Vocalist.org archive


From:  buzzcen@a...
buzzcen@a...
Date:  Wed Oct 11, 2000  11:55 am
Subject:  opera and speech


Obviously art is not meant to be an exact representation of reality. The
word (art) itself is derived from the word artifice. However it is a
heightened reflection of life and does need to reflect it accurately while
illuminating the underlying truths.

To me the form of opera is very artistic in that nature but its execution is
not at times. The libretto in opera is one of the chief elements in
conveying to dramatic line of the story. If the words cannot be understood,
the story is not being told in a sense.

The production of Streetcar Named Desire was a great example of this. Renee
Flemming's delivery of the text was so distorted by her preoccupation with
tone that subtitles had to be used. Other cast members in the production did
not have this problem. Their singing was of a high caliber yet you could
understand the text (or most of it). I really fail to see the point of a
vocal technique that renders the text unintelligible. This does not produce
a clear vowel line in the voice by any stretch of the imagination. In fact
it obliterates it by rendering the vowels indistinguishable.

This sort of vocal production found with many opera singers reduces the art
form to complete artifice that requires a very high level of knowledge and
education to appreciate. This artifice does not reflect the underlying truth
of the story at this point but the underlying truth of certain vocal
techniques found in opera in which style rules and dramatic integrity suffers
at its hand.

Randy Buescher


  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
5405 Re: opera and speech Bobby Kravitz   Wed  10/11/2000   3 KB
5419 Re: opera and speech Lloyd W. Hanson   Wed  10/11/2000   4 KB
5429 Re: opera and speech thomas mark montgomery   Wed  10/11/2000   3 KB
5420 Re: opera and speech LYNDA313@a...   Wed  10/11/2000   3 KB
5421 Re: opera and speech RALUCOB@a...   Wed  10/11/2000   3 KB
5437 Re: opera and speech mikebarb@n...   Wed  10/11/2000   4 KB
5468 Re: opera and speech Linda Fox   Thu  10/12/2000   7 KB
5477 Re: opera and speech Lloyd W. Hanson   Thu  10/12/2000   3 KB
5469 Re: opera and speech Linda Fox   Thu  10/12/2000   7 KB

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