Barbara Gentili

Italian Opera Singing at the Time of Verismo (eBook, PDF)

The Invention of the Modern Voice

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Connects discussions of vocality and operatic culture with broader aesthetic and cultural shifts in society.

In the decades that span the turn of the twentieth century, the Italian tradition of operatic singing became 'modern'. This book identifies and explores the formative elements of this multifaceted 'modernity', and its connections with the emergence of verismo, a realistic trend that affected every aspect of creative and intellectual life in fin-de-siècle Italy. Thisnovel approach to artistic representation meant that singers had to redefine the operatic voice, exchanging the bel canto ideal of 'pure' vocal quality with an irreversible gendered connotation and an erotically charged expressive force. Pivotal to this shift was the gradual development of a homogeneous vocal colour through the compass, an aesthetic principle that was alien to the voice culture of the previous centuries. Star singers such as Enrico Caruso, Titta Ruffo, Emma Carelli and Eugenia Burzio were instrumental in this radical transition.

The book explores how and why modern singers consciously pursued a new vocal expressivity, illuminating the ways in which the changes they introduced in their vocal techniques yielded novel stylistic gestures, and ultimately shaped operatic culture.Through a comparative analysis of early vocal recordings and late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century vocal methods and drawing on archival research in London, Milan, Rome and Buenos Aires, the book connects discussions of vocality and operatic culture with broader aesthetic and cultural shifts in society. Italian Opera Singing at the Time of Verismo, will be of interest to scholars and students of opera history, performance studies and recording history, as well as voice coaches and professional singers.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cokesbury
• Seitenzahl: 194
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. September 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781805434139
• Artikelnr.: 72310976

Autorenporträt

BARBARA GENTILI is Surrey Future Senior Fellow at the University of Surrey. She holds a PhD in Musicology from the Royal College of Music. She is also an accomplished soprano and opera singer.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction 1 Changing Italian Opera: Verismo, Singers and the Foreigners
Framing Verismo The Features of Verismo Singing: New Demands on Modern
Singers The French, Changes in Dramaturgy and Librettos Winds of Change
from the North The Anti-Modern Crusade of Vocal Pedagogues 2 Vocal
Registers: Defining Key Terms The Concept of Vocal Register Register
Division Theories Survey of Key Historical Vocal Treatises Aesthetics of
Vocal Registration in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century 3 The
Components of Modern Singing A Few Essentials of Modern Singing Bel Canto
Encounters Verismo: Nellie Melba versus Emma Carelli More on the Passaggio:
Mattia Battistini versus Titta Ruffo and the Veristizzazione of Bel Canto
The Granitic Diction of the Modern Singer 4 The Pathway to Modern Singing:
The Tenor at the Time of Caruso In Search of Modernity Caruso's
'Naturalness' and 'Spontaneity': Between Production and Reception The Top C
'from the Chest': Between the Myth and the Recorded Evidence Some
Preliminary Conclusions on the Natural Singing of Caruso 5 Italian Sopranos
and the Disruption of Tradition The Verismo Sopranos Eugenia Burzio and
Emma Carelli The Chest Voice on Record The Medium Register: Vocal
Modulations and the Spoken Theatre The Upper Register Conclusions
Bibliography Discography Index