[rtoc]
- 00:00:00 Voice as unique, built-in expression of ourselves
- 00:01:00 Different voice types
- 00:04:00 Finding something new. What makes a performer special, when some aren’t.
- 00:06:00 Callas; finding more in a piece than perhaps the composer imagined. Fame beyond opera house. Willard White: her clarity of what she wanted. Commanding on stage, a bundle of nerves off it. Sir John Tooley: She needed support all the time; bruises on arms of her dresser. Callas: All you have to do is really listen to the music; you will find every gesture there.
- 00:13:45 “Let’s go back in time”. Different tradition in the church since the early middle ages. Young boys singing soprano; angelic, pure, free of extraneous vibrato. Woman banned from singing in church because of St Paul. Late C16 bona fide professional female singers started to emerge. Dowland love song; distinctive female voice to colour the emotions. Use of both vibrato and non-vibrato to express emotions. “What does colouring mean?”
- 00:18:00 Time of Handel: bravura arias to display distinctive ‘feminine traits’ such as vanity. Coloratura. Entry of “prima donna” into language.
- 00:19:45 Joan Sutherland departing from Australia for Covent Garden. Archive interviews. Failure in auditions. Inability to move easily. Large size. Finding role in roles with a large amount of ornamentation. Bonynge: all singers should learn the classics, bel canto.
- 00:22:30 Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti – purety of tone and agility, replete with mad scenes. Enormous demands of singer in this repertoire. Singer will use imagination to ornament the melody. Sutherland – born shortly after Callas but very different in character. “La Stupenda”.
- 00:25:30 Singing in opera house without a microphone; requires training like an Olympic athlete. Anna Siminiska warm-up; vocal and physical. Strong chest and stomach muscles needed, but what makes the singer worth listening to is in the throat.
- 00:26:40 Siminiska singing while in MRI scanner. Muscles in larynx involved in producing sound are smallest in body; vocal cords c 15mm in length. Mechanics of vocal cords, and camera down throat, as well as MRI footage. 20 muscles used in larynx alone. Many others used, too.
- 00:29:00 Bigger voice / personality required for Wagner. Birgit Nilsson. Required to milk cows. Sang before she could walk. Always asked to sing at parties – sometimes singing 7/8 hours a day; instead of ruining vocal cords, it made them strong. Turandot section. Formidable on stage and off. Backstage footage. Dislikes conductors / stage directors who bring their ego; person who can’t forget themself is no artist. Contending with 100 piece orchestra for Wagner.
- 00:36:00 Light lyric soprano; lovely, down to earth, witty, loquacious. Damrau: smaller orchestra. More exposed, can’t relax yourself on top of full orchestra sound where you can. All technique and flexibility needed, but with control Mozart’s music can take you anywhere.
- 00:39:50 Leontyne Price interview about racial obstacles. Spiritual and Barber with piano. Seamlessness of legato. Creamy, silken texture; able to express vulnerability, but also majesty and regal nature of performances.
- 00:46:25 Barbara Hannigan: vocal techniques for contemporary music are the same. Hannigan: intimidated by convention and tradition; contemporary was freeing. Pappano: lots of staccato. Hannigan: it’s not from the throat; gives analogy to making an electrical circuit, or a line with little stars on it. Comparison with Joan Sutherland using exactly the same technique. Pappano: going from very low to very high. Soprano needs to use resonances of different parts of the body; from head voice to chest voice. Hannigan: as you make the transition into higher register, you can’t carry chest voice up, but we try to make it beautiful, “otherwise we’d be yodelling [yodels].” The transition is something we try to make very smooth “it’s like making a salad dressing; you don’t want the oil and vinegar to be separate, you want it to emulsify.”
- 00:49:40 Renata Tebaldi. Became rival of Callas, but “voices and choices quite different.”
- 00:52:45 Popular perception of opera as stuck in the past / opera houses as museums. Rubbish. Has ability to reinvent itself and move with the times. Contemporary operas doing what opera has always done – laying bare our prejudices, assumptions and hypocrisies.
- 00:53:00 Interview with Eva-Maria Westbroek on physicality of a role like Anna Nicole.
- 00:58:00 Recap.
[/rtoc]
Locations in Harold's Library
- Pappano’s Classical Voices (tv)
- Cast: 1
Contents
- music by Giacomo Puccini
- words by Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica
- music by Mark-Anthony Turnage
- music by George Benjamin
- words by Martin Crimp
- music by György Ligeti
- music by Giuseppe Verdi
- music by Samuel Barber
- words by James Stephens
- music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- music by Giacomo Puccini
- music by Wilhelm Peterson-Berger
- music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- music by Gaetano Donizetti
- music by Giacomo Meyerbeer
- music by George Frideric Handel
- music by George Frideric Handel
- music by John Dowland
- music by Gregorio Allegri
- words by Psalm 51
- music by Giacomo Puccini
- music by Gioachino Rossini
- words by Cesare Sterbini
- music by Giuseppe Verdi
- music by Traditional (African American)
- words by Traditional (African American)
- music by Richard Wagner
- words by Richard Wagner
from La bohème
from Aida
from Il trovatore
from Three Songs, Op. 2
from Le nozze di Figaro
from Turandot
from Die Zauberflöte
from Lucia di Lammermoor
from Les Huguenots
from Atalanta
from Semele
from Tosca
from Il barbiere di Siviglia
from Macbeth
from Der Ring des Nibelungen
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