Lloyd wrote:
>But most
> of the ideas expressed seem to more reflect the viewers prejudices
> than address the actual elements of the art form.
Do you really think a story, with a plot, a text, characters, etc, is not
actually meant to be a 'sung play'? If it were not, it wouldn't have that
format. Singers would be making sounds only ( probably vowels ) in no
language, and the voice would be just another instrument.
What you said has more to do with pop songs and purely instrumental music
than with opera. A pop song may be completely 'disconnected' from the whole
( regardless of that, pop singers try to make a Cd that 'sticks together',
to avoid a musical mosaic ) , but I don't agree it should be like that in
opera. I think what you referred to as being the specificity of an art form
is actually thet consequence of the present time Olympic parameter applied
to music: an end in itself!
> However, if that same singer acts well and sings the vowel line
> required by the music written for her but is not easily understood,
> the art form still stands and stands well regardless of a loss of
> word content.
Of course, but that's for the same reason why people who can't speak English
like to listen to music with lyrics in English, for instance. I does not
assure people will get the msg across ( and the character in opera is
carrying a msg in the text, too, although the music is also meaningful ).
That reminds when I saw couples in Brazil dancing cheek to cheek to Elton
John's Daniel, the song for his dead brother,or a post on "Misundertood
Lyrics" about an Italian listening to "Angie", by the Rolling Stones, when
he said to the American couple: "It's incredible that such a beautiful song
talks about an 'Engine'".
Bye,
Caio Rossi
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