone is healthier than the
rounder position that is the current taste du jour.

That said, Fleming has a rather wide face with rounder
bones. In my experience, singers with certain
physical structure will naturally sound "rounder" than
others. Why? Resonating spaces, maybe - who knows?
It would be interesting if there were research
somewhere on this topic. So Fleming might be singing
more "pingy" (it's her term, and she demonstrated the
term rather well on her interview with 60 Minutes, so
I'm using it as well) than she sounds to us. Or she
may be rounding out her tone more to appeal to today's
tastes. It wasn't made clear which she was actually
doing in her Opera News quote.

Isabelle B.


=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte-at-yahoo.com



__________________________________________________
http://im.yahoo.com