"Lloyd W. Hanson" wrote: When Upshaw "futzes > around" she is abandoning this vowel use requirement for the > literature she has chosen to sing and I find that unacceptable.
I hear some of this in her singing, but that's not all I mean. I hear effects with straight-tone vibrato-control which just make the voice sound not-pretty, when the music needs pretty. If you want to call all that "vowels", fine, but I doubt very much she's thinking about vowels. She's thinking special effects to try to imitate early music, or to give a special "oomph" to a particular word. I also think she lets herself get off her breath (do you call that vowels, too?), so the pitch can get weird sometimes, and she loses the legato in favor of the effects when I think legato is needed (especially in Mozart).
But if the singer emphasizes text above the music that new > "meaning" is lost and all one can say is that the text has been > "carried" by the music. For many, I would guess, this is all that > song is supposed to be; for me it is most unsatisfying.
I'm sure we're saying the same thing with different words. I love good diction, and the color and taste of great consonants, and I love it when the singer uses the voice to get at the meaning of the text (and subtext), and uses the words to give a phrase shape and motion. But I want the singer to do this AND maintain the legato and the line. It can be done - I happen to think Renee Fleming and Bryn Terfel do this superbly. And the marvelous baritone I heard this evening singing the Carmina Burana solos (rehearsing a performance my chorus is singing next Saturday).
Peggy
-- Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA "Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile" mailto:peggyh@i...
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