Vocalist.org archive


From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Thu Sep 21, 2000  2:15 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] College Ensemble Requirements: Choir vs. Opera



I still maintain my somewhat pig-headed conviction
that chorus singing is a waste of time for an opera
student (at best) and a dangerous reversal of
technique at worst.

I, and you, are being trained to stick out of a chorus
-- to cut through the big ensembles. If, for example,
I end up full-blown spinto at some point, I'm not
going to want to "blend" when Susannah and Aida are
singing full-blown lines right through a huge onstage
chorus. In Floyd's preaching scene, the chorus swells
up to a forte and Susannah cleaves right through them
with her "No"s -- and it's upper middle singing, right
through their upper-middle singing. Singers have to
be trained to pierce through a chorus; why are you
sabotaging your training, especially before your
technique is stable, by teaching yourself NOT to stick
out of a group? Not to mention the exploitation of
pianissimi that directors force upon unfinished
voices.

Duets and ensembles are still a matter of "cutting"
singing -- listen to any Cosi ensemble; you can pick
out every voice individually at every point.

If you can possibly get out of a chorus requirement,
do. If you can't, mouth your words -- sing in
falsetto if it doesn't fatigue you -- sing only your
"good" vowels (for me, the [i] and [e]) and mouth the
rest -- sing comfortably at a low dynamic level but
drop out of the pianissimi and the forte lines before
you start building tension -- do whatever you can to
fake your way through rehearsals and performances, and
get the requirement over with as soon as possible.
Just let your chorus director think you're one of
those soft-voice students he never hears. Then put
that vocal time into your practicing.

Or you can sing everything correctly, with ring and
cut, and practice seeing if you can (at the same
dynamic level as everyone else) stick out anyway.
Then when your director glares at you, say, "But I
have a naturally large instrument, I am a future
Butterfly/ Radames/Eboli/Wotan!" This tactic will
arouse the jealousy of your fellow students and the
ire of the director, however, so I think
mouthing/faking is a better choice. Or volunteer to
turn pages for the pianist.

I just think it's a waste of time. Opera chorus is
not so bad, since everyone in it is a trained singer
and directors have usually given up on the blend thing
and stick to staging (at least at San Francisco Opera,
where the chorus sounds horrible most of the time and
you can hear individual voices sticking out all over
the place). There are better ways of learning
sight-singing than by spending three hours a week NOT
cutting, NOT piercing, NOT sending your squillo out to
the back of the hall from the midst of 50 other
voices.

Isabelle B., opinionated as always

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




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