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From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Sun Apr 9, 2000  5:15 am
Subject:  speaking of Italian diction


All right... Moriarty says that "e" and "o" preceding
a stressed syllable is closed, and "e" and "o"
following a stressed syllable is open. Stressed "e"
and "o" are variable -- you have to look them up.

[Question 1: But where? I've seen oodles of
dictionaries that contradict each other... is the
Zingarelli the standard?]

Do you professors teach this, too? My Italian diction
tutor from Milan closes her ending vowels, as well as
most stressed ones (bene, for example). My Italian
professor in university, from Florence, used to close
most of her endings and precedings, but left most of
her stresses open (especially "o" -- she tended to
close most of her "e"s). A friend sent me a copy of
her diction worksheet from IU (Indiana), in which her
professor said to OPEN the pre-stressed vowels and
CLOSE the ending ones.

Did Moriarty just make it up, or what? Is there a
"standard" Italian set of rules that most Americans
follow?

Do native Italians sing in their regional dialects,
closed and open as they are, or do they conform to
some sort of Hoch-Italian standard within the operatic
world?

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...




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  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
302 Re: speaking of Italian diction Karen Mercedes   Sun  4/9/2000   2 KB
346 Re: speaking of Italian diction Naomi Gurt Lind   Mon  4/10/2000   3 KB
437 Re: speaking of Italian diction Margaret Harrison   Wed  4/12/2000   3 KB

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