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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