when the opera houses started getting larger (the met in '66 wasn't it?), the volume requirement for opera singers changed for the worst. along came hectoring and bellowing and a ridiculous obsession for giant voices rather than great singers.
to require a singer to be heard over a baroque orchestra or a mozart opera in a small hall is to take the voice out of its normal expressive range. the result being a conscious exageration. but to require a singer to be heard over a wagnerian orchestra in a huge hall designed primarily for accomodating as many paying fannies as one could get away with, is to make being heard the essential goal of the singer. "I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!" "WHAT DID YOU SAY, DEAR?" "I SAID...oh, nevermind"
the experience of listening to an opera on a recording is very different from hearing an opera live. it is obvious that a greater range of expression is available to the singer on a recording than is available to that singer in the opera barn. if you like the effect of limitations put on the singer by having to be heard in these conditions, congratulations, this is a golden era for you. but, if you find that the greater and greater priority for being heard to be causing a distortion of opera, making it something the composers of the past did not intend, you must either push for a return to appropriate venues or put up with miking.
mike (no pun intended)
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