Please watch Style or Technique next: ruclips.net/video/5o-rE_mxc_8/видео.html - I created it to respond to some of your most common questions from this video, but for some reason RUclips in its wisdom never recommends it so almost no one has watched it!
This video is simultaneously "right on the money" and "way off base". I completely agree that the modern style of opera singing is, well, just horrible. Singers seem to revel in singing horribly out of tune (owing to excessive vibrato) and no amount of articulation can render the lyrics understandable. The use of always-present vibrato has also infected violin and flute pedagogy, such that the ever present vibrato conveys no emotion (because it is always present). So then, why do I claim that this video is also "way off base"? Because I believe that better singers would not be run off the stage by music patrons. Rather, they are not allowed to breach the current "correct technique" rules by those gatekeepers that say who is and who isn't a serious singer. You can't applaud a good singer who isn't hired because some mis-trained expert thinks they have no technique. Really, the biggest complaint I have about this video is that it assigns far too much power to the idea that only classically trained singers (and musicians) get to decide what constitutes the pinnacle of singing (or playing) technique. The message seems to be "we used to know how to sing properly, now all is lost (almost, maybe?)". My claim is that today there are plenty of "untrained" superb singers who sing with good technique, and are a delight to listen to. And we will always have those singers. They just exist outside what I call the "classical/opera music universe". Opera is (IMHO) doomed, because the singing is so bad it will never find a mass audience. Since this rant is already far too long, I will just present one example of what I consider to be good singing, from singers who had the good fortune to have never encountered a singing teacher trained in the "correct" style: ruclips.net/video/BVyLOU5Xs3w/видео.html If you have never heard these lyrics, notice how easily you can understand every word, from these completely "untrained" but very serious singers.
I like the older styles you presented. What about early Iranian hymns/later "Byzantine" chants/later "Islamic prayer singing"? Opera is an offshoot of this and it would sound closer to this in its earliest forms. In my humble opinion.
I am desperate. This style of singing isn't taught anymore. But it is the one I love listening to, the one I would like to adopt myself. I don't know what to do, read? I don't know where to look for the right books. Manuel Garcia is a start of course, thank God.
If you are interested in late 19th and early 20th Century music you could get into collecting 78rpm records! Aside from Caruso, there are MANY record stars much better than what we have today, and a record in good condition will give you a better experience than any "audiophlie" modern interpretation. My recommendations: >Ferruccio Giannini (his Victor recordings are pretty good, but his Berliner pressings not so much) >Caruso (he may be really stereotypical but some of his records are still heard to this day) >Adelina Patti (first diva❤) >Emma Calvé >Nellie Melba >Pol Galçon (basso bel cantor, his G&T recordings are really old but still get a pass into modern history) >Hermann Jadlowker (tenor bel cantor, his "Ecco Ridente dil Cielo" (Barbiere i Siviglia) aria is a staple of bel canto EVER) >Emilio Sagi-Barba (he sung mostly zarzuela but still has some good operas) >Julian Biel (recorded as Giuliano Biel) (another G&T singer, but he usually recorded obscure operas, you should give him a listen)
As a former ballet dancer, I'm seeing so many parallels between the evolution of modern opera technique and the rising trends within ballet of every ballerina being stick-thin and hyperflexible and the performance focused more on showing off skills than expressing the story.
I think about this a lot. There's been an impulse to move away from stylized gestures and towards greater naturalism without balancing the too, and I don't think it's conducive to either art form where the musical element sort of demands you be elemental and larger than life. I swear I don't worship at the altar of Callas, but just from looking at a single picture of her on stage, the grand pose she strikes oozes with emotional specificity and expression.
@@nicolina1026 I hate him so much, especially the fact that many ballet dancers and schools practically worship him. He was a bad person and changed ballet for the worst.
My main complaint about modern opera singing styles is that too often the vibrato is so heavy that I can't even tell which note they're singing or whether they're really in tune with the rest of the music.
The great English conductor Sir Roger Norrington (now retired), known for historically informed performances, has a lecture (which can be read in the archives of the New York Times), about how vibrato is actually a development of the 20th century (the worst century since the 12th). According to Norrington, classical musicians did not employ vibrato until violinist Fritz Kreisler began using it in his solo performances during the 1930s. Kreisler often played Gypsy tunes which were then very popular, and vibrato caught on, even in ensembles such as orchestras. Yes, if one listens to old recordings of opera stars such as Nellie Melba or Luisa Tetrazzini or Erna Sack (my favorite), there is _some_ vibrato, but nothing like the police-siren vibrato which became more and more common, until it became standard the 1950s in both classical and pop music. Norrington began a movement to perform music in the style of the era in which it was written. Thus, for Baroque opera, instead of a soprano with a wide vibrato such as June Anderson, he would cast English soprano Emma Kirkby (né, 1949), who sang with _no vibrato at all_ ! Listen to the singing of Emma Kirkby and it sounds far more pleasing. You can listen to her singing for hours and not grow tired of it. Likewise, orchestras playing without vibrato sound "clean" and more harmonious. Another example is the style of British brass bands which were popular in the 20th century. They all played with a heavy vibrato, which (to American ears) gave them a weak and tinny sound, compared with the modern sound of the late Rolf Smedvig and the Empire Brass who preferred accurate intonation and no vibrato.
@@KeithOtisEdwards Baroque doesn't have vibrato. It has "ornaments", which are very precise (closer to melisma), and to be used sparingly. All the arts have them in their own way. In dance, it's the arms. The artist chose the ornament themselves, they're not written. The artistry of the performer was judged on their choice.
THIS. The flawed vibrato just prevents any enjoyment in the music. If your vibrato is going to be an awful wobble blurring the pitch you're singing, you might as well sing straight notes only.
It does seem that opera has become a caricature of itself. I love opera best when it remembers that it is telling a story and the performers don’t wallow in their vocal acrobatics but instead tell us a good story with beautiful singing with genuine emotion. Thanks for the informative video and its creative delivery.
@Ponyboy Depraved? What an absurd comment! Most of us modern opera lovers want the characters to be believable as human beings not some loud mouthed robot waving arms around in meaningless fashion.
@Ponyboy You are speaking a lot of twaddle. I have been to opera houses in Argentina (BA), London, Naples, Sydney among others and have never had difficulty hearing many very fine singers. This obsession with the older singers is quite tiresome. How do you compare Del Monaco with Tito Schipa for example? One was very loud and the other very refined but you would have no difficulty hearing either from the back the theatre. Clearly they had very different techniques. Was Gigli better than Di Stefano? Was Joan Sutherland better than Nellie Melba? A poll was taken years ago of many English critics asking who was the greatest tenor of the 20th century. The winner was Domingo. I did not agree with that assessment despite being an admirer of Domingo. Just taking the aria O mio babbino caro. The best version I ever heard was by a student in a conservatorium production. Her voice was very good but not great, however her delivery of the aria was quite superb. The full realisation hit me that being convincing in the role was more important than having a great voice. Callas is a classic example of someone who had a great voice but was also convincing in her roles. If you can get both then great. I hardly imagine from clips of Del Monaco that his roles would have been devoid of operatic mannerisms. Even Corelli is hard to listen to singing an album of Italian arias whereas Jon Vickers singing same has far more variety and musicality. Where do you place Caruso? Or Bjorling? Or Wunderlich? These are my heroes but I don't waste my time comparing them to modern singers.
@Ponyboy While I can agree with much of what you say i do believe you are still far too obsessed by the emphasis on vocal technique. Obviously it is very important but in the modern era audiences are not prepared to accept any kind of artificiality, and opera by its very nature is artificial. It is why musical theatre is far more popular than opera world wide and it is why teachers accepted a long time ago singers needed to be much more natural than the traditional opera singer. You mention Jerry Hadley who, along with many American singers was able to crossover quite effortlessly. I presume when you wrote 'ex' you meant example. I would happily include Hadley in my list of admired singers and interestingly he had very similar views as you on technique. One of the disappointments of my life was dragging friends along to hear him in a performance of Butterfly where he failed to excite me or my friends. I am still very saddened by his death very soon after. However it did remind me how difficult is the life of a modern opera singer. Netrebko is a singer who gets a lot of flak but I believe much of her popularity came from her inate ability to be completely natural in the roles she played. I still admire her courage and up until recent tragic events she continued to have a big following world wide, deserved or not. We could discuss various singers for years and still never agree on the main point. Opera does not have a great following today because the singers do not have have the great techniques they used to have. I believe that to be a completely false premise. It is why directors attempt to make productions different, relevant and exciting. Sometimes they fail but it is that attempt at originality that makes opera exciting today and if the singing is exceptional that is a great bonus. But great singing alone will not keep filling opera houses as they did in the old days. Those days are long gone..
@Ponyboy I probably witnessed a trained opera singer performing to 200-300 people unamplified, and it was very loud with windows vibrating along with his voice. He didn't shout either, and his technique seemed proper to me, compareable to the pre-1950s records I saw in music history class (there definitely were some 1930s choir and orchestra records. Alexander Nevsky the kantata, 1938 for example. ) per. He would be definitely ok performing to a thousand people at an old-school opera hall or amphitheatre that works as an acoustic amplifier itself. His first teacher was my first teacher, we were mostly starting training in a class that could fit a full-size grand piano and up to 40 people so we are ok i think. My voice is pretty modest considering that I was just the music school choir alto, but it's pretty loud and I utilise singing and breathing techniques instead of screaming when I need to be really loud. Like, announcing something in the lecturing hall, where may be 200 people chatting, and 25 of them randomly are my group. Screaming does only mix in the chatting, so instead i hit a few high-pitched notes that travel distances well and are way higher than an average person's speaking voice, so I gain instant attention, and then I sing the message with one of the melodies i know... My groupmates don't like this way of communication, but they agree that's effective. I've been to the Epidaurus the largest antique amphitheatre, and I sang several romances there. My voice was able to reach out all the way the highest rows with no added pressure or screaming, it's just the correct breathing techniques. The singers who can't do it are either at s wrong place or haven't mastered the very basics taught during the first years of music school. As long as I witnessed the singers in my school and in records - they breathe correct, I hear it.
This video was eye, well earned, opening. I’ve always wondered why I couldn’t understand what words most modern opera singers were singing unless I read the lyrics as they sing. Then I listened to older recordings and found that I was able to understand much more, not just the lyrics, but the emotions they were portraying
This is exactly what I have planned for this channel! Unfortunately, Life has decided to put it on hold for a couple of weeks. Please stay tuned and normal service will resume shortly.
@@PhantomsoftheOpera Wonderful! Of course new content is lovely, but taking care of yourself and your own life is paramount. It's honestly just nice to hear Turandot and not feel seasick from the whole tone vibrato lol
Listen to Callas, you will have a part of the answer; her singing teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo was a pure product of the Garcia school, which itself proceeded of the castrati's art.
My highschool choir director teaches the Bel Canto style. Literally everything you said I was thinking "wait not everybody does that?" So NO! Not all of them are gone, you can find some gems but it's probably quite hard.
My son had a voice teacher in California named Jeremy Silver who used old, old books to teach the old technical methods. My son no longer sings opera, but his voice has remained beautiful.
As somebody deeply immersed in musical theatre, I find it mildly amusing that the point about clarity of words and authenticity of expression is at the very core of (good) musical theatre that many classical singers look down on as "mere entertainment". Shocker: If you don't understand what somebody is "saying", you can't empathise, you aren't moved, you only observe an acrobat performing vocal gymnastics. Which certainly are impressive and moving in their own way at times but a far cry from what (the ghost of) Garcia jr. expresses here.
Interesting. A few years ago, just before the plague, I saw Fleming on Broadway in Carousel. I was expecting big things, but she fell flat. She has the loveliest voice on stage, but the rest of the cast (all Broadway singers) overshadowed her, because they had more energy and knew how to reach an audience and make the play relevant. Today relevance in opera is attempted by odd sets or costumes or even contrived sex. It usually is a grotesque failure. The producers sense that the operas need more relevance but they don't realize that the bellowing stars are not going to give it to them.
The issue with saying one is good singing and one is bad singing is that people will always prefer one sound to the other. Regardless of if modern operatic style is historically accurate, it is the modern preference for operatic sound. We need not forget that there are audiences for speech-like singing, whisper singing, metal & “screamo”, and all of the above. There is no single way to sing, and I will say that personally my ears preferred the “bad” examples you showed to the “good” ones… both of these styles still deserve to co-exist however, if you prefer one style then there should exist the vocal diversity in opera for whatever sound you like.
Speaking as a classical singer, you have to understand there are healthy and unhealthy ways to sing. Much of the “bad” technique and ways of singing is actually unhealthy. It leads to vocal damage. Some get away with it. Many do not and end up with nodes on their vocal folds. It relies on electronic amplification for projection rather than pure singing.
@@thomasbrodrecht6137 While I think your intention is probably good, and words like 'healthy' and 'pure' can make it sound like your argument is based in that good intention, I seriously doubt you would go up to indigenous folks around the world and let them know the way they've been singing since their cultures have existed is impure or unhealthy. There are seriously so many different theories and practices in vocal performance, not every culture or people share your same values in the 'correctness' in singing. I truly believe that contemporary modes of singing are a blend of cultures in a post-internet age in which we borrow from many other otherwise unreachable cultures to speak to the many people that exist now that are within metaphorical earshot that sound the same way. Do you believe Maori should stop haka because it can damage their voices? After 700 years? It is simply a different set of cultural values. I think you absolutely have a right to perform with the values you deem fit for yourself and I encourage you to do so, as that often leads to community and a sense of self-fulfillment. I also think it's important to recognize not every person has the same end goal or means to get there.
@@BigFinnable these are different art forms we're talking about. opera is very demanding and specific; to be able to get the most out of the sound, the technique needs to be correct and healthy which willl not only preserve the voice, but give it the sound that it requires. though i'm not a fan of the examples she provided. traditional singing is different and has its own set of rules on how it should be done. if that technique happens to be unhealthy, though, i would take notice of that and mention it
Then you haven't learned very much. Bringing back what this woman is suggesting is ridiculous. You can't sing Verdi and Puccini with a "baroque" style technique of singing. Yes, it would be laughed off the stage and for good reason. When Caruso came on the scene, his voice revolutionized the way we understand the singing voice. There was a pathos in his voice; he used the instrument to express emotion; there was squillo. Was that bad? No, but it was new. Bel Canto style is not a technique of sound, it is an interpretation of music from a vocal perspective. We have absolutely no idea how Caruso, Ruffo, Destin and Galli-Curci sounded in the opera house. I can tell you outright. The development of singing changes with the wants of the audience; be it positive or negative. In the mid part of the 20th century, singing was much different than it had been 100 years earlier. Was it better? I really don't know, but it was very different. It took that difference, which gave validity to music that required more voice, more passion and more drama. I don't want Emma Kirkby or Julia Lehzneva to sing Mimi or the Forza Leonora. Just as I would not want Renata Tebaldi or Leontyne Price to sing Handel's Cleopatra.
@@Campuscoll⋅ « When Caruso came on the scene, his voice revolutionized the way we understand the singing voice » Is that such a well known fact, or can you give a source for that assertion? « The development of singing changes with the wants of the audience » Supply & demand, it seems logical. If Ziazan wants to create a restorationist bel canto school, it's more supply at the end of the day… « You can't sing Verdi and Puccini with a "baroque" style technique of singing » It's just a synthesis of what she was taught + early musical recordings, not certified baroque singing. It is closer to Puccini than it is to Monteverdi. Speaking of Monteverdi, this video shows how to reconstruct a song from Monteverdi to make it sound a little bit more similar to the original interpretations of it. → ruclips.net/video/Mr7xXMexKKU/видео.html
@@Campuscoll What is Baroque about Kirkby? And what exactly was so revolutionary about Caruso? Affre and Escalaïs weren't doing the same things? Tamagno? Marconi? De Reszke? The singing in the mid 20th century was WAY worse. Worse trills, worse coloratura, worse pianissimi, worse messe di voce, worse vibrato, worse longevity, worse everything you can imagine.
As a harpsichordist who started from piano, I've had to unlearn a lot of the 19th century reinterpretations of Baroque and early Classical music. This channel is a breath of fresh air, I'm so glad to have discovered it! Solidarity in the struggle to keep the original musical traditions alive!
As an organist (and harpsichordist) Who came from piano, and went through conservatory in the early 80s, I experienced A great deal controversy in the change of style and performance techniques from early eras to modern eras, especially depending on the type of instrument I was playing. Bottom line… Everyone’s interpretation of music is different, and there is no one right or wrong way. That is what makes it art, and interpretation.
Your channel makes me smile so much. Even as a younger person, i hated listening to most modern opera but adored older recordings, the older the better, but it was hard to articulate why. You're able to articulate it expertly, and it's thrilling to know i wasn't alone in these opinions.
Your teacher's voice is absolutely stunning. I always felt odd that all my favourite singers were pre-1960ish and have always abhorred the fake dark sound of modern singers (mezzos being especially guilty of this) and that I was never taught to sing with a lowered larynx. In fact I've never thought of my larynx at all when singing.
This makes me feel better because my old vocal coach tried to teach me to keep my larynx low and from a vocal injury, I know I should not be messing with my larynx.
@@TJLovt The worst thing is that a singer who does this, as he ages, these shenanigans of moving the larynx around becomes more unpredictable for the singer. The voice becomes more unpredictable in its ability to cooperate "on-call," as it is. So you see these kinds of singers sweating bullets in their older years as they try to make the voice cooperate on stage, but the voice isn't doing it. Alfredo Kraus is a great example of this.
The only modern opera tenor still living who I think sounds like a real pre-1960s tenor is Jaime Aragall. Notice, I didn't say Luciano or Placido. Though I think Luciano's voice is passable.
Hm what are some examples of this "fake dark sound"? Is what Dimitrova does as Abigaille an example of this, or is that sth else? (Cause it sounds awesome lol.)
"how does a singer transmit emotion to an audience? By feeling strongly himself" YES!!! yes yes yes!! becoming your character is essential! the audience can tell the difference when one is not fully mentally and emotionally committed, this is why some dramas aren't performed by the actors more than 4 runs or so, or once they finish performing they have to make a drastic lifestyle change, because their role is genuinely emotionally taxing.
I am not a singer myself, only in the shower like most of us! But doesn't what you describe, and I ask with feeble knowledge, apply to all kinds of stage singing? I'm sure I would want, nay require, the actors to present their parts and characters no less than an actor in any other form of presentation!
@@Britgirl58 Yes, you're right it does apply to any kind of stage singing, however it factors in with opera because the art form takes so much more work to produce a sound that will fill up a large space, the substitutions and portrayal of emotions can help with the enunciation, at least that's my opinion.
What I have noticed is that singers are extremely hard to tell apart nowadays, and also the epidemic of shaking jaws among singers. I'm actually shocked when a singer doesn't look like they're chewing as they sing.
It is not that hard to tell the difference if you hear them live. Many opera houses run double casts. Hear 2 different singers doing the same role and then try to convince me you can't tell them apart.
I love classical music, but I'm not an opera fan. However, because of the title of this video, and then because of your extremely creative presentation, I watched the whole thing. As a non-opera fan, let me just say: this was delightful! Lots of variety in methods of presentation, easy to follow, amusing + good use of humor, and little to no jargon that only insiders could be expected to know. I'm so glad you are posting on something you're interested in -- and kudos for making it appealing to people who aren't even fans!
That was fun and informative! I'm an old audio technician, an architect wanabee and a singer wanabee. I have stuffed a long series of sound systems into churches and built a bunch of speakers. It is interesting to me to have this conversation with musicians and various techs because they have very different language and criteria even though they really want the same beautiful thing, great meaningful sound. The silence between the notes is nearly as important as the voice. Audiologists tell us that the human ear is 5dB more sensitive to sounds in the range from 1kHz to 5kHz, and that most of the nuances of language reside there. Moms can hear their baby crying a mile away. When building a PA speaker, intelligibility is engineered into the midrange. Sound engineers do their best to produce intelligibility. After tuning the room out of the sound system, they often will suppress the midrange band from 1k to 5k by 5 dB to improve the experience of the show. This intelligibility is, IMO, the same thing your Bel canto singers were working toward in an opera house that is engineered to support and project their sound (like Carnegie etc.). Modern venues with electronic sound are engineered to be as acoustically absorbent as possible. The sound is propagated from the speaker array, through the listening area exactly once, and then dies away never to return, absorbed by that dead back wall. The microphones and signal processors do most of the work to bring us the intelligibility we seek. In Bel canto, the room is part of the voice. But, the room is the sound tech's worst enemy. How do these people even talk to each other? It is not easy!
Me, too. I was trained in this style is singing but then didn't pursue opera professionally because...well, I had the wrong sound. But the feeling was mutual because I don't care for the modern opera singer's sound. I moved on to other musical genres. But I didn't know I was a dying breed. Goodness! Thanks for starting this great channel!
Alessandro Moreschi (the last castrato )was recorded in 1904 (his last recording.) It’s amazing we got an idea of that amazing voice of what a castrato sounded like as they are extinct now.
Loved it. I am 58 and now in the process of "vocal therapy" so that I can keep singing. I believe I'm learning something of what you are posting about with my wonder-teacher, Phyllis Knox. Thanks for your informative, fun, and somatically affecting vlog!
This is incredible. Thanks for this. I knew something was weird back when I quit my vocal performance degree because my voice was getting ‘ugly’. I so didn’t want to sound that way. I felt so protective over my voice because I prefer a more ‘innocent’ sound. I couldn’t explain it, tho. Ya know, why I felt that way. I’ve realized it, now. 🙏🏾
One of my friends in college quit for the same reason. Being a vocal major was ruining her voice-making it ugly. She lost the sweetness in her tone. She went to her final jury and sang “The Sound of Music” as kind of a send off to her instructors. To this day I struggle with opera. Those I know who sing it are complete snobs and while I’m a classical music fanatic, I just can’t even come to an appreciation of opera or those who have been trained in the current methods even when they *gasp* sing other genres. It’s the same thing that’s happened to gymnastics and ice skating.
That’s fascinating to read, because I also quit singing after 10 years, for more or less the same reason. I didn’t like the so called technique they wanted my voice to squeeze into, it didn’t feel natural, it didn’t sound good (although I have a naturally sweet and beautiful sounding voice). I still didn’t quit the idea of learning to sing , but in a different way. And learning more and more about the old bel canto. Maybe one day I’ll still find a teacher.
Very entertaining video. One thought: I feel that your theory falls apart when you try and stretch 19th century stylistic ideals into the Baroque period. Does what a 19th century person wrote about singing have much to do with what was considered good taste when singing in 17th century France? Aren't the technical ideals that you've quoted from Manuel Garcia jr completely contradicted by Giulo Caccini's preface on rhetorical singing? The 19th century Bel canto style and the 17th century text-centric style seem to be polar opposites, from what I can tell. So perhaps your theory would be slightly refined if you only said that operatic vocal technique has changed since the 19th century (for the worse, as you say) and quote the ideals of 19th century thinkers but then leave it to that.
not only that, but the video seems to assume that going back in time, there was only one specific way of singing opera, to which I don't agree. The history of opera is full of changes in taste, and thus in vocal techniques, depending on what was considered important and "good" in that moment. Plus, the further back you go, the more you'll start to see the small (and big) differences between how opera was sung in different countries.
@@mariaghilotti742 Louis XIV even had a singing school established because the techniques of the day were so all over the place. 100 years later, Casanova touched on the huge differences in style that sill existed in each country.
I think the important point wasn't that the style from Garcia's time is correct for Baroque music, but that our interpretation of what is correct has changed since then and that quite possibly neither way is 'correct'. Ziazan doesn't really discuss whether she thinks the recording Garcia plays is all correct, although she does seem to react positively to the rubato, which we are promised a future video on. Others are correct that there has always been more than one way to sing opera. This biggest takeaway I got from this video is precisely the fact that we have been gravitating towards only approving one particular way of doing it, and that's not a good thing.
I knew one day you would come! Like you, I've rejected the modern orthodoxy concerning singing technique and interpretation, and thought I was alone in maintaining this stance. My story: I started my first voice lesson as a sophomore in college in 1994. Before then, I had no idea about opera and was convinced to become a voice major by the guys in my acapella group that were far more knowledgeable on vocal matters. I auditioned and was accepted into the voice program. Curious, I went to the library to conduct my own research on my voice type, and there I discovered all the records from the great 19th century singers. From there, it was only a short skip and a hop until I discovered the Big Boys, Handel, Bach, Mozart, Gluck, etc. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! The librarians all came to know me, for I spent every hour of every day in the Fine Arts library - they had to throw me out when the library closed each evening. I copied every single aria written by Handel, synthesized them into midi files (remember those?) so that I had a complete orchestral accompaniment when I practiced. After digesting all the works of the Big Boys, (I even copied, studied and synthesized all the works of Wagner, Mahler & Strauss) I then moved on to lesser known 18th century composers like Porpora, Hasse, Leo, the Scarlattis, Vinci, Jommelli, Sarti...before I knew it, I had stumbled upon the castrati. That changed my world FOREVER! I delved head first into this phenomenon, ordering books via the inter-library loan system from all over the country. My partner in crime, my voice professor, would lend me her staff ID which allowed me universal access to all the restricted records, CDs and books in the library. I read every single book twice, three-times over - the Italian ones I got translated by one of the professors - so that within a year or two I had become the undisputed expert on all things castrati and 18th century on my college campus. I knew all the great 18th century singers by name, style and reputation, both castrati as well as women singers, all the 18th century composers, had read every single book concerning 18th century style and singing technique, had read journals and scientific papers on the subject - you name it, I'd read it! The only problem was, how to incorporate all this knowledge into my singing technique? Unfortunately my voice professor at the time could offer little help in resurrecting 18th century technique. She herself was trained in the modern style of singing. So I saw no option after graduation but to move to Europe, the center of where it all began. And so I packed two suitcases at the age of 24 and headed with my cat to Vienna, where 2 decades later I still reside to this day. I won't lie and say it was an easy journey - there were significant bumps along the way - but after a few years I was extremely, EXTRAORDINARILY fortunate to finally meet an old school teacher in Vienna, the American Vittorio Giammarusso. This was after my voice was ruined as a student at the local university, where I was being trained to sing in the wrong vocal fach. I met Vittorio in his modest one bedroom apartment, the upstairs half of a house, with contained a small room with a piano that he used for voice lessons. The first thing he had me do was sing a scale. From the look on his face, he seemed to immediately understand everything that was wrong with my voice. For the next year he had me come in every day for voice lessons, including Sundays. In order to afford these lessons, I worked as a babysitter, English teacher as well as a construction worker where I would sandpaper the walls. A typical voice lesson went like this. I would arrive at his apartment to the music of some opera playing in the background. He had a collection of all the important, but not necessarily modern, singers. He would then make me a cup of tea while we sat down and listened to the recording. He would then ask my opinion of the recording. We would then analyze and criticize the singing technique, replaying certain passages for emphasis. I didn't know it at the time, but our lesson had already begun. Vittorio was teaching me something I'd never learned before in over 10 years of voice lessons - how to LISTEN. After tea, we would then begin with vocal exercises, building on top of what we had just heard on the recording. He himself was a student of the Swedish-Italian method and studied under Nicolai Gedda. He corrected my ruined voice by having me sing on the small "u" and showed me how to bring out a laser-focused voice using legato without forcing or pushing the voice. Sometimes during our lessons, he would quote sayings by Porpora or Carestini. He once gave me an exercise, supposedly used by Caffarelli himself. I was his only student that knew who these men were. Like me, he had studied all the 18th century greats and was adamant that the problem with modern tenors was that they lacked the "voix mixte" technique. Sadly, Vittorio passed away in 2002. Since then I've tried to reconstruct all that he has taught me, listening to old tapes of our voice lessons, etc. Unfortunately however, I've come to realize that he was a member of a dying art. This sort of technique is hardly taught anymore, much less performed. Nowadays the singers that make it all have uncontrollable, wobbly voices with no concept of legato, messa di voce and no idea how to correctly sing a portamento. Their voices are cold, metallic and grating to the ear, nothing like the warm, glowing, laser sharp voice of an Emma Eames, an Alma Gluck or a Sigrid Onegin. It's sad that as an opera singer, I can't go to hear other opera singers because of how painful they are to listen to. The last opera I saw was Nabucco here in Vienna in about 2002. The lead soprano almost brought me to tears, and not because of her good singing. I see bad singers getting elevated to superstar status, yet they can barely sing a phrase without a wobble. Sometimes it gets very depressing. What would Porpora think about the state of classical singing in the 21st century? This is why I'm so glad to have found this channel. It's refreshing to know that they are others who share my view. I've subscribed and look forward to binge watching your videos!
I agree with most of what you write here. I also devoured books about singing 30-40 years ago, in particular those by Cornelius Reid, I actually taught it myself (plus piano and theory) at several conservatories in my area. What I would do a lot is work on individual tones to get them placed right. Repeating bad habits only makes them worse. My ideal of a sound is a standing wave, when you feel that the air is still and not moving out, instead even coming in for all that. This is a guarantee that you are not using unnecessary and harmful air pressure. Also, brightening the vowels on the lower range (clearly apparent in Claudia Muzio, Ponselle, etc) and darkening them on the top. The latter is an acoustical necessity anyway since the vowels do converge into an "oo" above the staff.
Thank you for sharing your story! I assume you must have read the works of Edward V Foreman in your 18th century studies. He mentored me remotely until his death, he was so knowledgeable and so fun. I still catch myself wanting to ask him a question about something I’m researching. But I think I might have read one piece of 18th century writing on a castrato which you haven’t, as you are in Vienna and it is in the British Library! I am now totally obsessed with Pacchierotti… It can be very depressing, but I have faith that we can make a change. Not necessarily to the world of opera, I think that’s a lost cause, but we can start afresh. There will always be great voices waiting to be cultivated, and there will always be ears waiting to hear great singing. As long as the knowledge is not lost, bel canto can live again.
@@PhantomsoftheOpera Pacchierotti is perhaps my all-time favorite opera legend. Of all the great castrati, if given a choice to go back in time to hear just one of them, it would undoubtedly be Pacchierotti (sorry Farinelli!). It's not just his amazing technique and superhuman vocal prowess that makes him my hero, but his uncommon humility and kindness of heart. I like to think that I've read all the major books and articles about this extraordinary man, but since he loved London and spent so much time there, it's only logical that you guys would have access to rarely known material concerning Pacchierotti. May I ask the name of this writing/book located in the British Library?
@@CurtisCT Yes! This exactly! I love him so much. Send me an email and I’ll let you have a peek at some of the passages I copied out from the manuscript. I’ve half-written a book, but haven’t got round to publishing it yet.
Im not yet convinced, that opera singing really "went wrong" or just simply evolved into a new style. The circumstances today are of course very different than at Mr Garcias time - the average opera house became bigger, the stage acting is much more demanding, the repertoire more diverse, etc. Also I am for the most part in favor of todays "historically informed" singing, so there is also the factor of taste. Still - I am now quite intrigued to learn more about historical singing practices and will follow you on your journey. Your video is well produced, was interesting to watch while also being quite entertaining. Thank you for your work and showing me a new perspective on opera singing!
Which average opera houses became bigger, out of interest? Covent Garden has less capacity now than in the 19th century, La Scala's capacity is also smaller, The Haymarket lost capacity, too, and the Royal Albert Hall always had around 6000 capacity, while the Colosseum (ENO) began life as a Music Hall so it was neither reverential nor quiet for the performers...
@@annedanotha-thing2509 I would say thats the general development of opera houses until the beginning of the 20th century. Its quite visible for example in praque with three existing opera houses, from the original Mozart Theatre Stavovské divadlo to the two 19th century buildings, which really shows the demand of bigger halls with more seats and also bigger stages with more technically advanced machinery. The seating capacity is unfortunately a bad indicator for the size of the hall itself - through many regulations, expecially for fire safety, but also people in general getting bigger and through renovations with more comfortable modern seats houses often lost quite a significant amount of seats. A possible comparison may be: the baroque Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreuth (opened 1750) today serves about 500 modern seats (back in the day 800) and back than was one of the biggest of its time. The Wiener Staatsoper (opened 1869) has about 1.700 seats. There are of course exceptions to this, but the general tendency stays the same.
After listening to old singers for a while modern singing becomes entirely unlistenable. Very many people have had this experience. The average person also just thinks opera, modern opera that is, sounds stupid. I definitely think this is evidence something went wrong.
@scronchman01 I enjoy both old singers and more modern singers; I believe that opera took a turn and became a tad more extreme in how it represents music and ideas, and that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I also believe that what the average person thinks is no metric to use, since modern average music can be considered horrendous, and in spite of that it is highly successful.
Opera has always followed fashion, and just like fashion - it has always changed. Had it not changed, it would've been completely irrelevant at its very first stages. Every single singer nowadays claims that their teacher taught them "the one and only true technique". Guess what. There just isn't one. There are hundreds of books on vocal technique from the last 500 years, and all differ greatly from one another. Because singing has always, and will alwaye be subjective and individual, because every larynx is unique.
I just found your channel! You are a star!! I love your ideas, your acting, your editing style!!!! SUPER!! And of course, thank you for all the research you are doing. As an opera singer, I enjoyed every minute!! Fascinating! Thank you❤
There is much that I agree with here; and a bit that I don't agree with. And it is delightful to find a community of people who care about what is happening to the art of singing. The voice is nothing less, than the innermost intersection of our mind, body, heart and soul. It is unique in each person, and in each moment. Each generation has it's own versions of preferred styles and criteria for which singers get promoted and paid. And each generation, singers must struggle to be true to their deeper self and deeper artistry, while the expediencies of the "industry" demand otherwise.
There is a blatant error in your line of logic- “each generation has its own versions of preferred styles.” The issue is regardless of how much style may change, the human physiology does not. A certain sound and coordination must inherently be the most perfectly produced and therefore desirable, which has nothing to do with style across generations. In short, a voice is either better or worse produced and that is objective and unchangeable because it specifically aligns with human body mechanics and physiology. When we hear voices like Caruso or ponselle, we hear the voice produced in the most exacting way possible. It has rather nothing to do with generational style. Fisichella, the great tenor who is now 80 years old said it best- there is one technique, and will always be one technique, and it is the past, present and future. He understood
no, there are a thousand ways one can make sound his voice.. and all in a more or less healthy way.. the dark opera attitude.. the light heady early music style.. screaming heavy metal... declamatory rap... styles for microphone and styles without microphone.. the roaring gospel.. the falsetto Countertenor... 10 thousand ways and schools to let your voice ring... so, I don't understand the dogmatic definition of a "one and only" use of the voice...
@@stone301 This is simply untrue. Considering your historic standard is specific to one particular corner of the world for a relatively short period of time, it is silly to even consider it as "the most perfect". You like it because that is what you were educated in and exposed to, and that's why Caruso and Ponselle like it so much as well. This is only natural, as it's how styles are developed and passed on. But it is not some objective pinnacle of human vocalization. It's one of many equally valid, correct, and healthy methods of singing.
Also the old recordings she showed all sound bland and amateurish. And that's even though she cherry picked her examples. Taking modern examples where the singers are screaming and straining while picking the old recordings she liked best. Especially the Handel example way striking. I could barely understand the words in the old recording while every note and syllable was crystal clear in both moder recordings. Sure, you could call that vocal gymnastics, but that's how most music is today: striving for perfection. Its the same for violin and piano.
@@triorubino-michakoeppen9105 The author of this video never said that one and only use should be used for metal or rap. She was only talking about 19th/early 20th century opera.
That clip of Emmy Destin and Karl Jörn singing Les Huguenots gave me goosebumps. It is so much more dynamically expressive, and therefore emotionally so too, than today's style. Just the use of varying vibrato in itself makes such a huge difference.
for once youtube did something right by bringing this channel to my recommendations. this has answered 2 questions for me, that i couldn't figure out on my own, what is it that bothers me about modern opera and why do i always seem to gravitate towards older recordings and enjoy them more. thank you for what you do and i sincerely hope that your goal in reviving bel canto will be realized.
Thank you. Rae's singing at 1:25 sent a thrill straight through to my heart. For opera to have lost - no, abandoned - this capacity, is nothing less than a crime, in my opinion.
This excellent piece brings back memories to me. I studied cornet with an "old-school" cornettist who understood the importance of "bel canto." At the university (in the late 1960s) I was laughed at for even mentioning the words. Nonetheless, I adopted a style that was in the favor of my beliefs and have become known (at least locally) as a trumpeter with "soul" who makes things sound like real music and not just the notes from the paper. I (half) jokingly tell them that I use Louis Prima's philosophy: "Play pretty for the people." It is refreshing to hear someone who gets the importance of this in opera, which, in my mind, has become almost an Olympic event. Brava
As a professional Baroque dancer, we used to joke we were BaROCK., Because there is a big overlap with the exigencies of the styles. Always remember we once did a show with a Classical orchestra...well, it was un danceable. Rubato all over the place. Inconsistent tempo. Unrythmical transitions between pieces. Our boss had to have a quiet word with the conductor. Well they got it really well, and seemed to enjoy the challenge. Later in the show, there was a Cancan and it was great to hear them in their (19th cent) element.
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to have found your channel this morning! My voice teacher is always saying Bel Canto is lost….and I always wanted to know what it sounded like! This gramma phone is awesome. I love the idea and interactions with the phantoms. Brava! I will be listening to all of your videos!
As much as I appreciate your effort, I don't think it's possible to prove that fashion in singing was more constant in previous centuries than we saw in the 20th century. I'd wager that invention of recording stabilised the fashion rather than speeding up its changes. What is more, you cannot talk about European style of singing in the early times, because styles differed depending on a country or even a region. Nevertheless, keep up the good work with showing early recordings to the world, they are indeed fascinating, even if they aren't pleasing to the modern taste. Liked and subscribed, waiting for more.
Totally agree - the sheer number of earlier writers who tell us that styles changed dramatically in their lifetime simply cannot be brushed aside in order to support this sort of ideology.
Exactly! Most probably, the style of singing we hear in early recordings would be just as alien to the 18th century audiences, as it is for us. Claiming that those singers are better than the contemporary ones is absurd. They are just different! And that's good, we can cherish the diversity previous generations didn't have.
@@paunitka7 Maybe. But considering they bothered to write lyrics to these performances tells me, they were originally meant to be heard and articulated in an understandable way.
@@menninkainen8830 Are you telling me that you can understand lyrics from those old records better than from contemporary renditions? I can hardly believe that. Singing technique aside, those old records have a rather poor quality, so it's really difficult to understand a word.
Although I have a hard time singing even two consecutive notes in tune, as a part-time musician and full-time music lover ,I found this video very enlightening. Great video.
It was Maria Callas who said in an interview in the 1970’s that opera was a dying art. Who are we to argue with the most extraordinary operatic soprano, possibly of all time.
I remember reading an article about the old style of singing, and how it sounded better and was better for the vocal chords. The article didn't go into much detail or have links to recordings. I am happy to have found your channel, and look forward to learning more.
@@FlamingCockatiel I wish I could remember the title to the article. It bugs me that I can't. I think it had to do with Wagner and how the singers had to sing over the orchestra. If I ever do find it, I'll post it. I think it was published like 2 or 3 years ago.
This video is wonderful. It is a rare perspective on tone production styles that I am very grateful for. You must have slaved over it, and it paid off beautifully.
Interesting. My teacher, Tatiana Vasilieva, studied opera in Italy just after WWII. Among her teachers was Gigli. She trained me as a coloratura lyric tenor in the Bel Canto style. I listen to the 19th century voices in this video and immediately feel at home. I once had a singing lesson from a well known New York vocal teacher who tried to get me to sing in the heroic modern style. It was most uncomfortable and unpleasant and exhausting, the very opposite of the ease of Bel Canto once one is "on the horse". It is possible to sing all night without becoming tired or distressed.
It's funny because I've never studied opera history before, but I've always hated how modern opera singers sing, and I always figured to myself, "there is no way on earth that people back in Mozart's time sang with this awful throaty, unnatural sound." It's so nice to see someone explaining the actual history and confirming what I always assumed.
I’m not sure what I did right for the algorithm to bring up this video, but I am incredibly grateful to have found your channel! Thank you for your work ✨🎄
This has been a revelation! I was classically trained in Piano and love all the eras and forms of classical music. however, modern Operatic singing always seemed wrong. I appreciated the old recordings far more. you have made me understand why, for the first time. I can identify exactly what I love about the old style of singing.
I’m no opera expert but there was a 2/3 yr period where I bought and listened and got obsessed to only classical voices, and built quite a large collection of CD’s. I would occasionally order a modern or contemporary recording I rarely kept listening to them. It was the older singers and recordings from the 20’s-60’s that had the poetry and heart, the clear diction and straightforward expression, the occasional frailties and emotion that felt like art. It emerged, haunting & enigmatic even from those crackly early recordings.
There’s nothing better than crackling sounds in music. It’s almost as good as listening to the music itself honestly. Such a good sound. I do think that part of why you didn’t enjoy the other music is because it just wasn’t what you were used to hearing. I listen to a very wide range of music and when you switch between decades or centuries or genres, whatever you play second doesn’t sound as good because it’s not what your ears are used to enjoying so it comes across as odd. If you put on a favourite song from one time period and genre and then another favourite song from another time and genre, the second song just loses its feeling and sounds hollow even though you love the song. If you flip from David Bowie to Elton John for example it’s fine. Two men covered in glitter with sounds of the 70s. But if you take Etta James and flip to The Beatles, they sound kinda terrible. It’s not because they’re actually bad it’s just because it’s so different it’s like your ears are confused. I find you can enjoy any type of music if you just listen to it for long enough. Other than radio shows based on music by current popularity and hearing more than 30 seconds of house music because it’s the same 30 seconds of one beat and one sound pretending to go somewhere for 6 minutes straight.
AMEN!! There was so much I learned from "This Is Opera", but unfortunately one of the things I learned was how obnoxious and downright mean he was! To the point where he was actually more of a detriment to his cause than he was a help! Ziazan, however, is just as truthful to the cause, gives much better historical information and analysis, while still remaining a very charming person! THANK YOU!
I was going through an existential crisis about my singing and my love for opera, and by the time I discovered This Is Opera my first thought was "well, I'm done". I stopped studying. It made me so sad to think that the people who were consuming his content maybe some day could be listening to me.
I experienced my first opera two years ago. This video has greatly elevated my appreciation of the art of opera singing. I cant get enough of Hubert Eisdell. Thank you, looking forward to your future videos!
I'm a casual classical music listener with no formal musical training. I enjoy pieces from various eras (Beethoven, Liszt, Mozart, Debussy, etc.) but I’ve never been able to understand opera. I always assumed it was because I’m untrained and didn’t grow up with classical music. However, I genuinely enjoyed the samples on your video from the bygone eras. It actually sounds like real singing! Thank you so much for bringing this up!
I have no idea of singing, of opera or high arts at all, but this channel is not just informative but highly entertaining, I enjoyed it very much :) thank you for sharing this, which I imagine had tons of research behind, in such a fun way. I wish you the best of luck in your pat to saving your art form, I'll continue watching :)
B.R.A.V.O and thank you for doing this. I can’t believe that RUclips is showing me this video only right now, knowing that I am a professional opera singer and have been doing historically informed music for years. I even have an ensemble with period instrument and together we are studying (Garcia of course) and making research for authentic interpretation. We even had a master class with Kai Köpp to do so, working on old record and trying to “reproduce” the best we can from these old performers… Maybe we will meet sometimes :)
Can't believe I hadn't caught this vid before communicating with you! Your intro to Garcia is appreciated, as his work properly should have significant impact on singers and teachers, as well as composers. 🌹
I just found your channel! I had a fleeting interest in opera when I was a teenager, but destroyed my vocal chords with cigarettes and stuff. I think it's really nice you've posted this, even if I'm 3 years late to it; it's informative and I'm learning a lot already, and I'm excited to check out the rest of your channel.
Brava! What a polished video. Keep up the good work. Samuel Milligan, my departed mentor and archivist for the Historic Harp Society and American Folk Harp Society would have loved this. Thank you.
As an American with some experience in opera, both as an audience member and as a singer, this was a great video and very interesting. However, my critique of modern opera is a bit more fundamental than the singing and technique and has to do with language and presentation. You want to know what was the greatest opera I ever saw? It was a rendition of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" performed on a small stage, with a small orchestra, professional singers, and IN ENGLISH! I understand that cultural preservation and acknowledging the roots of a work is important, but opera belongs to the audience that listens to it just as much as the culture that created it, and opera should be fun instead of high brow work.
So true. Ermanno Wold-Ferrari, "I quatro rusteghi", comedy, Russian language (i'm Russian), small stage, little orchestra, a piano, eight pro singers unamplified.
IIRC the reason opera was sung in the work's original language, at least in the United States, was because the audience that popularized it in the 19th century did not speak English as a first language. They were all immigrants, so they wanted to hear the opera as they remembered it in the old country. German operas were played for German immigrants, Italian operas for Italian immigrants, and so on. If you were German and wanted to hear opera, you'll just have to accept it being in Italian because it's the Italians turn. Hopefully they will play a German opera next time. By the time their Americanized children were paying for their own tickets, the children wanted to hear it the way they remembered it. That being in their parents' first language, even though they barely knew the language themselves.
@@newguy90 in Russia, it's even worse. Opera and ballet came to Russia in XVIII century as court entertainment. XVIII century Russian nobles spoke French as their preferred language, not Russian. Many also knew german and Italian. After 1812 many started speaking Russian, but the tradition of learning and admiring foreign languages kept with the Russian noblity till it's very death. Leo Tolstoy wrote circa 1850: "people are divided into du comme il fault (in French as stated) and non du comme il fault, the first are those who have clean nails, speak French fluently and dance well, the second are all those remaining who don't." Opera was for the first category. After the Revolution, nobility went extinct, but opera resulted with a tradition of not being translated. Fortunately, they don't apply it always as nobody knows said Italian today and we have plenty of Russian operas written in between 1850-1960
I remember my mom asking me why I didn’t like opera. I listened to the classical music radio station quite a lot as a teen,but I’d often change the channel when opera came on. There was something about it that put me on edge. It was a similar feeling to when I joined church choir and was the only alto. A choir of 8 sopranos (or women who think they are), 2 tenors, and an alto isn’t properly balanced. I think I might have liked this older version of opera you are talking about.
@@jenniferhiemstra5228 (Ha - ha ! Ref sopranos seeking the melody ! ) That's been my impression for years ! Not all, of course ! ☺️💕) Singing soprano certainly does need skill, and in a way, being the top line, any mistakes can stand out.... I !Ike being an alto, even though we don't get as much prominence as sopranos..... Often I wish altos could be a bit more bold, I hope they don't feel a slightly inhibited by being " second" to sopranos, as they supply harmonies, to enhance the music. It's great when all the parts can be heard : often the altos " disappear " ! Anyway, when it's all going right, you feel as if there's nowhere you'd rather be. Sing up, altos ! 🇬🇧☺️💕🎼☺️🎹🇬🇧
Me too. I started liking it when I listened live singing. I think many voice components don't pass through recordings. Beautiful textures you never get to hear, you are only able to imagine once you heard a lot of live singing.
Hey there, I'm the alto, the "first alto" to be certain. Our problem is very boring things to sing, we never have melody. When people learn i spent eight years learning how to sing, they ask to sing something, but we need to be at least twelve...
@@jenniferhiemstra5228 Yes. You described my aunt, who sings second soprano. I don't get it. She can read music, so why can't she learn the harmony? People can hear when there's strain. I envision messing with such people by commissioning a choral piece where sopranos never get the melody, while altos have it most of the time.
My great uncle was a musicologist, his specialty was Baroque music. He could analyze any kind of music and sound completely enthusiastic about it, but one of the best days of his life (at least professionally) was the one when he met a completely untrained tenor that he could teach to sing Baroque music in small spaces without trying to send his voice to the end of a theater that was not there. His name was José Luis Ochoa de Olza, you may be interested in his work. You may also hate it, but hey... :-)
What a creative and interesting way of discussing bel canto and different styles according to chronology! I’ve been teaching (all styles of singing) for over 35 years now. BRAVA to you!! 🙌🏻
Having just stumbled upon this video I must congratulate you. Firstly, I applaud you for disseminating information about a rather unadressed topic in a transparent way. Secondly, I appreciate the creative effort you seemingly invested in adding an air of levity to your video while (in my opinion, succesfully) avoiding being too gaudy. Finally, I salute your mission of technique preservation which I am surprised to find exists. I wish you success on your journey and I will be glad to see any further content you create!
Brava!!! Many thanks for this informative, whimsical and entertaining look at an issue that has been driving me mad for the past 40 years. It is refreshing to know that a younger person finds the old gramophone records both enjoyable and educational. Plus, you introduced me to a tenor (Hubert Eisdell) with whom I was not familiar. I look forward to watching your channel on a regular basis!
What a lovely 16 minutes I just had, and what a pleasure to come across you on RUclips! I look forward to following your campaign to bring back a lost art.
One of my singing teachers studied vocal pedagogy for twelve years with baritone Mario Basiola in Milan. In the preface to his well known book 'The Structure of Singing' Richard Miller calls Basiola the finest vocal technician he ever encountered. Basiola was a pupil of baritone Antonio Cotogni - born 1831 and the earliest born singer to have recorded. Cotogni had many great pupils, including Gigli, Lauri Volpi and Franci. I hear that teaching in Basiola's recording of the Prologue to Pagliacci.
My heads-up in singing came about 30 years ago with "Bel Canto" by Cornelius Reid written by him in the 1950's, tracing its history and decline. By then, the bigger is better, that is to fill halls with reams of sound was getting underway with the likes of Leontyne Price (an excellent singer in her own right) and the mega-tenors. He pointed out that part of the new style had to do with women abdicating their chest voices while ironically men were pushing them up. Now with counter-tenors (most of them make me grimace) it is a completely different ballgame as even baritones can sing almost completely in the falsetto and get away with it.
@@zamyrabyrd The other night I watched a telecast of the new Rigoletto from the Met - hideous set and costumes and terrible staging! Gilda came out of the Duke's bedroom half way thru 'Cortigiani' and just stood there listening. Her agitated entrance music which followed meant nothing! The baritone sounded like he was 'marking' for much of the role - saved himself for 'Cortigiani' and the end. Rigoletto is probably the most difficult baritone role in the standard rep - but if you have to do that to get through then you shouldn't be singing it!
As someone who loves old fashioned styles of opera technique, I'm so excited to have found this channel! I don't like the dark, heavy sound that's so popular these days. She may not really be related to this topic, but I'd be interested to know whether or not Lily Pons would be a singer using the old bel canto technique. Her voice certainly wouldn't be popular today, but she's one of my favorites.
Finding this video is a really amazing treat for me! I was taken to my first opera as a birthday "treat" for my 10th birthday, several decades ago. My parents loved opera, you see: my father was a musician and I was meant to have a career in classical music . It was a hellish racket, truly: the wretched multiple wildly excessive vibrato from various over-loud voices at variance with each other and warbling at different rates. And then it reached the epitome of evils - two coloratura sopranos at once. That was too much! I fled the racket, out of the opera house before my parents could grab me to make me endure it any longer. It was, the whole thing, over the top. And that was the end of opera for me. I love medieval and early renaissance music, though, and play the lute and fiddle for medieval and Irish traditional music. And, as I now realise, I was just born a few centuries to late to love opera.
Best of luck to you in your quest to revive/preserve the art of bel canto. Sadly, you are correct (or will be correct soon) that there are no more bel canto singers who experienced first-hand bel canto pedagogy from true bel canto singers who learned the proper technique themselves. The intergenerational pedagogical link was broken, but with devotees like yourself, perhaps it can be mended, if not restored. I look forward to exploring your channel.
Fascinating! Here I was thinking I wasn’t a big opera fan, when I’m really not a fan of modern operatic singing! In those old recording you played, you can really hear the natural speaking voice of the singers (which is exactly what I love about folk, rock, and hip hop vocalists)
I'm not a singer or a teacher.not even a conventional opera fan or lover. I valued this skit style.of.presentation. ur accent and pronunciation is also easy on ears and your turnout and studio on the eyes.😊 thanks and all the best. l
I just stumbled on your channel. Very interesting. I am full time contemporary musician and teacher of 28 years. This has been a truly delightful discovery. Thank you
As a young composer in love with opera I despair at the thought that I might not find any proper singers, and thus it would be in vain composing operas myself! I must praise you for the effort of keeping alive the tradition of great singing: it gives me slight hope as an artist that perhaps once again the art of opera shall be seen as profoundly sweet as it used to be.
I’m glad to have stumbled upon this video! I don’t know much about classical singing or opera, but it warms my heart to see someone who is so passionate about the continuity of their art while deftly embracing fun effective accessible modern communication!
My wife is an opera singer. I can hear her upstairs training her voce now. Old school. She is preparing a couple of arias for a recital. The problem is simple: the old maestros, Italian technique, are gone. Today opera singers sing opera with Broadway techniques and pop techniques. It not only sounds ugly but it is also dangerous for the voice. My wife had the great luck to train her voice with Cuban Baritone and Maestro Jorge Gavira, who had also learned to sing in Italy with the great masters at that time of the Old Italian School and I remember comparing my wife's lessons with recordings from Julliard's and laughing at the studio. After singing leading roles all over the world, my wife had to stop singing because she had nodules in her voice (American technique). Gavira had to rebuilt her voice and technique with private lessons basically from scratch. He completely prohibited her from signing a single note until he said that she was ready, not even in the shower! "If I realize that you have been singing, I will stop teaching you!". He was so strict as it should be. It took 2 years until she could do her first recital again. He used to say" voice is like a Baccara crystal cup, you break it, and repair it with crazy glue and it will never sound the same again".
A few years ago I was at an early music conference where singing was being discussed, the music was C.14th, and I said that the bottom line was that we have no idea what singers sounded like then and that early music groups had been hijacked by Oxbridge choral scholar trained singers. The speaker didn’t address my point, just started talking about Pythagorean tuning. We’ll never know of course what medieval singers sounded like but I’m interested in your approach and have subscribed.
I agree with you and believe the same thing happened. We do know what medieval singers sounded like, there are a few authentic sources in latin, one is a book on singing technique and a few others are criticisms of singers in public squares and taverns for the way they did things differently, compared to church singers. I read them on a doctoral thesis that translated these sources for the very first time. It's a fascinating read. As a singer, I've practiced some of the lessons and I'll give you a clue as to what medieval singing sounded like: it's a lot more similar to musical theatre technique than you would think.
@@marisolmtzm do you happen to remember what the thesis was called? Some of the trills and grace notes described in sources like Hieronymus de Moravia suggest a sound rather more florid than typical of Musical Theatre singing to me, although their method of tone production could of course be similar (probably with substantial regional differences if the sources are to be believed...)
@@tbraithwaite92 Yes I do, I own a copy of it. That comparison with musical theatre wasn't made by the author, but by me, because I found similarities in some areas.
Your voice is absolutely beautiful! What a delight to hear you speak, your voice has such melody and you can hear your vocal training in every word you speak!
I’d love to see some videos talking about the technique used to train voices pre-1960s. Obviously we’ve had some good voices since then, but I’ve noticed how there is a huge drop-off in world class singers after that point. Channels like BaroneVitelloScarpia have videos featuring 50+ incredible operatic baritones, all with beautiful expressive voices and most of whom sang roles regardless of when they were dramatic or lyric. I was shocked when reading that some 20th century baritones sang roles like Woton and Tonio in their late 20s! Nowadays it seems like you need to be close to getting your 401k before you start singing anywhere near that rep. Yet in university we are in encouraged to sing Mozart and Handel, who write notoriously challenging music. Ask me to sing any Puccini and the high notes come flying out easily, but the minute I start singing a Handel bass aria that hangs out around my passagio my voice feels stiffer than a piece of wood dipped in concrete. I also think it makes a lot of young singers look down on Mozart, even though many incredible singers of the past had significant careers singing just that rep.
Have a look at the Hermann Klein phono vocal method for some accessible hints on 20th century pedagogy. You might find Nicholas Baragwaneth's The Solfeggio Tradition interesting for earlier traditions.
I’m not a Mozart specialist, but a stage director with whom I recently worked for a school production of Le Nozze told me that compared to the Italian school which preceded Mozart, he was much less virtuoso in his writing than for instance Jommelli (whom he criticized for having a beautiful but dated style).
I LOVE this video and subscribed!!! I’m currently learning the Bel Canto technique and it’s so different from my past training, some of which induced tongue tension with contrived vowel formation that hindered my resonance as well induced throat tension with forcing the larynx down for long periods of time. Sustainability (singing healthfully well into our 80’s, 90’s and beyond) is so crucial to vocal health but unfortunately not always commonly preferred. I’m so happy I found this channel!
This itself was Genius idea to choose such a adventurous and theatrical way of communication. Very entertaining besides being educative and thought-provoking. Thank You!
Everything in this video is so right on. There really is a major crisis in many of today’s classically trained singers and what makes it even more tragic is that for the most part it’s just brushed off as the ever evolving style. And yes, the issue gets even more complicated since old school singing it would not have a career today, unless maybe they have such conviction and something slightly modern that the audience can’t resist. Thanks for bringing this issue to the forefront.
So very happy I stumbled across this video. It's rare to find something I can really get excited about. I'd honestly love to learn and apply the techniques!! Thank you so much for posting this incredible video 🎶
Please watch Style or Technique next: ruclips.net/video/5o-rE_mxc_8/видео.html - I created it to respond to some of your most common questions from this video, but for some reason RUclips in its wisdom never recommends it so almost no one has watched it!
The same quest you have.....I have for the painting arts....
This video is simultaneously "right on the money" and "way off base". I completely agree that the modern style of opera singing is, well, just horrible. Singers seem to revel in singing horribly out of tune (owing to excessive vibrato) and no amount of articulation can render the lyrics understandable. The use of always-present vibrato has also infected violin and flute pedagogy, such that the ever present vibrato conveys no emotion (because it is always present). So then, why do I claim that this video is also "way off base"? Because I believe that better singers would not be run off the stage by music patrons. Rather, they are not allowed to breach the current "correct technique" rules by those gatekeepers that say who is and who isn't a serious singer. You can't applaud a good singer who isn't hired because some mis-trained expert thinks they have no technique. Really, the biggest complaint I have about this video is that it assigns far too much power to the idea that only classically trained singers (and musicians) get to decide what constitutes the pinnacle of singing (or playing) technique. The message seems to be "we used to know how to sing properly, now all is lost (almost, maybe?)". My claim is that today there are plenty of "untrained" superb singers who sing with good technique, and are a delight to listen to. And we will always have those singers. They just exist outside what I call the "classical/opera music universe". Opera is (IMHO) doomed, because the singing is so bad it will never find a mass audience. Since this rant is already far too long, I will just present one example of what I consider to be good singing, from singers who had the good fortune to have never encountered a singing teacher trained in the "correct" style: ruclips.net/video/BVyLOU5Xs3w/видео.html If you have never heard these lyrics, notice how easily you can understand every word, from these completely "untrained" but very serious singers.
I like the older styles you presented. What about early Iranian hymns/later "Byzantine" chants/later "Islamic prayer singing"? Opera is an offshoot of this and it would sound closer to this in its earliest forms. In my humble opinion.
I am desperate. This style of singing isn't taught anymore. But it is the one I love listening to, the one I would like to adopt myself. I don't know what to do, read? I don't know where to look for the right books. Manuel Garcia is a start of course, thank God.
My teacher Valentin Peytchinov teaches the old way. He’s in NYC.😊
@@Little_Duck_ Astrea Amaduzzi. Buon lavoro!!!
@@toscadonnaHow is he? I’m very interested! Can you tell me more about him.
Reading is helpful, to a point. Get Richard Miller’s books, if you can find them. Must have a good coach.
If you are interested in late 19th and early 20th Century music you could get into collecting 78rpm records!
Aside from Caruso, there are MANY record stars much better than what we have today, and a record in good condition will give you a better experience than any "audiophlie" modern interpretation.
My recommendations:
>Ferruccio Giannini (his Victor recordings are pretty good, but his Berliner pressings not so much)
>Caruso (he may be really stereotypical but some of his records are still heard to this day)
>Adelina Patti (first diva❤)
>Emma Calvé
>Nellie Melba
>Pol Galçon (basso bel cantor, his G&T recordings are really old but still get a pass into modern history)
>Hermann Jadlowker (tenor bel cantor, his "Ecco Ridente dil Cielo" (Barbiere i Siviglia) aria is a staple of bel canto EVER)
>Emilio Sagi-Barba (he sung mostly zarzuela but still has some good operas)
>Julian Biel (recorded as Giuliano Biel) (another G&T singer, but he usually recorded obscure operas, you should give him a listen)
As a former ballet dancer, I'm seeing so many parallels between the evolution of modern opera technique and the rising trends within ballet of every ballerina being stick-thin and hyperflexible and the performance focused more on showing off skills than expressing the story.
I think about this a lot. There's been an impulse to move away from stylized gestures and towards greater naturalism without balancing the too, and I don't think it's conducive to either art form where the musical element sort of demands you be elemental and larger than life. I swear I don't worship at the altar of Callas, but just from looking at a single picture of her on stage, the grand pose she strikes oozes with emotional specificity and expression.
We can "thank" Balanchine for that bs
Modern day BALLERINAS ARE in dire need of an all-you-can-eat BUFFET.... OR a Happy Meal! :-)
@@nicolina1026 I hate him so much, especially the fact that many ballet dancers and schools practically worship him. He was a bad person and changed ballet for the worst.
seems like this happens to everything.
I know nothing about opera and yet I am here.
Same.
Same
🎉 same! Well done! Bravo! I'm all in!
Same 😂
learn and you'll see the mastery of the higher things
My main complaint about modern opera singing styles is that too often the vibrato is so heavy that I can't even tell which note they're singing or whether they're really in tune with the rest of the music.
The great English conductor Sir Roger Norrington (now retired), known for historically informed performances, has a lecture (which can be read in the archives of the New York Times), about how vibrato is actually a development of the 20th century (the worst century since the 12th).
According to Norrington, classical musicians did not employ vibrato until violinist Fritz Kreisler began using it in his solo performances during the 1930s. Kreisler often played Gypsy tunes which were then very popular, and vibrato caught on, even in ensembles such as orchestras.
Yes, if one listens to old recordings of opera stars such as Nellie Melba or Luisa Tetrazzini or Erna Sack (my favorite), there is _some_ vibrato, but nothing like the police-siren vibrato which became more and more common, until it became standard the 1950s in both classical and pop music.
Norrington began a movement to perform music in the style of the era in which it was written. Thus, for Baroque opera, instead of a soprano with a wide vibrato such as June Anderson, he would cast English soprano Emma Kirkby (né, 1949), who sang with _no vibrato at all_ !
Listen to the singing of Emma Kirkby and it sounds far more pleasing. You can listen to her singing for hours and not grow tired of it. Likewise, orchestras playing without vibrato sound "clean" and more harmonious.
Another example is the style of British brass bands which were popular in the 20th century. They all played with a heavy vibrato, which (to American ears) gave them a weak and tinny sound, compared with the modern sound of the late Rolf Smedvig and the Empire Brass who preferred accurate intonation and no vibrato.
@@KeithOtisEdwards Baroque doesn't have vibrato. It has "ornaments", which are very precise (closer to melisma), and to be used sparingly. All the arts have them in their own way. In dance, it's the arms. The artist chose the ornament themselves, they're not written. The artistry of the performer was judged on their choice.
@@KeithOtisEdwardsah yes. Vibrato is gypsy music. Never mind the fact that there are treatises from the classical era that say otherwise
THIS. The flawed vibrato just prevents any enjoyment in the music. If your vibrato is going to be an awful wobble blurring the pitch you're singing, you might as well sing straight notes only.
@@KeithOtisEdwards I have a feeling that the RUclips algorithm brought me here because I have been listening to a lot of Emma Kirkby lately.
It does seem that opera has become a caricature of itself. I love opera best when it remembers that it is telling a story and the performers don’t wallow in their vocal acrobatics but instead tell us a good story with beautiful singing with genuine emotion. Thanks for the informative video and its creative delivery.
Yea look into venetian Opera that's what happened
@Ponyboy Depraved? What an absurd comment! Most of us modern opera lovers want the characters to be believable as human beings not some loud mouthed robot waving arms around in meaningless fashion.
@Ponyboy You are speaking a lot of twaddle. I have been to opera houses in Argentina (BA), London, Naples, Sydney among others and have never had difficulty hearing many very fine singers. This obsession with the older singers is quite tiresome. How do you compare Del Monaco with Tito Schipa for example? One was very loud and the other very refined but you would have no difficulty hearing either from the back the theatre. Clearly they had very different techniques. Was Gigli better than Di Stefano? Was Joan Sutherland better than Nellie Melba? A poll was taken years ago of many English critics asking who was the greatest tenor of the 20th century. The winner was Domingo. I did not agree with that assessment despite being an admirer of Domingo. Just taking the aria O mio babbino caro. The best version I ever heard was by a student in a conservatorium production. Her voice was very good but not great, however her delivery of the aria was quite superb. The full realisation hit me that being convincing in the role was more important than having a great voice. Callas is a classic example of someone who had a great voice but was also convincing in her roles. If you can get both then great. I hardly imagine from clips of Del Monaco that his roles would have been devoid of operatic mannerisms. Even Corelli is hard to listen to singing an album of Italian arias whereas Jon Vickers singing same has far more variety and musicality. Where do you place Caruso? Or Bjorling? Or Wunderlich? These are my heroes but I don't waste my time comparing them to modern singers.
@Ponyboy While I can agree with much of what you say i do believe you are still far too obsessed by the emphasis on vocal technique. Obviously it is very important but in the modern era audiences are not prepared to accept any kind of artificiality, and opera by its very nature is artificial. It is why musical theatre is far more popular than opera world wide and it is why teachers accepted a long time ago singers needed to be much more natural than the traditional opera singer. You mention Jerry Hadley who, along with many American singers was able to crossover quite effortlessly. I presume when you wrote 'ex' you meant example. I would happily include Hadley in my list of admired singers and interestingly he had very similar views as you on technique. One of the disappointments of my life was dragging friends along to hear him in a performance of Butterfly where he failed to excite me or my friends. I am still very saddened by his death very soon after. However it did remind me how difficult is the life of a modern opera singer. Netrebko is a singer who gets a lot of flak but I believe much of her popularity came from her inate ability to be completely natural in the roles she played. I still admire her courage and up until recent tragic events she continued to have a big following world wide, deserved or not. We could discuss various singers for years and still never agree on the main point. Opera does not have a great following today because the singers do not have have the great techniques they used to have. I believe that to be a completely false premise. It is why directors attempt to make productions different, relevant and exciting. Sometimes they fail but it is that attempt at originality that makes opera exciting today and if the singing is exceptional that is a great bonus. But great singing alone will not keep filling opera houses as they did in the old days. Those days are long gone..
@Ponyboy I probably witnessed a trained opera singer performing to 200-300 people unamplified, and it was very loud with windows vibrating along with his voice. He didn't shout either, and his technique seemed proper to me, compareable to the pre-1950s records I saw in music history class (there definitely were some 1930s choir and orchestra records. Alexander Nevsky the kantata, 1938 for example. ) per. He would be definitely ok performing to a thousand people at an old-school opera hall or amphitheatre that works as an acoustic amplifier itself.
His first teacher was my first teacher, we were mostly starting training in a class that could fit a full-size grand piano and up to 40 people so we are ok i think.
My voice is pretty modest considering that I was just the music school choir alto, but it's pretty loud and I utilise singing and breathing techniques instead of screaming when I need to be really loud. Like, announcing something in the lecturing hall, where may be 200 people chatting, and 25 of them randomly are my group. Screaming does only mix in the chatting, so instead i hit a few high-pitched notes that travel distances well and are way higher than an average person's speaking voice, so I gain instant attention, and then I sing the message with one of the melodies i know... My groupmates don't like this way of communication, but they agree that's effective.
I've been to the Epidaurus the largest antique amphitheatre, and I sang several romances there. My voice was able to reach out all the way the highest rows with no added pressure or screaming, it's just the correct breathing techniques. The singers who can't do it are either at s wrong place or haven't mastered the very basics taught during the first years of music school. As long as I witnessed the singers in my school and in records - they breathe correct, I hear it.
This video was eye, well earned, opening. I’ve always wondered why I couldn’t understand what words most modern opera singers were singing unless I read the lyrics as they sing. Then I listened to older recordings and found that I was able to understand much more, not just the lyrics, but the emotions they were portraying
I would love to see an example of a voice lesson in the old style, or just ways to achieve the sound over time with practice and work.
This is exactly what I have planned for this channel! Unfortunately, Life has decided to put it on hold for a couple of weeks. Please stay tuned and normal service will resume shortly.
@@PhantomsoftheOpera Wonderful! Of course new content is lovely, but taking care of yourself and your own life is paramount. It's honestly just nice to hear Turandot and not feel seasick from the whole tone vibrato lol
Listen to Callas, you will have a part of the answer; her singing teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo was a pure product of the Garcia school, which itself proceeded of the castrati's art.
@@PhantomsoftheOpera if that’s what I have to look forward to I will be subbing ;)
@@PhantomsoftheOpera Who will be teaching...?
My highschool choir director teaches the Bel Canto style. Literally everything you said I was thinking "wait not everybody does that?" So NO! Not all of them are gone, you can find some gems but it's probably quite hard.
My son had a voice teacher in California named Jeremy Silver who used old, old books to teach the old technical methods. My son no longer sings opera, but his voice has remained beautiful.
As somebody deeply immersed in musical theatre, I find it mildly amusing that the point about clarity of words and authenticity of expression is at the very core of (good) musical theatre that many classical singers look down on as "mere entertainment". Shocker: If you don't understand what somebody is "saying", you can't empathise, you aren't moved, you only observe an acrobat performing vocal gymnastics. Which certainly are impressive and moving in their own way at times but a far cry from what (the ghost of) Garcia jr. expresses here.
Music theatre is at a much higher standard than opera at the moment, I think, in every aspect.
Kelli O'Hara stars in yet another production at the Met next season: The Hours.
It also stars Fleming and DiDonato and I can't wait!
Interesting. A few years ago, just before the plague, I saw Fleming on Broadway in Carousel. I was expecting big things, but she fell flat. She has the loveliest voice on stage, but the rest of the cast (all Broadway singers) overshadowed her, because they had more energy and knew how to reach an audience and make the play relevant. Today relevance in opera is attempted by odd sets or costumes or even contrived sex. It usually is a grotesque failure. The producers sense that the operas need more relevance but they don't realize that the bellowing stars are not going to give it to them.
@@bunkaunk I would have love to have seen that
The comparison to musical theatre came to mind for me as well.
The issue with saying one is good singing and one is bad singing is that people will always prefer one sound to the other. Regardless of if modern operatic style is historically accurate, it is the modern preference for operatic sound. We need not forget that there are audiences for speech-like singing, whisper singing, metal & “screamo”, and all of the above. There is no single way to sing, and I will say that personally my ears preferred the “bad” examples you showed to the “good” ones… both of these styles still deserve to co-exist however, if you prefer one style then there should exist the vocal diversity in opera for whatever sound you like.
Exactly!!!
Speaking as a classical singer, you have to understand there are healthy and unhealthy ways to sing. Much of the “bad” technique and ways of singing is actually unhealthy. It leads to vocal damage. Some get away with it. Many do not and end up with nodes on their vocal folds. It relies on electronic amplification for projection rather than pure singing.
@@thomasbrodrecht6137 While I think your intention is probably good, and words like 'healthy' and 'pure' can make it sound like your argument is based in that good intention, I seriously doubt you would go up to indigenous folks around the world and let them know the way they've been singing since their cultures have existed is impure or unhealthy. There are seriously so many different theories and practices in vocal performance, not every culture or people share your same values in the 'correctness' in singing.
I truly believe that contemporary modes of singing are a blend of cultures in a post-internet age in which we borrow from many other otherwise unreachable cultures to speak to the many people that exist now that are within metaphorical earshot that sound the same way. Do you believe Maori should stop haka because it can damage their voices? After 700 years? It is simply a different set of cultural values.
I think you absolutely have a right to perform with the values you deem fit for yourself and I encourage you to do so, as that often leads to community and a sense of self-fulfillment. I also think it's important to recognize not every person has the same end goal or means to get there.
@@BigFinnable these are different art forms we're talking about. opera is very demanding and specific; to be able to get the most out of the sound, the technique needs to be correct and healthy which willl not only preserve the voice, but give it the sound that it requires. though i'm not a fan of the examples she provided.
traditional singing is different and has its own set of rules on how it should be done. if that technique happens to be unhealthy, though, i would take notice of that and mention it
I do not know enough about either to comment, but I know what I like and you explain it perfectly. Thank you.
I've studied Opera for over 10 years now and this was the most mind-blowing 16 minutes of my life
Then you haven't learned very much. Bringing back what this woman is suggesting is ridiculous. You can't sing Verdi and Puccini with a "baroque" style technique of singing. Yes, it would be laughed off the stage and for good reason. When Caruso came on the scene, his voice revolutionized the way we understand the singing voice. There was a pathos in his voice; he used the instrument to express emotion; there was squillo. Was that bad? No, but it was new. Bel Canto style is not a technique of sound, it is an interpretation of music from a vocal perspective. We have absolutely no idea how Caruso, Ruffo, Destin and Galli-Curci sounded in the opera house. I can tell you outright. The development of singing changes with the wants of the audience; be it positive or negative. In the mid part of the 20th century, singing was much different than it had been 100 years earlier. Was it better? I really don't know, but it was very different. It took that difference, which gave validity to music that required more voice, more passion and more drama. I don't want Emma Kirkby or Julia Lehzneva to sing Mimi or the Forza Leonora. Just as I would not want Renata Tebaldi or Leontyne Price to sing Handel's Cleopatra.
@@Campuscoll⋅ « When Caruso came on the scene, his voice revolutionized the way we understand the singing voice » Is that such a well known fact, or can you give a source for that assertion?
« The development of singing changes with the wants of the audience » Supply & demand, it seems logical. If Ziazan wants to create a restorationist bel canto school, it's more supply at the end of the day…
« You can't sing Verdi and Puccini with a "baroque" style technique of singing » It's just a synthesis of what she was taught + early musical recordings, not certified baroque singing. It is closer to Puccini than it is to Monteverdi. Speaking of Monteverdi, this video shows how to reconstruct a song from Monteverdi to make it sound a little bit more similar to the original interpretations of it. → ruclips.net/video/Mr7xXMexKKU/видео.html
@@Campuscoll What is Baroque about Kirkby? And what exactly was so revolutionary about Caruso? Affre and Escalaïs weren't doing the same things? Tamagno? Marconi? De Reszke?
The singing in the mid 20th century was WAY worse. Worse trills, worse coloratura, worse pianissimi, worse messe di voce, worse vibrato, worse longevity, worse everything you can imagine.
As a harpsichordist who started from piano, I've had to unlearn a lot of the 19th century reinterpretations of Baroque and early Classical music. This channel is a breath of fresh air, I'm so glad to have discovered it! Solidarity in the struggle to keep the original musical traditions alive!
As an organist (and harpsichordist) Who came from piano, and went through conservatory in the early 80s, I experienced A great deal controversy in the change of style and performance techniques from early eras to modern eras, especially depending on the type of instrument I was playing. Bottom line… Everyone’s interpretation of music is different, and there is no one right or wrong way. That is what makes it art, and interpretation.
Your channel makes me smile so much. Even as a younger person, i hated listening to most modern opera but adored older recordings, the older the better, but it was hard to articulate why. You're able to articulate it expertly, and it's thrilling to know i wasn't alone in these opinions.
Your teacher's voice is absolutely stunning. I always felt odd that all my favourite singers were pre-1960ish and have always abhorred the fake dark sound of modern singers (mezzos being especially guilty of this) and that I was never taught to sing with a lowered larynx. In fact I've never thought of my larynx at all when singing.
The larynx should never be pressed lower than its natural resting place. The squillo--and hence tonal beauty--is completely ruined🙁
This makes me feel better because my old vocal coach tried to teach me to keep my larynx low and from a vocal injury, I know I should not be messing with my larynx.
@@TJLovt The worst thing is that a singer who does this, as he ages, these shenanigans of moving the larynx around becomes more unpredictable for the singer. The voice becomes more unpredictable in its ability to cooperate "on-call," as it is. So you see these kinds of singers sweating bullets in their older years as they try to make the voice cooperate on stage, but the voice isn't doing it. Alfredo Kraus is a great example of this.
The only modern opera tenor still living who I think sounds like a real pre-1960s tenor is Jaime Aragall. Notice, I didn't say Luciano or Placido. Though I think Luciano's voice is passable.
Hm what are some examples of this "fake dark sound"? Is what Dimitrova does as Abigaille an example of this, or is that sth else? (Cause it sounds awesome lol.)
"how does a singer transmit emotion to an audience? By feeling strongly himself" YES!!! yes yes yes!! becoming your character is essential! the audience can tell the difference when one is not fully mentally and emotionally committed, this is why some dramas aren't performed by the actors more than 4 runs or so, or once they finish performing they have to make a drastic lifestyle change, because their role is genuinely emotionally taxing.
I am not a singer myself, only in the shower like most of us! But doesn't what you describe, and I ask with feeble knowledge, apply to all kinds of stage singing? I'm sure I would want, nay require, the actors to present their parts and characters no less than an actor in any other form of presentation!
@@Britgirl58 Yes, you're right it does apply to any kind of stage singing, however it factors in with opera because the art form takes so much more work to produce a sound that will fill up a large space, the substitutions and portrayal of emotions can help with the enunciation, at least that's my opinion.
Or herself
What about making the audience feel instead of the singer?
It’s the audience who should cry?
well, darling! Watch Luis Lima! He is almost always crying in the role, but makes you cry every time you hear him!@@draganvidic2039
What I have noticed is that singers are extremely hard to tell apart nowadays, and also the epidemic of shaking jaws among singers. I'm actually shocked when a singer doesn't look like they're chewing as they sing.
It is not that hard to tell the difference if you hear them live. Many opera houses run double casts. Hear 2 different singers doing the same role and then try to convince me you can't tell them apart.
I love classical music, but I'm not an opera fan. However, because of the title of this video, and then because of your extremely creative presentation, I watched the whole thing.
As a non-opera fan, let me just say: this was delightful! Lots of variety in methods of presentation, easy to follow, amusing + good use of humor, and little to no jargon that only insiders could be expected to know.
I'm so glad you are posting on something you're interested in -- and kudos for making it appealing to people who aren't even fans!
I don't know how I got here, or what this is about, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope your ghostly aspirations will meet with success.
The fact that I finally realized that the ghost was also her after 5 mins of the conversation is shocking 😱
Me too! I kept the doubt until almost the end. Hahaha!
Not as shocking as me not realizing at all!
I kept doubting 😭
@@stevelesqueeze oh lol 🤣
Tilda Swinton level feat lol
That was fun and informative!
I'm an old audio technician, an architect wanabee and a singer wanabee. I have stuffed a long series of sound systems into churches and built a bunch of speakers. It is interesting to me to have this conversation with musicians and various techs because they have very different language and criteria even though they really want the same beautiful thing, great meaningful sound. The silence between the notes is nearly as important as the voice.
Audiologists tell us that the human ear is 5dB more sensitive to sounds in the range from 1kHz to 5kHz, and that most of the nuances of language reside there. Moms can hear their baby crying a mile away.
When building a PA speaker, intelligibility is engineered into the midrange.
Sound engineers do their best to produce intelligibility. After tuning the room out of the sound system, they often will suppress the midrange band from 1k to 5k by 5 dB to improve the experience of the show. This intelligibility is, IMO, the same thing your Bel canto singers were working toward in an opera house that is engineered to support and project their sound (like Carnegie etc.).
Modern venues with electronic sound are engineered to be as acoustically absorbent as possible. The sound is propagated from the speaker array, through the listening area exactly once, and then dies away never to return, absorbed by that dead back wall. The microphones and signal processors do most of the work to bring us the intelligibility we seek. In Bel canto, the room is part of the voice. But, the room is the sound tech's worst enemy. How do these people even talk to each other? It is not easy!
Me, too. I was trained in this style is singing but then didn't pursue opera professionally because...well, I had the wrong sound. But the feeling was mutual because I don't care for the modern opera singer's sound. I moved on to other musical genres. But I didn't know I was a dying breed. Goodness! Thanks for starting this great channel!
What kind of music do you do now?
@@thesaviorofsouls5210 Currently, I write my own songs. It's run the gamut from punk to sacred, though.
Alessandro Moreschi (the last castrato )was recorded in 1904 (his last recording.) It’s amazing we got an idea of that amazing voice of what a castrato sounded like as they are extinct now.
I am castrato
Loved it. I am 58 and now in the process of "vocal therapy" so that I can keep singing. I believe I'm learning something of what you are posting about with my wonder-teacher, Phyllis Knox. Thanks for your informative, fun, and somatically affecting vlog!
It makes so much sense, opera from today sounds so vague. Listening to the old recordings feels so refreshing and clear. Thanks for making this video
This is incredible. Thanks for this. I knew something was weird back when I quit my vocal performance degree because my voice was getting ‘ugly’. I so didn’t want to sound that way. I felt so protective over my voice because I prefer a more ‘innocent’ sound. I couldn’t explain it, tho. Ya know, why I felt that way. I’ve realized it, now. 🙏🏾
One of my friends in college quit for the same reason. Being a vocal major was ruining her voice-making it ugly. She lost the sweetness in her tone. She went to her final jury and sang “The Sound of Music” as kind of a send off to her instructors. To this day I struggle with opera. Those I know who sing it are complete snobs and while I’m a classical music fanatic, I just can’t even come to an appreciation of opera or those who have been trained in the current methods even when they *gasp* sing other genres. It’s the same thing that’s happened to gymnastics and ice skating.
D.T. :Hi ! ☺️🎼.
Were you at Winchester ?
Where have you been ?
Miss you !
(or apologies if the
wrong D.T. ! )
🇬🇧☺️💕🎼⭐🎹
I agree, I also feel very protective of my voice and preserve its unique qualities, I don't want to sound like everyone else.
@@luisescamilla5847 And they’re all screaming.
That’s fascinating to read, because I also quit singing after 10 years, for more or less the same reason. I didn’t like the so called technique they wanted my voice to squeeze into, it didn’t feel natural, it didn’t sound good (although I have a naturally sweet and beautiful sounding voice). I still didn’t quit the idea of learning to sing , but in a different way. And learning more and more about the old bel canto. Maybe one day I’ll still find a teacher.
Very entertaining video.
One thought: I feel that your theory falls apart when you try and stretch 19th century stylistic ideals into the Baroque period. Does what a 19th century person wrote about singing have much to do with what was considered good taste when singing in 17th century France? Aren't the technical ideals that you've quoted from Manuel Garcia jr completely contradicted by Giulo Caccini's preface on rhetorical singing? The 19th century Bel canto style and the 17th century text-centric style seem to be polar opposites, from what I can tell.
So perhaps your theory would be slightly refined if you only said that operatic vocal technique has changed since the 19th century (for the worse, as you say) and quote the ideals of 19th century thinkers but then leave it to that.
not only that, but the video seems to assume that going back in time, there was only one specific way of singing opera, to which I don't agree. The history of opera is full of changes in taste, and thus in vocal techniques, depending on what was considered important and "good" in that moment. Plus, the further back you go, the more you'll start to see the small (and big) differences between how opera was sung in different countries.
@@mariaghilotti742 Louis XIV even had a singing school established because the techniques of the day were so all over the place. 100 years later, Casanova touched on the huge differences in style that sill existed in each country.
I think the important point wasn't that the style from Garcia's time is correct for Baroque music, but that our interpretation of what is correct has changed since then and that quite possibly neither way is 'correct'. Ziazan doesn't really discuss whether she thinks the recording Garcia plays is all correct, although she does seem to react positively to the rubato, which we are promised a future video on.
Others are correct that there has always been more than one way to sing opera. This biggest takeaway I got from this video is precisely the fact that we have been gravitating towards only approving one particular way of doing it, and that's not a good thing.
I knew one day you would come! Like you, I've rejected the modern orthodoxy concerning singing technique and interpretation, and thought I was alone in maintaining this stance. My story: I started my first voice lesson as a sophomore in college in 1994. Before then, I had no idea about opera and was convinced to become a voice major by the guys in my acapella group that were far more knowledgeable on vocal matters. I auditioned and was accepted into the voice program. Curious, I went to the library to conduct my own research on my voice type, and there I discovered all the records from the great 19th century singers. From there, it was only a short skip and a hop until I discovered the Big Boys, Handel, Bach, Mozart, Gluck, etc. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! The librarians all came to know me, for I spent every hour of every day in the Fine Arts library - they had to throw me out when the library closed each evening. I copied every single aria written by Handel, synthesized them into midi files (remember those?) so that I had a complete orchestral accompaniment when I practiced. After digesting all the works of the Big Boys, (I even copied, studied and synthesized all the works of Wagner, Mahler & Strauss) I then moved on to lesser known 18th century composers like Porpora, Hasse, Leo, the Scarlattis, Vinci, Jommelli, Sarti...before I knew it, I had stumbled upon the castrati. That changed my world FOREVER! I delved head first into this phenomenon, ordering books via the inter-library loan system from all over the country. My partner in crime, my voice professor, would lend me her staff ID which allowed me universal access to all the restricted records, CDs and books in the library. I read every single book twice, three-times over - the Italian ones I got translated by one of the professors - so that within a year or two I had become the undisputed expert on all things castrati and 18th century on my college campus. I knew all the great 18th century singers by name, style and reputation, both castrati as well as women singers, all the 18th century composers, had read every single book concerning 18th century style and singing technique, had read journals and scientific papers on the subject - you name it, I'd read it! The only problem was, how to incorporate all this knowledge into my singing technique?
Unfortunately my voice professor at the time could offer little help in resurrecting 18th century technique. She herself was trained in the modern style of singing. So I saw no option after graduation but to move to Europe, the center of where it all began. And so I packed two suitcases at the age of 24 and headed with my cat to Vienna, where 2 decades later I still reside to this day. I won't lie and say it was an easy journey - there were significant bumps along the way - but after a few years I was extremely, EXTRAORDINARILY fortunate to finally meet an old school teacher in Vienna, the American Vittorio Giammarusso. This was after my voice was ruined as a student at the local university, where I was being trained to sing in the wrong vocal fach. I met Vittorio in his modest one bedroom apartment, the upstairs half of a house, with contained a small room with a piano that he used for voice lessons. The first thing he had me do was sing a scale. From the look on his face, he seemed to immediately understand everything that was wrong with my voice. For the next year he had me come in every day for voice lessons, including Sundays. In order to afford these lessons, I worked as a babysitter, English teacher as well as a construction worker where I would sandpaper the walls.
A typical voice lesson went like this. I would arrive at his apartment to the music of some opera playing in the background. He had a collection of all the important, but not necessarily modern, singers. He would then make me a cup of tea while we sat down and listened to the recording. He would then ask my opinion of the recording. We would then analyze and criticize the singing technique, replaying certain passages for emphasis. I didn't know it at the time, but our lesson had already begun. Vittorio was teaching me something I'd never learned before in over 10 years of voice lessons - how to LISTEN. After tea, we would then begin with vocal exercises, building on top of what we had just heard on the recording. He himself was a student of the Swedish-Italian method and studied under Nicolai Gedda. He corrected my ruined voice by having me sing on the small "u" and showed me how to bring out a laser-focused voice using legato without forcing or pushing the voice. Sometimes during our lessons, he would quote sayings by Porpora or Carestini. He once gave me an exercise, supposedly used by Caffarelli himself. I was his only student that knew who these men were. Like me, he had studied all the 18th century greats and was adamant that the problem with modern tenors was that they lacked the "voix mixte" technique. Sadly, Vittorio passed away in 2002.
Since then I've tried to reconstruct all that he has taught me, listening to old tapes of our voice lessons, etc. Unfortunately however, I've come to realize that he was a member of a dying art. This sort of technique is hardly taught anymore, much less performed. Nowadays the singers that make it all have uncontrollable, wobbly voices with no concept of legato, messa di voce and no idea how to correctly sing a portamento. Their voices are cold, metallic and grating to the ear, nothing like the warm, glowing, laser sharp voice of an Emma Eames, an Alma Gluck or a Sigrid Onegin. It's sad that as an opera singer, I can't go to hear other opera singers because of how painful they are to listen to. The last opera I saw was Nabucco here in Vienna in about 2002. The lead soprano almost brought me to tears, and not because of her good singing. I see bad singers getting elevated to superstar status, yet they can barely sing a phrase without a wobble. Sometimes it gets very depressing. What would Porpora think about the state of classical singing in the 21st century? This is why I'm so glad to have found this channel. It's refreshing to know that they are others who share my view.
I've subscribed and look forward to binge watching your videos!
I agree with most of what you write here. I also devoured books about singing 30-40 years ago, in particular those by Cornelius Reid, I actually taught it myself (plus piano and theory) at several conservatories in my area. What I would do a lot is work on individual tones to get them placed right. Repeating bad habits only makes them worse.
My ideal of a sound is a standing wave, when you feel that the air is still and not moving out, instead even coming in for all that. This is a guarantee that you are not using unnecessary and harmful air pressure.
Also, brightening the vowels on the lower range (clearly apparent in Claudia Muzio, Ponselle, etc) and darkening them on the top. The latter is an acoustical necessity anyway since the vowels do converge into an "oo" above the staff.
Thank you for sharing your story! I assume you must have read the works of Edward V Foreman in your 18th century studies. He mentored me remotely until his death, he was so knowledgeable and so fun. I still catch myself wanting to ask him a question about something I’m researching.
But I think I might have read one piece of 18th century writing on a castrato which you haven’t, as you are in Vienna and it is in the British Library! I am now totally obsessed with Pacchierotti…
It can be very depressing, but I have faith that we can make a change. Not necessarily to the world of opera, I think that’s a lost cause, but we can start afresh. There will always be great voices waiting to be cultivated, and there will always be ears waiting to hear great singing. As long as the knowledge is not lost, bel canto can live again.
@@PhantomsoftheOpera Pacchierotti is perhaps my all-time favorite opera legend. Of all the great castrati, if given a choice to go back in time to hear just one of them, it would undoubtedly be Pacchierotti (sorry Farinelli!). It's not just his amazing technique and superhuman vocal prowess that makes him my hero, but his uncommon humility and kindness of heart. I like to think that I've read all the major books and articles about this extraordinary man, but since he loved London and spent so much time there, it's only logical that you guys would have access to rarely known material concerning Pacchierotti. May I ask the name of this writing/book located in the British Library?
@@CurtisCT Yes! This exactly! I love him so much. Send me an email and I’ll let you have a peek at some of the passages I copied out from the manuscript. I’ve half-written a book, but haven’t got round to publishing it yet.
@@PhantomsoftheOpera Will do!
Im not yet convinced, that opera singing really "went wrong" or just simply evolved into a new style. The circumstances today are of course very different than at Mr Garcias time - the average opera house became bigger, the stage acting is much more demanding, the repertoire more diverse, etc. Also I am for the most part in favor of todays "historically informed" singing, so there is also the factor of taste.
Still - I am now quite intrigued to learn more about historical singing practices and will follow you on your journey. Your video is well produced, was interesting to watch while also being quite entertaining. Thank you for your work and showing me a new perspective on opera singing!
Which average opera houses became bigger, out of interest? Covent Garden has less capacity now than in the 19th century, La Scala's capacity is also smaller, The Haymarket lost capacity, too, and the Royal Albert Hall always had around 6000 capacity, while the Colosseum (ENO) began life as a Music Hall so it was neither reverential nor quiet for the performers...
@@annedanotha-thing2509 I would say thats the general development of opera houses until the beginning of the 20th century. Its quite visible for example in praque with three existing opera houses, from the original Mozart Theatre Stavovské divadlo to the two 19th century buildings, which really shows the demand of bigger halls with more seats and also bigger stages with more technically advanced machinery.
The seating capacity is unfortunately a bad indicator for the size of the hall itself - through many regulations, expecially for fire safety, but also people in general getting bigger and through renovations with more comfortable modern seats houses often lost quite a significant amount of seats.
A possible comparison may be: the baroque Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreuth (opened 1750) today serves about 500 modern seats (back in the day 800) and back than was one of the biggest of its time. The Wiener Staatsoper (opened 1869) has about 1.700 seats. There are of course exceptions to this, but the general tendency stays the same.
After listening to old singers for a while modern singing becomes entirely unlistenable. Very many people have had this experience. The average person also just thinks opera, modern opera that is, sounds stupid. I definitely think this is evidence something went wrong.
@scronchman01 I enjoy both old singers and more modern singers; I believe that opera took a turn and became a tad more extreme in how it represents music and ideas, and that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I also believe that what the average person thinks is no metric to use, since modern average music can be considered horrendous, and in spite of that it is highly successful.
Opera has always followed fashion, and just like fashion - it has always changed. Had it not changed, it would've been completely irrelevant at its very first stages. Every single singer nowadays claims that their teacher taught them "the one and only true technique". Guess what. There just isn't one. There are hundreds of books on vocal technique from the last 500 years, and all differ greatly from one another. Because singing has always, and will alwaye be subjective and individual, because every larynx is unique.
I just found your channel! You are a star!! I love your ideas, your acting, your editing style!!!! SUPER!! And of course, thank you for all the research you are doing. As an opera singer, I enjoyed every minute!! Fascinating! Thank you❤
I’m so amazed with your talking! Surely a product of your singing practice, but it’s so beautiful and clean und fine. I absolutely love it!
There is much that I agree with here; and a bit that I don't agree with. And it is delightful to find a community of people who care about what is happening to the art of singing. The voice is nothing less, than the innermost intersection of our mind, body, heart and soul. It is unique in each person, and in each moment. Each generation has it's own versions of preferred styles and criteria for which singers get promoted and paid. And each generation, singers must struggle to be true to their deeper self and deeper artistry, while the expediencies of the "industry" demand otherwise.
There is a blatant error in your line of logic- “each generation has its own versions of preferred styles.”
The issue is regardless of how much style may change, the human physiology does not. A certain sound and coordination must inherently be the most perfectly produced and therefore desirable, which has nothing to do with style across generations.
In short, a voice is either better or worse produced and that is objective and unchangeable because it specifically aligns with human body mechanics and physiology.
When we hear voices like Caruso or ponselle, we hear the voice produced in the most exacting way possible. It has rather nothing to do with generational style.
Fisichella, the great tenor who is now 80 years old said it best- there is one technique, and will always be one technique, and it is the past, present and future.
He understood
no, there are a thousand ways one can make sound his voice.. and all in a more or less healthy way.. the dark opera attitude.. the light heady early music style.. screaming heavy metal... declamatory rap... styles for microphone and styles without microphone.. the roaring gospel.. the falsetto Countertenor... 10 thousand ways and schools to let your voice ring... so, I don't understand the dogmatic definition of a "one and only" use of the voice...
@@stone301 This is simply untrue. Considering your historic standard is specific to one particular corner of the world for a relatively short period of time, it is silly to even consider it as "the most perfect". You like it because that is what you were educated in and exposed to, and that's why Caruso and Ponselle like it so much as well. This is only natural, as it's how styles are developed and passed on. But it is not some objective pinnacle of human vocalization. It's one of many equally valid, correct, and healthy methods of singing.
Also the old recordings she showed all sound bland and amateurish. And that's even though she cherry picked her examples. Taking modern examples where the singers are screaming and straining while picking the old recordings she liked best. Especially the Handel example way striking. I could barely understand the words in the old recording while every note and syllable was crystal clear in both moder recordings. Sure, you could call that vocal gymnastics, but that's how most music is today: striving for perfection. Its the same for violin and piano.
@@triorubino-michakoeppen9105 The author of this video never said that one and only use should be used for metal or rap. She was only talking about 19th/early 20th century opera.
That clip of Emmy Destin and Karl Jörn singing Les Huguenots gave me goosebumps. It is so much more dynamically expressive, and therefore emotionally so too, than today's style. Just the use of varying vibrato in itself makes such a huge difference.
You are, by far, one of the most underrated opera history RUclipsrs I have come across!!!
I'd rate her a 17.
for once youtube did something right by bringing this channel to my recommendations.
this has answered 2 questions for me, that i couldn't figure out on my own, what is it that bothers me about modern opera and why do i always seem to gravitate towards older recordings and enjoy them more. thank you for what you do and i sincerely hope that your goal in reviving bel canto will be realized.
Thank you. Rae's singing at 1:25 sent a thrill straight through to my heart. For opera to have lost - no, abandoned - this capacity, is nothing less than a crime, in my opinion.
This excellent piece brings back memories to me. I studied cornet with an "old-school" cornettist who understood the importance of "bel canto." At the university (in the late 1960s) I was laughed at for even mentioning the words. Nonetheless, I adopted a style that was in the favor of my beliefs and have become known (at least locally) as a trumpeter with "soul" who makes things sound like real music and not just the notes from the paper. I (half) jokingly tell them that I use Louis Prima's philosophy: "Play pretty for the people." It is refreshing to hear someone who gets the importance of this in opera, which, in my mind, has become almost an Olympic event. Brava
There are a lot of similarities in Arban with the vocal treatises of the same era. Are you a fan of Edna White?
As a professional Baroque dancer, we used to joke we were BaROCK., Because there is a big overlap with the exigencies of the styles.
Always remember we once did a show with a Classical orchestra...well, it was un danceable. Rubato all over the place. Inconsistent tempo. Unrythmical transitions between pieces. Our boss had to have a quiet word with the conductor. Well they got it really well, and seemed to enjoy the challenge.
Later in the show, there was a Cancan and it was great to hear them in their (19th cent) element.
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to have found your channel this morning! My voice teacher is always saying Bel Canto is lost….and I always wanted to know what it sounded like! This gramma phone is awesome. I love the idea and interactions with the phantoms. Brava! I will be listening to all of your videos!
It is impressive how deep you can imitate a man's voice 😊
As much as I appreciate your effort, I don't think it's possible to prove that fashion in singing was more constant in previous centuries than we saw in the 20th century. I'd wager that invention of recording stabilised the fashion rather than speeding up its changes. What is more, you cannot talk about European style of singing in the early times, because styles differed depending on a country or even a region. Nevertheless, keep up the good work with showing early recordings to the world, they are indeed fascinating, even if they aren't pleasing to the modern taste. Liked and subscribed, waiting for more.
Totally agree - the sheer number of earlier writers who tell us that styles changed dramatically in their lifetime simply cannot be brushed aside in order to support this sort of ideology.
Exactly! Most probably, the style of singing we hear in early recordings would be just as alien to the 18th century audiences, as it is for us. Claiming that those singers are better than the contemporary ones is absurd. They are just different! And that's good, we can cherish the diversity previous generations didn't have.
Agreed
@@paunitka7 Maybe. But considering they bothered to write lyrics to these performances tells me, they were originally meant to be heard and articulated in an understandable way.
@@menninkainen8830 Are you telling me that you can understand lyrics from those old records better than from contemporary renditions? I can hardly believe that. Singing technique aside, those old records have a rather poor quality, so it's really difficult to understand a word.
Although I have a hard time singing even two consecutive notes in tune, as a part-time musician and full-time music lover ,I found this video very enlightening. Great video.
Thank you for making this channel!! Please don’t ever stop making these videos
It was Maria Callas who said in an interview in the 1970’s that opera was a dying art. Who are we to argue with the most extraordinary operatic soprano, possibly of all time.
I remember reading an article about the old style of singing, and how it sounded better and was better for the vocal chords. The article didn't go into much detail or have links to recordings. I am happy to have found your channel, and look forward to learning more.
Do you remember what the article title is? It makes me wonder why the technique changed if there were so many disadvantages.
@@FlamingCockatiel I wish I could remember the title to the article. It bugs me that I can't. I think it had to do with Wagner and how the singers had to sing over the orchestra. If I ever do find it, I'll post it. I think it was published like 2 or 3 years ago.
Past singing was healthier because they sang with their natural voice range rather than tried to fit objective pitch, which didn't exist.
I always wondered why I enjoyed old recordings better. Bravo and thank you!
Your channel is the best thing I've found so far.
Love your speaking voice.
It’s wonderful …rich and soothing.
This video is wonderful. It is a rare perspective on tone production styles that I am very grateful for. You must have slaved over it, and it paid off beautifully.
your speaking voice is sublime. so glad to have found your channel & to learn !
Interesting. My teacher, Tatiana Vasilieva, studied opera in Italy just after WWII. Among her teachers was Gigli. She trained me as a coloratura lyric tenor in the Bel Canto style. I listen to the 19th century voices in this video and immediately feel at home. I once had a singing lesson from a well known New York vocal teacher who tried to get me to sing in the heroic modern style. It was most uncomfortable and unpleasant and exhausting, the very opposite of the ease of Bel Canto once one is "on the horse". It is possible to sing all night without becoming tired or distressed.
It's funny because I've never studied opera history before, but I've always hated how modern opera singers sing, and I always figured to myself, "there is no way on earth that people back in Mozart's time sang with this awful throaty, unnatural sound." It's so nice to see someone explaining the actual history and confirming what I always assumed.
I’m not sure what I did right for the algorithm to bring up this video, but I am incredibly grateful to have found your channel! Thank you for your work ✨🎄
Beautiful, wonderful, thank You, just what I needed today.
This has been a revelation! I was classically trained in Piano and love all the eras and forms of classical music. however, modern Operatic singing always seemed wrong. I appreciated the old recordings far more. you have made me understand why, for the first time. I can identify exactly what I love about the old style of singing.
I’m no opera expert but there was a 2/3 yr period where I bought and listened and got obsessed to only classical voices, and built quite a large collection of CD’s. I would occasionally order a modern or contemporary recording I rarely kept listening to them. It was the older singers and recordings from the 20’s-60’s that had the poetry and heart, the clear diction and straightforward expression, the occasional frailties and emotion that felt like art. It emerged, haunting & enigmatic even from those crackly early recordings.
There’s nothing better than crackling sounds in music. It’s almost as good as listening to the music itself honestly. Such a good sound.
I do think that part of why you didn’t enjoy the other music is because it just wasn’t what you were used to hearing. I listen to a very wide range of music and when you switch between decades or centuries or genres, whatever you play second doesn’t sound as good because it’s not what your ears are used to enjoying so it comes across as odd.
If you put on a favourite song from one time period and genre and then another favourite song from another time and genre, the second song just loses its feeling and sounds hollow even though you love the song.
If you flip from David Bowie to Elton John for example it’s fine. Two men covered in glitter with sounds of the 70s. But if you take Etta James and flip to The Beatles, they sound kinda terrible. It’s not because they’re actually bad it’s just because it’s so different it’s like your ears are confused.
I find you can enjoy any type of music if you just listen to it for long enough. Other than radio shows based on music by current popularity and hearing more than 30 seconds of house music because it’s the same 30 seconds of one beat and one sound pretending to go somewhere for 6 minutes straight.
Why 20s? You're missing decades of earlier master singers.
You're like This Is Opera, but the nice version. I dig it.
AMEN!! There was so much I learned from "This Is Opera", but unfortunately one of the things I learned was how obnoxious and downright mean he was! To the point where he was actually more of a detriment to his cause than he was a help!
Ziazan, however, is just as truthful to the cause, gives much better historical information and analysis, while still remaining a very charming person! THANK YOU!
@@artdanks4846 I learnt a lot too. But mostly from listening to singers.
I remember This is Opera
I like this this channel better than This is Opera! Her voice is so pleasant
I was going through an existential crisis about my singing and my love for opera, and by the time I discovered This Is Opera my first thought was "well, I'm done". I stopped studying. It made me so sad to think that the people who were consuming his content maybe some day could be listening to me.
I experienced my first opera two years ago. This video has greatly elevated my appreciation of the art of opera singing. I cant get enough of Hubert Eisdell. Thank you, looking forward to your future videos!
I love how you add humor so naturally i every video
I'm a casual classical music listener with no formal musical training. I enjoy pieces from various eras (Beethoven, Liszt, Mozart, Debussy, etc.) but I’ve never been able to understand opera. I always assumed it was because I’m untrained and didn’t grow up with classical music. However, I genuinely enjoyed the samples on your video from the bygone eras. It actually sounds like real singing! Thank you so much for bringing this up!
I have no idea of singing, of opera or high arts at all, but this channel is not just informative but highly entertaining, I enjoyed it very much :) thank you for sharing this, which I imagine had tons of research behind, in such a fun way. I wish you the best of luck in your pat to saving your art form, I'll continue watching :)
B.R.A.V.O and thank you for doing this. I can’t believe that RUclips is showing me this video only right now, knowing that I am a professional opera singer and have been doing historically informed music for years. I even have an ensemble with period instrument and together we are studying (Garcia of course) and making research for authentic interpretation. We even had a master class with Kai Köpp to do so, working on old record and trying to “reproduce” the best we can from these old performers…
Maybe we will meet sometimes :)
Can't believe I hadn't caught this vid before communicating with you! Your intro to Garcia is appreciated, as his work properly should have significant impact on singers and teachers, as well as composers. 🌹
I just found your channel! I had a fleeting interest in opera when I was a teenager, but destroyed my vocal chords with cigarettes and stuff. I think it's really nice you've posted this, even if I'm 3 years late to it; it's informative and I'm learning a lot already, and I'm excited to check out the rest of your channel.
Brava! What a polished video. Keep up the good work. Samuel Milligan, my departed mentor and archivist for the Historic Harp Society and American Folk Harp Society would have loved this. Thank you.
As an American with some experience in opera, both as an audience member and as a singer, this was a great video and very interesting. However, my critique of modern opera is a bit more fundamental than the singing and technique and has to do with language and presentation.
You want to know what was the greatest opera I ever saw? It was a rendition of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" performed on a small stage, with a small orchestra, professional singers, and IN ENGLISH! I understand that cultural preservation and acknowledging the roots of a work is important, but opera belongs to the audience that listens to it just as much as the culture that created it, and opera should be fun instead of high brow work.
So true. Ermanno Wold-Ferrari, "I quatro rusteghi", comedy, Russian language (i'm Russian), small stage, little orchestra, a piano, eight pro singers unamplified.
IIRC the reason opera was sung in the work's original language, at least in the United States, was because the audience that popularized it in the 19th century did not speak English as a first language. They were all immigrants, so they wanted to hear the opera as they remembered it in the old country. German operas were played for German immigrants, Italian operas for Italian immigrants, and so on. If you were German and wanted to hear opera, you'll just have to accept it being in Italian because it's the Italians turn. Hopefully they will play a German opera next time.
By the time their Americanized children were paying for their own tickets, the children wanted to hear it the way they remembered it. That being in their parents' first language, even though they barely knew the language themselves.
@@newguy90 in Russia, it's even worse. Opera and ballet came to Russia in XVIII century as court entertainment. XVIII century Russian nobles spoke French as their preferred language, not Russian. Many also knew german and Italian. After 1812 many started speaking Russian, but the tradition of learning and admiring foreign languages kept with the Russian noblity till it's very death. Leo Tolstoy wrote circa 1850: "people are divided into du comme il fault (in French as stated) and non du comme il fault, the first are those who have clean nails, speak French fluently and dance well, the second are all those remaining who don't." Opera was for the first category. After the Revolution, nobility went extinct, but opera resulted with a tradition of not being translated. Fortunately, they don't apply it always as nobody knows said Italian today and we have plenty of Russian operas written in between 1850-1960
@@newguy90 Very perceptive comment.
I remember my mom asking me why I didn’t like opera. I listened to the classical music radio station quite a lot as a teen,but I’d often change the channel when opera came on. There was something about it that put me on edge. It was a similar feeling to when I joined church choir and was the only alto. A choir of 8 sopranos (or women who think they are), 2 tenors, and an alto isn’t properly balanced.
I think I might have liked this older version of opera you are talking about.
WOOF…so true, most are on that soprano line because they don’t know how to sing anything but the melody 🙃🙂
@@jenniferhiemstra5228
(Ha - ha !
Ref sopranos seeking
the melody ! )
That's been my
impression for years !
Not all, of course ! ☺️💕)
Singing soprano
certainly does need
skill, and in a way,
being the top line,
any mistakes can
stand out....
I !Ike being an alto,
even though we
don't get as much
prominence as
sopranos.....
Often I wish altos
could be a bit more bold,
I hope they don't feel
a slightly inhibited by being
" second" to sopranos,
as they supply harmonies,
to enhance the music.
It's great when all the
parts can be heard :
often the altos " disappear " !
Anyway, when it's all
going right, you feel
as if there's
nowhere you'd
rather be.
Sing up, altos !
🇬🇧☺️💕🎼☺️🎹🇬🇧
Me too. I started liking it when I listened live singing. I think many voice components don't pass through recordings. Beautiful textures you never get to hear, you are only able to imagine once you heard a lot of live singing.
Hey there, I'm the alto, the "first alto" to be certain. Our problem is very boring things to sing, we never have melody. When people learn i spent eight years learning how to sing, they ask to sing something, but we need to be at least twelve...
@@jenniferhiemstra5228 Yes. You described my aunt, who sings second soprano. I don't get it. She can read music, so why can't she learn the harmony? People can hear when there's strain.
I envision messing with such people by commissioning a choral piece where sopranos never get the melody, while altos have it most of the time.
My great uncle was a musicologist, his specialty was Baroque music. He could analyze any kind of music and sound completely enthusiastic about it, but one of the best days of his life (at least professionally) was the one when he met a completely untrained tenor that he could teach to sing Baroque music in small spaces without trying to send his voice to the end of a theater that was not there.
His name was José Luis Ochoa de Olza, you may be interested in his work. You may also hate it, but hey... :-)
What a creative and interesting way of discussing bel canto and different styles according to chronology! I’ve been teaching (all styles of singing) for over 35 years now. BRAVA to you!! 🙌🏻
Having just stumbled upon this video I must congratulate you. Firstly, I applaud you for disseminating information about a rather unadressed topic in a transparent way. Secondly, I appreciate the creative effort you seemingly invested in adding an air of levity to your video while (in my opinion, succesfully) avoiding being too gaudy. Finally, I salute your mission of technique preservation which I am surprised to find exists.
I wish you success on your journey and I will be glad to see any further content you create!
Brava!!! Many thanks for this informative, whimsical and entertaining look at an issue that has been driving me mad for the past 40 years. It is refreshing to know that a younger person finds the old gramophone records both enjoyable and educational. Plus, you introduced me to a tenor (Hubert Eisdell) with whom I was not familiar. I look forward to watching your channel on a regular basis!
What a lovely 16 minutes I just had, and what a pleasure to come across you on RUclips! I look forward to following your campaign to bring back a lost art.
One of my singing teachers studied vocal pedagogy for twelve years with baritone Mario Basiola in Milan. In the preface to his well known book 'The Structure of Singing' Richard Miller calls Basiola the finest vocal technician he ever encountered. Basiola was a pupil of baritone Antonio Cotogni - born 1831 and the earliest born singer to have recorded. Cotogni had many great pupils, including Gigli, Lauri Volpi and Franci. I hear that teaching in Basiola's recording of the Prologue to Pagliacci.
My heads-up in singing came about 30 years ago with "Bel Canto" by Cornelius Reid written by him in the 1950's, tracing its history and decline.
By then, the bigger is better, that is to fill halls with reams of sound was getting underway with the likes of Leontyne Price (an excellent singer in her own right) and the mega-tenors. He pointed out that part of the new style had to do with women abdicating their chest voices while ironically men were pushing them up. Now with counter-tenors (most of them make me grimace) it is a completely different ballgame as even baritones can sing almost completely in the falsetto and get away with it.
@@zamyrabyrd The other night I watched a telecast of the new Rigoletto from the Met - hideous set and costumes and terrible staging! Gilda came out of the Duke's bedroom half way thru 'Cortigiani' and just stood there listening. Her agitated entrance music which followed meant nothing! The baritone sounded like he was 'marking' for much of the role - saved himself for 'Cortigiani' and the end. Rigoletto is probably the most difficult baritone role in the standard rep - but if you have to do that to get through then you shouldn't be singing it!
gosh im so happy i stumble onto your channel
As someone who loves old fashioned styles of opera technique, I'm so excited to have found this channel! I don't like the dark, heavy sound that's so popular these days.
She may not really be related to this topic, but I'd be interested to know whether or not Lily Pons would be a singer using the old bel canto technique. Her voice certainly wouldn't be popular today, but she's one of my favorites.
Finding this video is a really amazing treat for me! I was taken to my first opera as a birthday "treat" for my 10th birthday, several decades ago. My parents loved opera, you see: my father was a musician and I was meant to have a career in classical music . It was a hellish racket, truly: the wretched multiple wildly excessive vibrato from various over-loud voices at variance with each other and warbling at different rates. And then it reached the epitome of evils - two coloratura sopranos at once. That was too much! I fled the racket, out of the opera house before my parents could grab me to make me endure it any longer. It was, the whole thing, over the top. And that was the end of opera for me.
I love medieval and early renaissance music, though, and play the lute and fiddle for medieval and Irish traditional music. And, as I now realise, I was just born a few centuries to late to love opera.
Best of luck to you in your quest to revive/preserve the art of bel canto.
Sadly, you are correct (or will be correct soon) that there are no more bel canto singers who experienced first-hand bel canto pedagogy from true bel canto singers who learned the proper technique themselves.
The intergenerational pedagogical link was broken, but with devotees like yourself, perhaps it can be mended, if not restored.
I look forward to exploring your channel.
There are actually some bel canto teachers on the rise. Maybe the most prominent is the Lichtenberger Institute.
Fascinating! Here I was thinking I wasn’t a big opera fan, when I’m really not a fan of modern operatic singing! In those old recording you played, you can really hear the natural speaking voice of the singers (which is exactly what I love about folk, rock, and hip hop vocalists)
I'm not a singer or a teacher.not even a conventional opera fan or lover. I valued this skit style.of.presentation. ur accent and pronunciation is also easy on ears and your turnout and studio on the eyes.😊 thanks and all the best. l
I just stumbled on your channel. Very interesting. I am full time contemporary musician and teacher of 28 years. This has been a truly delightful discovery. Thank you
I do love your channel!
Thank you, for all you have taught me!
The best thing RUclips has thrown at me in years and I think I owe it to the drag performance included. Kudos!
As a young composer in love with opera I despair at the thought that I might not find any proper singers, and thus it would be in vain composing operas myself!
I must praise you for the effort of keeping alive the tradition of great singing: it gives me slight hope as an artist that perhaps once again the art of opera shall be seen as profoundly sweet as it used to be.
Splendid lesson that filled my soul with joy. Wish you A Really Happy New Year. Yours
Agree with you on all of it, except... Early Music is SOOOOO much better now than it's ever been.
I’m glad to have stumbled upon this video! I don’t know much about classical singing or opera, but it warms my heart to see someone who is so passionate about the continuity of their art while deftly embracing fun effective accessible modern communication!
My wife is an opera singer. I can hear her upstairs training her voce now. Old school. She is preparing a couple of arias for a recital.
The problem is simple: the old maestros, Italian technique, are gone. Today opera singers sing opera with Broadway techniques and pop techniques. It not only sounds ugly but it is also dangerous for the voice.
My wife had the great luck to train her voice with Cuban Baritone and Maestro Jorge Gavira, who had also learned to sing in Italy with the great masters at that time of the Old Italian School and I remember comparing my wife's lessons with recordings from Julliard's and laughing at the studio. After singing leading roles all over the world, my wife had to stop singing because she had nodules in her voice (American technique). Gavira had to rebuilt her voice and technique with private lessons basically from scratch. He completely prohibited her from signing a single note until he said that she was ready, not even in the shower! "If I realize that you have been singing, I will stop teaching you!". He was so strict as it should be. It took 2 years until she could do her first recital again. He used to say" voice is like a Baccara crystal cup, you break it, and repair it with crazy glue and it will never sound the same again".
This video is delightful ☺️ calming, comedic, clear and informative! You’ve earned my sub and I hope you succeed!!
Your talking voice alone would be amazing for audiobooks.
thank you for this! Please keep the videos coming! Singers, and especially opera directors, need to hear this.
A few years ago I was at an early music conference where singing was being discussed, the music was C.14th, and I said that the bottom line was that we have no idea what singers sounded like then and that early music groups had been hijacked by Oxbridge choral scholar trained singers. The speaker didn’t address my point, just started talking about Pythagorean tuning. We’ll never know of course what medieval singers sounded like but I’m interested in your approach and have subscribed.
I agree with you and believe the same thing happened. We do know what medieval singers sounded like, there are a few authentic sources in latin, one is a book on singing technique and a few others are criticisms of singers in public squares and taverns for the way they did things differently, compared to church singers. I read them on a doctoral thesis that translated these sources for the very first time. It's a fascinating read. As a singer, I've practiced some of the lessons and I'll give you a clue as to what medieval singing sounded like: it's a lot more similar to musical theatre technique than you would think.
@@marisolmtzm do you happen to remember what the thesis was called? Some of the trills and grace notes described in sources like Hieronymus de Moravia suggest a sound rather more florid than typical of Musical Theatre singing to me, although their method of tone production could of course be similar (probably with substantial regional differences if the sources are to be believed...)
@@tbraithwaite92 Yes I do, I own a copy of it. That comparison with musical theatre wasn't made by the author, but by me, because I found similarities in some areas.
@@marisolmtzm fantastic, any chance you could let me know the title?
Very interested in this convo, I'm in a choir that focuses on medieval and renaissance music, would be really cool to know more about the og sound!
As a musician and a trained (Ancient) Historian, your work is vital. Godspeed.
Loved this video so much! Fun and very informative. Thank you for posting it!!
Your voice is absolutely beautiful! What a delight to hear you speak, your voice has such melody and you can hear your vocal training in every word you speak!
I’d love to see some videos talking about the technique used to train voices pre-1960s. Obviously we’ve had some good voices since then, but I’ve noticed how there is a huge drop-off in world class singers after that point. Channels like BaroneVitelloScarpia have videos featuring 50+ incredible operatic baritones, all with beautiful expressive voices and most of whom sang roles regardless of when they were dramatic or lyric. I was shocked when reading that some 20th century baritones sang roles like Woton and Tonio in their late 20s! Nowadays it seems like you need to be close to getting your 401k before you start singing anywhere near that rep. Yet in university we are in encouraged to sing Mozart and Handel, who write notoriously challenging music. Ask me to sing any Puccini and the high notes come flying out easily, but the minute I start singing a Handel bass aria that hangs out around my passagio my voice feels stiffer than a piece of wood dipped in concrete. I also think it makes a lot of young singers look down on Mozart, even though many incredible singers of the past had significant careers singing just that rep.
Have a look at the Hermann Klein phono vocal method for some accessible hints on 20th century pedagogy. You might find Nicholas Baragwaneth's The Solfeggio Tradition interesting for earlier traditions.
I’m not a Mozart specialist, but a stage director with whom I recently worked for a school production of Le Nozze told me that compared to the Italian school which preceded Mozart, he was much less virtuoso in his writing than for instance Jommelli (whom he criticized for having a beautiful but dated style).
I can’t say how happy I am to find your channel! Thank you!
I LOVE this video and subscribed!!! I’m currently learning the Bel Canto technique and it’s so different from my past training, some of which induced tongue tension with contrived vowel formation that hindered my resonance as well induced throat tension with forcing the larynx down for long periods of time. Sustainability (singing healthfully well into our 80’s, 90’s and beyond) is so crucial to vocal health but unfortunately not always commonly preferred. I’m so happy I found this channel!
This itself was Genius idea to choose such a adventurous and theatrical way of communication. Very entertaining besides being educative and thought-provoking. Thank You!
Everything in this video is so right on. There really is a major crisis in many of today’s classically trained singers and what makes it even more tragic is that for the most part it’s just brushed off as the ever evolving style. And yes, the issue gets even more complicated since old school singing it would not have a career today, unless maybe they have such conviction and something slightly modern that the audience can’t resist. Thanks for bringing this issue to the forefront.
I have indeed stumbled over your channel....a real joy, thank you.
So very happy I stumbled across this video. It's rare to find something I can really get excited about. I'd honestly love to learn and apply the techniques!! Thank you so much for posting this incredible video 🎶