Barry Bounous wrote:
> We have been enhancing our student singers in opera for quite a few > years. It has been very helpful to the singers (we boost the 2-3 khz > range and the 7-8 khz range) as well as to the orchestra which can now > play more freely. In using undergraduate singers in a 2000 seat hall > with orchestra, we find it more vocally prudent to enhance, as well as > giving a better experience to the audience. When you carefully boost > those limited frequency ranges (using ambient mikes not body mikes) the > result doesn't sound amplified - only clearer and more intelligible.
and
> We do it so that younger voices can have performance > opportunities. If the acoustics in a professional setting were VERY > unfavorable I might do it but I would make sure that the enhancements > were mentioned in the program. I view it in the same light as I do > supertitles - better without, but occasionally circumstances and > audiences might warrent it.
Professor, I don't mean this as a flame, but as a classical singer and opera fan I am SHOCKED that an academic institution would use electronics in a non-outdoor or non-stadium student presentation of opera.
Is this how the school is are training students to sing professional opera in the real world? It's one thing for an opera company that has bills to pay (and I don't like or support that, either, or patronize any I'm aware of), but this is a school, where the productions are SUPPOSED to be for the benefit of the students' LEARNING. How do they learn how to sing properly and use good technique under difficult circumstances if the school they are trusting to teach them properly, is not only condoning but even encouraging a crutch that they won't (or shouldn't) have in the real world?
Do the audiences know how they and the students are being cheated? Why are the students not performing in a smaller space with a smaller orchestra commensurate with the singers' capabilities? If the singers aren't capable of singing in a large hall with an orchestra, why is the school presenting full opera productions, rather than scenes in a large classroom setting with piano accompaniment? Or are college music programs becoming the same as big-time college athletic programs - not there for the purpose of learning but to bring in the paying customers and impress the alumni and parents?
I'll stop because I am VERY upset to read this. How many more colleges, conservatories and universities are making the same compromise? How many opera companies? In my opinion, this practice will destroy opera and classical singing more than any economic factors or perceived lack of mass public popularity for the art form. Electronics and the changes it has brought in performance practice is why I no longer have any respect for the marvelous indigenous American art-form of musical comedy.
Peggy
-- Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA "Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile" mailto:peggyh@i...
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