On Sat, 8 Jun 2002 08:59:24 -0500 "Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...>
wrote:
>>Much fun is made of "opera acting" as if the two words are a contradiction in
terms similar to "honest attorney" or "clean roommate". It is a reputation that
is well earned.
Of course, that wasn't my intent in writing the term, as I'm sure Lloyd knows.
(In any event, it's a great idea for a thread.) That's because on the
professional opera stage, more often than not, what I see is good opera acting.
But I use the qualifier, because I think it's an entirely different discipline
from stage acting. The goal may be the same, but the means of achieving it are
very different.
>>One can add to this the extremely poor attempt made by many university/college
opera programs toward teaching acting for the singer. Often the necessity of
training the voice supercedes the
training of the actor and the combination of singer-actor becomes lopsided
toward the former at the expense of the latter.
I've seen more of this achieved outside the academic setting - in workshops like
Crittenden's and others, summer programs, & opera company young artist programs.
However, perhaps that's as it should be. I think the most important thing for
an opera singer is to get the voice right. I think singers that get to the
opera stage without that solid technical grounding, however acquired
(college/university or private study), shorten their careers by many yeras. I'm
sure we all know of examples of opera performers who made a splash for a brief
period, but whose careers had dried up before age 50. And others who are still
packing them in at 60+.
So if the college/university primarily has singers young in age who are still
mastering their instruments, I think the voice mastery has to come first. While
theoretcally one can work both at the same time, I think as a practical matter,
one's attention can only be divided so much before mastery of both disciplines
attempted suffers.
In the case of the production I saw, there was a wide range of ages and
experiences. And some performers, including the tenor I mentioned, are naturals
- they have the right instincts without it being taught - and what they'll get
from further study and experience is refinement of those instincts.
>>I would add that, in my opinion, we see very little good acting in our popular
media such as TV and Cinema. Instead we are confronted daily with
"personalities" which passes for acting.
I don't know that I agree. I see lots of good acting. But lots of horrible
writing and movie-making. It's hard for bad writing to make any but the most
idiosyncratic actor (whom we'd be happy to watch read the phone book) look
decent.
Peggy
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