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From:  Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...>
Margaret Harrison <peggyh@i...>
Date:  Sat Mar 17, 2001  6:30 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] miking/enhancing in opera?


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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