i see three impediments to good acting in opera. first, there is the concern for vocal technique. in the case of a lot of singers, they are just concerned with how they sound and don't spend anything even close to the same amount of time and effort on their acting so, why should they be good actors? also, and probably a more legitimate concern is that, so many singers are taught static positions under the heading of 'posture'. at the extreme, for example, there are teachers who teach their students to have their ribs constantly extended while tucking their pelvis under. can you imagine walking across a stage like that? characters move onstage, singers in their lessons stand still and are often manipulated into positions by their teachers. these students will often take a lot of classes in body work (alexander tech., tai-chi, fencing, etc.) but, the benefits of that body work are almost never incorporated into voice lessons. where the movement of a character is an essential part of realizing that being, inhibiting a singer's movement is an impediment to finding the movement of the character (unless that character is having some sort of medical examination).
secondly, characters talk. singers almost always start with the music. i think this is a huge mistake. the text has rhythms in it that can be easily overwhelmed by the rhythms of the music. these rhythms vary, depending on the intention of the speaker. unless attention is paid to these text rhythms first, it is nearly impossible for most singers to incorporate them into their singing if, they started with the music and have already made decisions regarding phrasing, before considering the text. and while music may represent the inner emotions of the character, it is the text that supplies the detail. (from an acting standpoint, there is only so much generalized crying one can take.)
lastly, the current standard for non sung acting, is that it must create the delusion of being realistic. i would blame the success of the lee strasberg approach for this. and, while this form of acting has brought about many fabulous cinematic events, it hardly translates well to the stage. the camera picks up mumbling and a slight change in glance, the people sitting behind the tenth row of an opera house, do not. add the time distortion of singing, especially in opera, and the urge to appear 'realistic' becomes totally foolish.
for opera acting to improve, there has to be an improvement in the way singing is taught. it cannot be taught as a static position where any variation threatens to lead to 'vocal ruin'. it has to be taught as a dynamic activity. (i don't really see this happening anytime soon.) i also believe that all singing has to begin with the text otherwise, singing is just a bunch of non specific moaning.
about twelve years ago, i saw a production of 'boheme' in boston. most of the singers were the usual opera stiffs. but, as marcello, vladimir chernov displayed a style of acting that alluded to the swashbuckling silent movies. it was almost as if he were dancing the character. i'm not saying that all opera acting has to be like this, only that there are styles of acting, other than the strasberg approach, that suit opera better because of its nature.
mike
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