Hello Linda and Vocalisters:
I must jump in here before there is additional misunderstanding of my comments about the vocal demands of opera.
I was attempting to define what I consider to be the vocal requirements of the opera genre. I was also expressing concern that not a few of the well promoted and most successful crop of new opera singers have replaced the most obvious demands of opera singing with other values. In particular, the topic revolved around the attempt to improve diction but at the expense of maintaining a required singing line (which I called a "vowel line")
Nothing in my comments should be taken as a purists view that opera must only be sung by the best, only that opera should be sung by those who more accurately attempt to reproduce its intent. This can be done in student productions as well as professional productions. I have made it very clear in other posts that I enjoy the work of young professionals in regional companies for whom the opera performance experience is still exciting and alive more than the often indifferent performances of established professionals who have a career to uphold.
I was not even addressing the all too common occurrence of a singer cast in a role that is "too much" for him/her at their present stage of vocal development. I was condemning singers who replace the demands of a role with their personality trademarks, especially if these personality "things" are an expression of lack of technical proficiency, which is often the case in recent years.
Regards -- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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