| | From: Sally Bradshaw <songful@c...>
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2002 8:44 am
Subject: opera acting
| I have just returned from conducting masterclasses in Santa Barbara in the
building used for the Music Academy of the West.
I found that the bulk of my work was with singers studying arias. My work
with the singers centred on the acting of the music. It was the crucial
basis to getting the students I was working with to sing the music well.
There doesn't seem to be much point compartmentalising what is happening
when you perform:if you are thinking the thoughts of the character and
breathing with the writer/composer then the music will be easier to
deliver. In every case when the singer stepped back from self-consciousness
and really got inside the text of the aria their singing improved. They let
go of physical tension and rigidity in posture. The pieces varied from
Iphigenie to the Count in Figaro to Rusalka to Blanche Dubois. Opera acting
is obviously stiller and more intense than acting with dialogue and needs
to be much more economical in the interests of the singing but it is the
basis of the music. The aria exists because the text moved the composer to
write it and it has to be delivered with that thought in mind.
Just my experience
Sally
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