Dear Linda and Vocalisters:
When classical singers sing in a recording studio their technique is definitely compromised because they are trained to sing in a larger venue with a reverb that they use as a bio-feedback. Any kind of monitors that can be heard while singing cannot give the same effect no matter how carefully they are programmed or planned. Recordings of classical singers have been a great boon to acquaint the public with the voices of our best singers in the last 75 years but they have also had a major effect on the techniques of these singers and not all of the effect is positive. The work of many singers who have done numerous studio recording can be studiend and in almost every case one will find that the singer gradually alters a well established technique toward one that works well only in the recording studio.
I have named some of these before, such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elizabeth Schwartskopf but there are many others including the singing of Caruso. In recordings that cover less than ten years in their careers one can hear vocal changes that normally occur only over 30 or so years. Perhaps these singers did not let these changes occur during their live performances. I cannot attest to that fact. But it is not difficult to hear the changes that occur in their recordings. I think we are now hearing the same effect in the singing of Thomas Hampson and others in the present day.
The singers least affected by this phenomena are those whose recordings were done in a proper sized hall or were recorded live in performance.
Today it is most common for opera impresarios to use audition recordings, usually CD's, to determine who they will hear for upcoming roles. Often those who record well do not sound well in the venue of the opera company because they recorded in a studio and had some reverb added by an audio engineer as is done in most commercial recordings. And, most suprisingly, very often these same opera impresarios cannot understand why the singer was so fine on the CD and so average in the hall.
In my opinion, recording of voices is an infant art that has not been well addressed by the recording industry but, instead, is evaluated by whether a recording will sell rather than if it is a more accurate reproduction of the sound of the voice in a live performance in a proper venue.
I know of few classical trained voices that record well in a studio environment.
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