Do you people think that opera and lieder require different types of singing?
In a general sense, of course, principles of good technique are universal, although pop technique branches off from classical fairly early in the the training process. Classical technique is then all the same for a while, up to a point. Choral technique branches off first, allowing a singer to sustain a high, limited tessitura and produce a soft, blendable sound.
Opera and lieder technique certainly aren't exclusive like rock&roll and opera are (you can switch back and forth), but at some point does an artist have to specialize, in order to avoid being mediocre in both but spectacular in neither?
Think of the greatest operatic voices of the last 50 years or so... Callas, Tebaldi, Milanov, I know I'm just listing women, but fill in your own choices. Not especially known for being vehicles of the art song. Then think of the most outstanding lieder singers -- they're not the operatic superstars. I, for example, find Fischer-Dieskau's opera singing totally inappropriate in sound and style.
Let's accept that there are Voice From Heaven who could do everything, like Quasthoff and Jessye Norman -- but they are rare. I know someone's going to jump in and say, "What about X or Y and Z, who all gave recitals in Carnegie Hall once?" and "I heard Terfel sing Broadway songs last year and he was fabulous," etc. In the greater picture, opera stars don't sing a whole lot of lieder. Why does the typical bankable opera singer not make an equal share in lieder -- the ratio of the typical opera star's performanes of lieder is probably less than 20%. Why are "bankable" lieder singers so often associated with small voices and those who have met with limited onstage success in opera? Why aren't the operatic superstars singing as much lieder as opera?
Is there a stigma associating lieder with "easy" singing and operatic music with more advanced technique? Do small voices sound better in lieder, because they are better able to articulate diction and produce vocal "effects" without sacrificing technique? This might make sense because lighter/brighter/clearer voices are more understandable, in terms of diction, than naturally dramatic, dark voices, and the stereotype is that words are the most important part of lieder singing.
It might also be that opera pays better than lieder -- but many opera singers show no interest in lieder. Is it due to performing traditions, and the fact that we "expect" French melodie to sound like that mosquito-voiced Ameling, while we expect Italian opera to have the tone quality of a Tebaldi? Is it thus a self-perpetuating cycle, broken only momentarily by singer who are not afraid to bring a full-voiced tone into lieder (like Norman), but quickly swallowed up again by the McNairs and Upshaws and Bonneys with the accepted vocal sound for art song?
Or are the technical demands simply different? Just like a choral singer needs a different set of skills (we've talked about blending vs. cutting through a chorus before), does a lieder singer need a chiaro-heavy tone with the ability to sacrifice tone quality for diction, while the opera singer needs a more dramatic/declamatory tone, making the voice and emotional thrust more a vehicle for expression than perfect diction? Or just a small voice vs. big voice thing, with all the stigma that goes along with that?
Some thoughts on a Monday morning.
Isabelle B.
===== Isabelle Bracamonte San Francisco, CA ibracamonte@y... ibracamonte@y...
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