Margaret Harrison wrote:
> sopran@a... wrote:
> > ... Her performance just seemed more calculated to me... So what is it
that makes this
> difference? Is it personality, or training?
>
> ... And maybe I am different from many audience members. Some performers I
like have been
> criticized by some for being cold or wooden, but I appreciate their
performances because
> even though they are reserved, there is a sincerity of feeling that I like.
And an
> entertaining "chew the scenery" performance that many people adore can leave
me unsatisfied
> because it seems to be done for show... Peggy
As actors are sometimes referred to as plastic, might also voices be so
considered? IMHO,
technique contributes to the abilities of the voice to sing notes, but
not to convey the soul
of the individual, if there is one! Hasn't the media been using the
phrase "soulless society"
for a few years? Please forgive if this is becoming too metaphysical!
Again, IMHO this is an
observation of many "leading" singers since the 60's - some of them have
technique
(singing/acting), but are not expressing anything I care to hear or
watch. From an audience
standpoint (and after enjoying videos of the old Voice of Firestone
broadcasts with
enthusiastic audiences) we may not be the only ones who feel this way!
I really think
audiences (critics not necessarily included!) are extremely intelligent
and know intuitively
what's really going on. In 1900 Lilli Lehmann wrote it better than I -
"If every singer cannot become a famous (emphasized) artist, every
singer is at
least in duty bound to have learned something worth while, and to
do his best
according to his powers, as soon as he has to appear before any
public. As an
artist, he should not afford this public merely a cheap amusement,
but should
acquaint it with the most perfect embodiments of that art whose
sole task properly
is to ennoble the taste of mankind, and to bestow happiness; to
raise it above the
miseries of this workaday world, withdraw it from those miseries,
to idealize even
the most hateful things in human nature which it may have to
represent, without
departing from truth. But what is the attitude of artists toward
these tasks?"
"How to Sing" Lilli Lehmann, p.
148, Dover, ISBN 0-486-27501-9
$6.95 US
Diane Moore
Silicon Valley Soprano
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