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Updated: June 22, 2025
Operatic performance has been improved in every other respect, but pure singing, the perfection of the vocal art, has become almost a rarity. This is true not only of coloratura singing; it applies with almost equal force to the use of the singing voice for the purpose of dramatic and emotional expression. Musical critics are beginning to comment on the decline of singing.
The modern school of musical criticism does not hold coloratura singing in very high esteem. We demand nowadays expression, passion, and emotion; we want vocal music to portray definite sentiments, to express concrete feelings. Florid singing is not adapted to this form of expressiveness. It is only sensuously beautiful; it speaks to the ear, but does not appeal to the intellect.
Throughout the voice the same instrument is doing the work. So, too, with voices of different caliber, the coloratura, lyric and dramatic. Each and all of these may feel the dramatic spirit of the part, but the lighter quality of the voice may prevent the coloratura from expressing it. The world recognizes the dramatic singer in the size of the voice and of the person.
I am very happy about this fact, for I love to portray tears as well as laughter sorrow and tragedy as well as lightness and gayety. The coloratura manner of singing is all delicacy and lightness, and one cannot express deep emotion in this way. "We subsequently went to Milano, where I studied with Madame Viviani, a soprano who had enjoyed great success on the operatic stage.
Yet it may well be asked whether the highest type of coloratura singing, pure tonal beauty, does not appeal to a deeper, more elemental set of emotions than are reached by dramatically expressive singing. This question would call for a profound psychological discussion, hardly in place in a work devoted to the technical problem of tone-production.
Patti has had as much as $8,395 for one performance, and long received a fee of $5,000 a night. In coloratura rôles she has been pronounced the greatest singer of her time, both in opera and concert.
"Besides the languages, it is very good for her to study piano also; she need not know it so well as if she would be a pianist, but she should know it a little; yet it is better to know more of the piano it will make her a better musician." "You love the coloratura music, do you not, Madame?"
Even the thought of it alone is often enough, because the tongue involuntarily takes the position of its own accord. I remember very well how Mme. Désirée Artot-Padilla, who had a low mezzo-soprano voice, used to toss off great coloratura pieces, beginning on the vowel-sound ah, and then going up and down on a, ee, aüoah.
Of course in the opera I am necessarily restrained; I can never be Frieda Hempel, I must always be some one else; I must always think of the others who are playing with me. In concert I can be myself and express myself. I get near the people; they are my friends and I am theirs. I am much in spirit with oratorio also. "Do I think the coloratura voice will ever become dramatic?
With the slightest degree of throat stiffness or muscular tension, singing on the breath is utterly impossible. So soon as the tones indicate the merest trace of throat contraction, the free outflow of the stream of sound is felt to be checked. Coloratura singing, to be absolutely perfect, demands this degree of tonal excellence. Singing on the breath and coloratura are indeed very closely allied.
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