Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera by Sean M. Parr

Abstract

Reviewed by: Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera by Sean M. Parr Andrea Cawelti Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera. By Sean M. Parr. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. [xvii, 301 p. ISBN 978-0-1975-4264-4 (hardcopy). $65. ISBN 978-0-1975-4267-5 (e-book)] At the end of the eighteenth century, several major changes in the opera world made it easier for women to study voice, and then sing professionally. These changes provided fuel for the eventual rise of female opera singers in the nineteenth century, and for the creation and optimisation of a particular voice type, the coloratura soprano. Author Sean M. Parr expands themes from his 2009 Columbia University thesis, Melismatic Madness: Coloratura and Female Vocality in Mid-19th Century French and Italian Opera, and with a judicious balance of original research and secondary resources, explores the historical context of this shift in the opera world. Through case studies, with Caroline Miolan-Carvalho at the centre, and a focus on French and Italian repertoire, Parr reclaims a place in history for this oft-dismissed voice type. The Introduction, Coloratura and Female Vocality provides a brief history of coloratura singing. From opera’s origins, composers used melismatic voice painting, sometimes to highlight a singer’s agility and range, and sometimes to heighten the character’s emotional intensity: this tradition of singing was still prominent during the ‘bel canto’ period of the early nineteenth century when composers employed coloratura vocal writing as part of normal melodic text treatment. In 1798, Pope Pius VI revoked the ban against women appearing on stage, and eight years later, Napoleon forbade castration. The founding of the Paris Conservatoire in 1795 provided an opportunity for female singers with good coloratura: ‘vocal virtuosity was a source of power for women, generating space for female authorship and creativity’ (p. 3). By the end of the nineteenth century, however, as opera moved into the verismo style, coloratura virtually disappeared. In providing a historical context for the study of singing, gender, and nineteenth-century opera, the increasing specificity of coloratura through the century led to its eventual identity with a particular soprano voice type. ‘In mid-century France, sopranos who specialized in coloratura and extreme high notes garnered the largest salaries and greatest acclaim’ (p. 11). The author also provides his own synopses of the six chapters (which I have used extensively in the following chapter outlines) and lays out his thesis: to rescue the nineteenth-century coloratura soprano from scholarly disdain and obscurity. Chapter 1, The New Franco-Italian School of Singing examines vocal treatises in conjunction with music excerpts and the careers of individual singers, and ‘explores the split between melismatic and sustained singing styles and how it manifested itself pedagogically in France’ (p. 29). The author demonstrates that most nineteenth-century coloratura singers’ lineages originated in Paris Conservatoire training. Early Conservatoire leadership devised a vocal programme by merging French and Italian traditions into a new school of singing led by three famous singers turned teachers: Laure Cinti-Damoreau, Gilbert-Louis Duprez, and Manuel Garcia II, whose published treatises are examined in depth. Their light, agile singing style (Cinti-Damoreau), and more declamatory style (Duprez), carried over into their teaching, and to their students’ eventual techniques. These styles foreshadow our modern understanding of vocal categories, including what would become the coloratura soprano. I was delighted to see that Parr used my own voice teacher Richard Miller’s superb vocal treatise to support his discussion of female falsetto. [End Page 69] Chapter 2, Verdi and the End of Italian Coloratura explores Verdi’s part in the history of the coloratura soprano, with works that can justly be labeled ‘French’, due to his use of French literary sources and musical forms. Verdi’s use of coloratura changed over the course of his career, but key examples are still found in his middle-period operas: Rigoletto, La traviata, and Les Vêpres siciliennes. Careful reading of coloratura arias in these operas suggest that Verdi’s use of coloratura serves a psychological purpose: ‘With these three cases, Verdi forced the coloratura to have a...