Bel Canto Research Articles

Art and history go hand in hand: the evolution of Chinese national vocal music from the Yan'an period to reform and opening up

The Yan'an area was an important base for China's revolution. It was also in Yan'an that the Chinese Communist Party brought a lot of political and theoretical knowledge to the local people and created a lot of artistic forms, one of which was vocal music. Driven by the "Red Gene," the work of the Red Army in the Yan'an area became smoother, and they communicated with the local people on a spiritual level through vocal works. In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the development of the times and social changes, the public aesthetic concept has also quietly developed and changed, which has had a great impact on the development of national vocal music: the creation of a large number of excellent national vocal works to glorify the new era; the performance of both the traditional singing bright and sweet and Western Bel canto singing transparent and round. In terms of education, a large number of national vocal educators such as Jin Tielin, Zou Wenqin, Ma Qiuhua, etc. They have established a perfect education and training system and complete singing skills. This Paper discusses the development of national vocal music and analyzes the important breakthroughs and achievements in the field of national vocal music in three stages, and composes the characteristics of national vocal music development itself, and analyzes and researches the various factors affecting it, so that we can think of danger in peace and create glory again.

Development of speech recognition system for remote vocal music teaching based on Markov model

With the popularization of smart homes, car audio systems and various speech recognition software, speech recognition systems have gradually entered people’s sights and are favored by most users because of their practicability and accuracy. Cognition is an important interface for human–computer interaction. It will become a research focus in the field of artificial intelligence. It plays an important role in cultivating the basic characteristics of music and cultivating students’ interest in music, and vocal music teaching. Teaching traditional vocal music education to students is in the form of classrooms, such as vocal music, arrangement, and bel canto. The disadvantage is the lack of communication between the classroom and teachers and students. On the other hand, the development of Internet technology provides a new teaching method for traditional vocal music teaching and provides a network infrastructure for building a vocal teaching system platform. Therefore, this article provides a preliminary construction of a remote vocal music education platform by combining vocal music education with Internet technology. The remote audio and video training system is a complex and relatively large project with multiple functions and is to introduce important functions in this system. At the same time, register and log in to the remote voice and video implementation requirements and system functions, respectively, to realize functions such as video training and video-on-demand training.

Influence of The Bel Canto Style on Vocal Performance in China

In the modern period, within the framework of the academic style in China, there is a division into the Western-oriented tradition (conventionally called by Chinese practicing musicians “bel canto”) and the tradition associated with national opera drama. The study of these relationships fundamental to Chinese vocal culture is of great importance in the history of Chinese vocal art.

Collection of solfeggi by Carlo Broschi (Farinelli): the artistic top of bel canto’ methodical literature

Statement of the problem. In the history of art, there are many figures that over the centuries arouse admiration and encourage research. Carlo Broschi (1704–1782), the Italian opera castrato singer known as Farinelli, is certainly one of them. Despite his widespread fame as an brilliant artist and social figure, Brosky’s own achievements in the field of musical composition, including the arrangement and ornamentation of the works of other celebrated musicians of the era, have not yet received the appropriate scientific understanding. In addition, the practical aspects of the initial period of shaping the bel canto vocal technique are mostly left out of the attention of researchers. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to analyze the artistic and methodical value of the collection of Farinelli’s vocal exercises in aspect of reconstructing the practice of set and improvement of the singing voice. For the first time, Farinelli’s collection of 10 solfeggi is considered in terms of its belonging to the system of musical education in the Neapolitan conservatories of the 18th century. A comprehensive approach to the study of the material is applied: the historical-critical method is used to determine the reliability and characteristics of the sources; the comparative-descriptive method is employed to define the artistic significance of Farinelli’s methodical miniatures; the performance analysis is aimed at studying the methodical content of his vocal exercises. The study is related to the works of Ukrainian musicologists on general issues of the genre of vocal exercises (Antoniuk, 2007), the bel canto style (Boiko, 2015; Stakhevych, 2013), as well as on the publications of leading foreign scholars, devoted to the art of castrato singers, the work of Farinelli and problems of singer education in Neapolitan conservatories (Haböck, 1923, 1927; Barbier, 1989, 1994; Gjerdingen, 2007, 2010; Sanguinetti, 2005; Baragwanath, 2015, 2020). For the first time, the Italian musicologist Luigi Verdi (2018) turned to Farinelli’s collection of solfeggi; he published the texts of the vocal exercises in modern notation. However, none of the mentioned scientific sources is the result of practical training on the exercises, which interests us in the first place. Research results. Each of the exercises contains two parts contrasting in character and tempo (Adagio and Allegro). All exercises are written for the range typical of a female soprano, not for a castrato voice. Probably, like other singing teachers, Farinelli was composing exercises for his students (it is possible that he wrote solfeggi for the Duchess of Parma Maria Amalia). The best way to explore the methodological potential of Farinelli’s exercises is to try practicing them. Farinelli’s exercises are extremely difficult for a vocalist. These vocalizations bring up namely the extraordinary qualities of the singer – extreme endurance and full breath control, lightness, mobility, dexterity of the larynx, purity of intonation, a magical way of inventing and performing ornamentation (messa di voce, trills, all kinds of combined embellishments), the ability to easily perform not only coloratura passages, but also leaps to wide intervals. Given the high artistic level of the exercises, it is obvious that Farinelli sought to combine the solution of technical problems with the aesthetic enjoyment of the process of classes, the creative joy of singing. So, Farinelli’s exercises, provided the accompaniment part is reconstructed, can be perceived as full-fledged works of art and become the part of vocal repertoire. Conclusion. The methodical content of Farinelli’s collection of 10 solfeggi should be defined as the high point of a long line of traditional methodical developments of Neapolitan vocal teachers, aimed at the formation of artistic taste within the normative parameters of the «gallant style», at the practical mastering and improvement of vocal technique, development of musical ingenuity, imaginative variety and exceptional expressiveness of performance – that is, of everything that made up the essence of the concept of a bel canto’ virtuoso.

Bookshelf

Debra Greschner reviews three recent publications. The Essentials of CoreSinging: A Joyful Approach to Singing and Voice Pedagogy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) is a compilation that presents the CoreSinging approach to singing developed by Meribeth Dayme (1938-2019). The volume is edited by Cynthia Vaughn and Matthew Hoch. The Vaccai Project by Rachelle Jonck and Derrick Goff (Independently published: Bel Canto Boot Camp, 2022) is a daily online training program supplemented with essays about history, performance practice, and libretto study based on the Metodo pratico di canto italiano per camera by Nicola Vaccai (1790-1848. So You Want to Sing Musical Theatre: A Guide for Performers Updated and Expanded Edition by Amanda Flynn ( Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) provides detailed pedagogic and performance advice for the musical theatre performer.

An Analysis of the Three Realms of Musical Performing Arts in Bel Canto

The three realms of music performance are intuition, interest, and style. Intuition is a feeling in music performance; interest is a choice that one persists in, and style is the result of effort and perception based on it. As the highest artistic achievement in the world of singing today, Bel canto (Italian: Bel canto) refers to the singing method in which the larynx blows the vocal cords with exhaled air while maintaining the inhalation position so that the open resonance cavity can resonate completely and evenly. This article, based on the research of the three realms of musical performing art, analyses the application of the three realms of musical performing art in Bel canto, aiming to let Bel canto performance better grasp the application of this art.

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

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...

WITH UKRAINE IN HIS HEART. IN MEMORY OF PEOPLE’S ARTIST OF UKRAINE, PROFESSOR BOHDAN BAZYLYKUT (TO THE 85TH BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY)

The future opera singer Bohdan Basylykut, People’s Artist of Ukraine, professor was born and raised in 1938 in the Ternopil region, in a family of simple laborers. He passed away after a long illness in 2020 in the city of Lviv. B. Basylykut sang in the school choir, mastered musical literacy on his own and learned to play the trumpet. At first, the future artist chose the profession of a school teacher. Although in 1955, he entered the philological faculty of the Lviv State Pedagogical Institute for two specialties at once: “teacher of Ukrainian language and literature” and “teacher of music and singing”. Over time, the love of singing prevailed. After graduating from the Institute, B. Basylykut worked here as a vocal teacher, but continued to improve his performing skills the former soloist of the Kharkiv and Kyiv Opera Theaters Mykhailo Kopnin, a student of the famous spanish tenor Carlos Barrera. It was he who taught B. Basylykut a conscious approach to vocals, encouraged intensive collection and study of methodical literature on the subject, and, most importantly, revealed the secrets of correct, professional singing of the famous “bel canto”. Even in his first student years, the young singer took an active part in various concerts and festivals sang on the radio, on television, the first favorable reviews of the press appeared. Soon the young singer improved his vocal and acting skills at the evening department of the Lviv State Conservatory named after M. V. Lysenko in the class of Mykola Shelyuzhka. November 1969, B. Basylykut became the laureate of the first prize of the republican youth festival. The late 1960s and early 1970s, the young singer toured for the first time in Ukraine, later in Belgium, Bulgaria, and Cuba. Since 1971, the young singer has been a soloist of the Lviv Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet named after I. Franko (now Lviv National Opera and Ballet Theater named after S. Krushelnytska). B. Basylykut’s creative works included all the leading parts of the classical Western European and Ukrainian opera repertoire. Since the end of the 1970s, B. Basylykut has been performing in many solemn concerts in Kyiv, he has toured a lot – in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia. And no matter which country the singer goes to, he always sings arias from national operas or folk songs in the original language. Over time, a considerable repertoire accumulated, and the singer prepared for recording 15 folk songs in the original language of each union republic. The unusual repertoire attracted the interest of the Melodiya record company, and in 1979 it released an album with recordings of this program performed by B. Basylykut. At the dawn of the Ukrainian Renaissance, in 1991, the first Ukrainian audio cassette with the recordings of the honored artist B. Bazylykut, “Christ was born! Christmas carols”. Three years later, listeners received another audio cassette, “Striletskyi songs by R. Kupchinsky”. Separate page of the artistic life of the singer and the students of his class was the annual preparation of thematic concerts from vocal works to poetic texts by T. Shevchenko. The beginning of the XXI century. Lviv regional television recorded three festive concerts from the cycle “To a wreath to Kobzar”. Recent years, not only students have participated in such annual march concerts, but also many graduates of previous years have gathered. From 1999 to 2020, People’s Artist of Ukraine, Professor B. Basylykut worked at the faculty of culture and arts of the Lviv national University named after Ivan Franko. For teachers, students and all those interested in Ukrainian song, the professor organized repertoire collections: “Ukrainian and romances from the repertoire of Bohdan Basylykut”, “Textbook of vocal works for bass”, “Ukrainian folk songs for mezzo-soprano”, “Lyrical songs of Ukrainian composers”. The professor’s personal creative experience was a thorough basis for inculcating young people with professional skills and a wide range of skills. Today, the students of the professor’s class work fruitfully as vocal teachers, passing on the traditions of the class and the professional instructions of their unforgettable teacher. They also successfully work in the creative field, sing on domestic and foreign opera stages. Therefore, the multifaceted gift of the people’s artist of Ukraine, Professor B. Basylykut, formed an exceptionally successful, fruitful creative activity in various aspects: performing, pedagogical and scientific, and it is very difficult to determine which aspect was the leading one. The Maestro spent his life and creative career as a talented singer, an outstanding teacher, a citizen and a sincere patriot of Ukraine.

The timbre-role of the colouratura soprano in the semantic reference points of an opera workу

Statement of the problem. Opera is one of the most popular and most difficult musical phenomena for scientific comprehension. The attention of musicologists is consistently focused on the vocal component, because it is the art of singing that has affected the emergence, evolution, numerous reforms and modern transformations of dramma per musica. While in dramatic theatre, in order to comprehend the plot’s conflicts, we need to hear and understand literally every word spoken on stage, in opera this is not necessary and does not prevent us from following the development of the plot, which is revealed on a musical level, where the beauty of the human voice is of particular importance. Therefore, belonging to a certain role in opera is determined by the type of singer’s voice. The purpose of this work is to outline the basic approaches to the interpretation of the timbre-role of the colouratura soprano in Western European opera. Results and conclusion. The history of Western European vocal art goes back several centuries, during which the content, language resources, genre systems and areas of music-making have changed significantly. This provoked a rethinking of the sound-expressive and dynamic capabilities of the human voice and changes in approaches to the classification of singer’s voices. For example, in the twelfth century, the transition from monody to polyphony determined the need to divide the functions of male voices (because women did not sing in churches). A system similar to the modern one was developed: tenor; discant (later named soprano); alto; bass. However, the development of solo vocal performance and opera art influenced the reconsideration of the expressive capabilities of the human voice. If in the Renaissance vocal tradition, the soloist’s voice was supposed to sound like an analogue of the most virtuoso instrument, then gradually requirements for natural voice sound were formed. However, virtuosity prevailed in vocal art for a long time, influencing the formation of the bel canto style, the heyday of which is associated with the work of castrato singers. However, over time, aesthetic guidelines changed, and gradually vocal teachers began to use the bel canto technique in their work with natural voices. One of the consequences of these transformations was the clarification of the classification of singing voices and the crystallisation of the corresponding stage roles. Let us analyse the vocal and stage potential of the colouratura soprano in this aspect, pointing out that there are still several different interpretations of this concept. Historically, the first of them comes from the technique of performance, but as for the definition of “colouratura soprano” itself, its use is not generally accepted. A significant number of vocal teachers are inclined to believe that the most appropriate distribution of female voices is the following: soprano – mezzosoprano – contralto. Nevertheless, in the Fach System, which is the most widespread in contemporary opera practice, we find references to colouratura: lyric colouratura soprano, colouratura mezzo-soprano, and dramatic colouratura soprano. And while this division is conditional and does not deny the performance of roles intended for a different voice, the requirements of contemporary opera directors to match not only the voice, but also the age and appearance of the performers to the chosen character still make their own adjustments. herefore, as a conclusion of the study, we would like to express the opinion that colouratura sopranos are “doomed” to perform the roles of young girls and representatives of the otherworld.

Investigation and Reflections on Gender Differences in Vocal Music Education

The purpose of this study is to explore the teaching methods and related theoretical studies of gender differences in bel canto. Focusing on four aspects: breathing, vocalization, resonance, and emotional expression, this study implements vocal music through gender-differentiated teaching methods and strategies. By carrying out a case study, the author summarizes the application and effectiveness of these teaching methods in the teaching of bel canto, and draws the following conclusions based on the research results: first, teaching methods tailored for gender differences enable students to make rapid progress in singing, breathing, vocalization, resonance, and emotional expression; their goals of learning vocal music are clearer. Second, the gender- dependent teaching methods promote the amelioration of vocal music teaching, break through the difficulties in practical teaching, and improve the teaching level and ability of instructors. Finally, this article puts forward teaching and research suggestions for vocal teachers and vocal education.

Castrati and countertenors: vocal and physiological specificity of performance

Statement of the problem. Today, the vocal music of the Baroque era is in great demand among performers all over the world аnd in Ukraine too. This is a new trend in performance practice, since ancient works of the classical period are the basis of the vocal training repertoire Leading experts in various professional fields (medicine, archeology, history) have many positive research results. The author of the article uses new facts related to the effect of castration on the performer’s body. Today, the art of castrati remains understudied. This is an original phenomenon in the history of singing culture of the XVII–XVIII centuries. Castrato singers have mastered a wide range, limitless breathing and phenomenal vocal technique. They became standard singer-artists and supplanted female singers. The history of voice change after castration is recorded in fragments. It reached us only on the basis of documentary (medical) materials. This fact determines the relevance of the proposed topic. There are many published works in various fields. They are dedicated to this problem. But the secret of castrates has not been fully revealed yet. This is the novelty of the topic. Recent research and publications. Researchers J. Abitbol (2006), N. Clapton (2008)], P. Barbiere (1996), A. Heriot (1975), J. Lauri-Volpi (1972), Govorukhina, N. (2017), V. O. Gigolaeva-Yurchenko (2020, 2021) covered the issue of singing features in the performance of bel canto masters with the help of evolution, history, cultural studies, vocal methodology, phoniatrics and vocal phonopedia. Musical Analysis is complex. There is only one recording of the castrato singer A. Moresky. He is known as the “Angel of Rome” Therefore, the facts about the manner of singing in the Italian classical school of bel canto during the heyday of the Baroque era. They are in historical documents. These documents were written by historians and musicians of that time. Research materials. YouTube materials with performances by the castrato singer A. Moreski and modern countertenors F. Fajoli, F. Zharusski, M. Tsenchich, Yu. Minenko. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to analyze the vocal and physiological specifics of the performance of castrato singers and modern countertenors. The object is the vocal technique of the authentic bel canto vocal style of baroque music affetti; subject – the influence of physiology on the formation of the performance style of castrato singers and modern countertenors stylistic Among the tasks is to identify the dynamics of growing interest in the art of castrato singers in medicine – genetics – vocals; systematize data on the physical and physiological differences in the vocal states of castrato singers and modern countertenors; on the example of the work of countertenors, to state the uniqueness of the vocal physiology of the human body in XX–XXI. The research methodology is represented by historical, analytical, functional, interpretive and gender methods. They contribute to the disclosure of the declared topic from different angles. Results and conclusion. The author presents a panorama of modern studies on castrates. She reveals the destructive function of surgical intervention in the human body, conducts a comparative comparison of castrates and counter tenors. They are two phenomena belonging to different historical centuries. The author emphasizes the advantages of developing the natural sound of a coloratura male voice without medical intervention. She gives examples of the analysis of the adaptive voice capabilities of the human organism of the 20th–21st centuries

The creative figure of Dilber Yunus in the context of the vocal art of China in the XX–XXI centuries

Statement of the problem. The processes of globalization are increasingly affecting the existence of human culture, leading to fundamental changes in cultural exchanges in the East-West system. Starting in the XVIII century, a significant number of European composers turned to oriental topics: from the choice of certain subjects and citations of musical material to a new perception of musical art as such. Simultaneously, there was also a reverse process of borrowing the achievements of European culture by representatives of the artistic community of the eastern region, including through the implementation of the Western system of music education. In our opinion, the performing arts deserve special attention here, as they actualize «other people’s texts» and influence composers’ creativity, audience preferences, and, ultimately, changes in public artistic views. For example, China has given rise to a whole galaxy of outstanding masters of «Chinese bel canto, » whose work is proof of the productivity of cultural exchanges and, at the same time, a very interesting material for scientific research. The purpose of this article is– to draw up a creative portrait of Dilber Yunus in the context of the vocal art of China in the XX – XXI centuries. Results and conclusion. The vocal art of China has its origins in folk songs, the specific organization of the musical texture of which is determined by the phonetics of the spoken language. There are 56 nationalities and almost 100 dialects in China, which has led to a wide variety of song palettes. However, this did not prevent the development of a single standard of vocal sound, which crystallized in the phenomenon of the Beijing Opera at the very time when the process of forming the bel canto style in Western European art was completed. For almost a century after that, these two systems existed without intersecting. However, from the end of the XIX century, when the Chinese government relaxed the policy of closed borders, cultural exchanges became possible. From that time on, the process of transformation of Chinese vocal art began, which, among other things, was due to globalization, and therefore the measure of a singer’s professional success is his or her demand for European opera productions. This article will try to make a creative portrait of one of the most famous contemporary Chinese singers, coloratura soprano Dilber Yunus. She was born on October 2, 1958, in the city of Kashgar in western China, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Dilber began her career with the Xinjiang Song and Dance Ensemble, created to preserve and popularize the folk art of ethnic minorities. In 1980, the singer entered the vocal department of the Beijing Central Conservatory in the class of the outstanding professor Shen Xiang / 沈湘. In her fourth year of study, Dilber Yunus won one of the most reputable international competitions for young singers, founded in 1984 in honor of Mirjam Helin. This victory determined the singer’s fate, as she fulfilled the dream of many Chinese.

Bel canto among the barricades: Rossini, his music, and history

Rossini is often historicized by placing him in the context of the Restoration period (1815–1848). This article uses a historical methodology to examine that assumption in order to propose new insights into Rossini, his music, and his place in Italian history, culture, and opera. Rossini's experience shows how one of the great cultural icons of the Ottocento navigated the vicissitudes of one of Italy's most tumultuous centuries. The history is in dialogue with musicological research, especially by analyzing what listeners heard in his music. His music evoked strong binaries, the opposition of German and Italian music, which is sometimes identified with teleological history, here the tendency to manipulate the musical past for some more present purpose, for example, forcing Rossini into a nationalist narrative. Noting its dangers, this study expands the context in terms of time, by considering Rossini's entire career subject to historical categories, not only the Restoration but also the Risorgimento, the French Second Empire, and especially the often-overlooked Bologna period, and Rossini's relationship to politics. It also enlarges the sources consulted to include some of his minor works, for example his Messa di Gloria (1820), Cantata in onore del Sommo Pontefice Pio Nono (1847), and Hymn à Napoleon III (1867). Finally, the study also examines how Rossini developed his own historical consciousness amid his alienation from both the 19th-century and Italian opera in particular.

Mykola Koval in the history of vocal art in the Kharkiv region

Statement of the problem. People’s Artist of Ukraine Mykola Petrovych Koval (1946–2018) is a representative of the Kharkiv vocal school, which was established at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Possessing a wonderful dramatic baritone (bass-baritone) of rich timbre, he was a successor to the traditions of Italian bel canto that prevailed in the classes of prominent Kharkiv vocal teachers P. Holubiev, M. Mykhailov, T. Veske. The significance of the multifaceted work of this outstanding artist necessitates a systematic study of his music legacy, which has not yet been sufficiently researched. The only monographic study by Yu. Shchukina (2019) dedicated to the singer presents mostly biographical materials. The purpose of this article is to present a complete creative portrait of the singer and to characterize his performance style. The study of creativity and pedagogical activity of M. Koval using biographical and stylistic approaches allowed to identify the features of his individual style and to classify the latter according to the performance archetype (developed by O. Katrych, 2000), which is an innovative element of the work. Results and conclusions. The creative activity of M. Koval had a significant impact on the development of the The Mykola Lysenko Kharkiv Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, where he had performed the main roles in almost all opera productions since 1974. His vocal practice was a model for the young singers who worked with him at the theater, and his performances as both an opera and concert singer had a wide public response, drawing attention to the activities of the Kharkiv Opera House far beyond the city. His repertoire included works of various vocal genres, in particular, in solo concerts he performed opera arias (from M. Mussorgsky’s “Borys Godunov”, G. Verdi’s “Otello” and “Rigoletto”, G. Puccini’s “Tosca”, O. Borodin’s “Prince Igor”, etc.), romances and songs by Ukrainian composers (P. Maiboroda, I. Shamo), and folk songs. The pedagogical activity of M. Koval, who worked at Kharkiv I. P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts, at the Solo Singing Department from 2002 to 2018, deserves further study. Today, his students work at The Mykola Lysenko Kharkiv Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, as well as in other Opera Houses and music schools in Ukraine, continuing the traditions of their Teacher. The analysis of M. Koval’s vocal and pedagogical work allows us to draw the following conclusions: – M. Koval’s individual style is characterized by a high vocal and artistic culture, in particular, a careful attitude to the word, clear expressive diction, a certain emotional restraint and balance (which makes him “the Apollo archetype” of the artist); deep psychologism in the interpretation of musical images, the brilliant embodiment of which is facilitated by his exceptional acting talent. – These features of the individual style also determined the formation of the singer’s pedagogical principles. The teacher often said that one should always sing with the soul, inspiration and frankly, “from the heart,” and that the music itself would help solve technical difficulties. Therefore, perfect vocal technique or voice volume is not an end in itself, but only a component. Technique and vocal can be learned, but the subtle reception of music cannot be learned; it is something that is given to people by nature. – In addition to his unique vocal and acting talent, exceptional diligence and perseverance were important factors that contributed to his successful career. – Thus, it can be confidently stated that an entire era of vocal, in particular opera, art in the Kharkiv region is associated with the name of M. Koval. After the master passed away, most of the performances in which he had sung the main roles were removed from the repertoire due to the lack of an artist of such a talent.

Unbinding Gentility: Women Making Music in the Nineteenth-Century South by Candace Bailey

Reviewed by: Unbinding Gentility: Women Making Music in the Nineteenth-Century South by Candace Bailey Michele Aichele Unbinding Gentility: Women Making Music in the Nineteenth-Century South. By Candace Bailey. (Music in American Life.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. [ix, 292 p. ISBN 9780252085741 (paperback), $30; ISBN 9780252043758 (hardcover), $125; ISBN 9780252052651 (e-book), price varies.] Music examples, illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. Candace Bailey’s Unbinding Gentility is an important examination of women’s musical practices in the southern United States from 1830 to 1880. It expands on Bailey’s previous publications, Music and the Southern Belle: From Accomplished Lady to Confederate Composer (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010) and Charleston Belles Abroad: The Music Collections of Harriet Lowndes, Henrietta Aiken, and Louisa Rebecca McCord (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019), by including nonelite White women as well as Black women, both free and enslaved, in the South. The title Unbinding Gentility plays on the main type of source Bailey used: bound volumes of music, known as “binder’s volumes,” collections of individually published or copied sheet music that were bound together. Such collect ions allowed women to demonstrate their class status and were markers of gentility. “A binder’s volume standing on a piano desk or even lying on a piece of furniture,” Bailey observes, “proclaimed that a young woman had been properly brought up” (p. 12). Many of the more than fifteen-hundred binder’s volumes Bailey investigated include annot ations with notes from friends and family, dates, ornaments, fingerings, and translations of foreign-language songs, all of which demonstrate that the music was used. Studies of women’s music-making practices in the nineteenth century are becoming more common, and the inclusion of Black women in this study begins to fill a huge gap in music studies. With this scholarship, Bailey demonstrates how the performance of gentility varied across race, class, and time, showing the complex social changes in Southern women’s lives from before the Civil War through Reconstruction. The introduction contextualizes Bailey’s research in nineteenth-century histories and studies of music. Bailey dispels notions of strict binaries in musical practices to show a wide spectrum of practices and social change. Her goal is “to recover silent voices and position them within the social world of which they were so much a part” (p. 1). Unbinding Gentility is divided into five [End Page 236] parts: the first three focus on the ante-bellum period, part 4 examines musical practices during the Civil War, and part 5 discusses the changes in performances of gentility and music in the Reconstruction period. Part 1, “Social Diversity among Amateur Women Musicians,” consists of two chapters that set up the musical practices of amateur White women and women of color. While chapter 1 re-hashes some familiar material about White women performing gentility at the parlor piano, the inclusion of women of color performing gentility at the piano in their own parlors provides further nuance to how ideals of feminine gentility crossed racial lines. Due to the scope of Bailey’s research, she cannot provide us with all the details we would want, but she encourages future scholars to continue her work and interrogate the meaning and agency of Black feminine genteel performances at the piano. In part 2, “Repertory,” Bailey examines the common repertoire included in binder’s volumes in the antebellum period, demonstrating the variety contained within the term parlor music. The most common genres include English ballads, arrangements of theater and operatic works, arias from contemporary operas, dance music, and variations on popular and operatic melodies. The main differences in repertoire between classes had to do with the difficulty of the arrangements. Some elite women, who had ample time and resources to dedicate to their music studies, owned technically difficult arrangements and variations and sang bel canto arias in their original keys and languages. Women without as much means played simplified versions of similar music and typically sang English translations of arias. Contrary to what we usually assume in US music history, the songs of Stephen Foster and minstrelsy barely make appearances in these binder’s volumes. When minstrelsy pieces did appear, dialect and...

Application research of bel canto performance based on artificial intelligence technology

Abstract In the 21st century, with the rapid development of information processing technology, neurophysiology, non-linear dynamics, fuzzy mathematics and other disciplines, artificial intelligence (AI) has come to be widely used in many aspects. Considering AI music, music, art, AI and music media fuse together. For the perfect combination of modern technology and traditional art, a variety of technologies, including machine learning, machine perception, neural network, genetic algorithm, knowledge representation, knowledge system and so on, form a new category in AI. The advent of this technology has dramatically changed traditional music. Therefore, this paper applies AI technology to bel canto singing and combines it with AI technology, summarises the corresponding algorithm principle and analyses its development trend and characteristics with specific application cases, in order to better serve music.

A Mexican Semiramide: García and Rossini in Postcolonial Latin America

AbstractIn 1828, five years after the premiere in Venice of Rossini's final Italian opera, Semiramide, Gaetano Rossi's libretto was again set to music, this time by the famed bel canto tenor and composer Manuel García in Mexico City. The opera, one of the first to be composed in Latin America after the collapse of the Spanish empire, was intended to demonstrate independent Mexico's ability not just to import Italian opera from Europe but also to produce new works. Instead of proving Mexico's credentials as a successful operatic nation, however, García's Semiramide became a problematic space for bringing to light tensions between underlying colonial resistance and the new liberal influence of France, England and Italy. This article contextualises this momentous operatic event within the wider frame of Mexico's nation building and investigates how the manifold political tensions and cultural contradictions of Mexico's postcolonial transition were absorbed and amplified by both García's composition and its staging.

The Decay of Singing: Remembering the Castrato

AbstractThe advent of a new political regime in Italy in the 1790s led to decrees banning castrati from the stage and the closure of the singing academies where they taught. But seventy years later the composer Gioacchino Rossini looked back to the castrati as the last adepts of the art of bel canto: “As to the castrati, they vanished, and the usage disappeared in the creation of new customs. That was the cause of the irretrievable decay of the art of singing.” This essay focuses on the eighteenth-century castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti—friend of Charles, Frances, and Susan Burney, idol of William Beckford—and on the efforts of the novelist and critic Stendhal to “remember” Pacchierotti’s lost voice. Stendhal never heard Pacchierotti in his prime, but in his 1824 Vie de Rossini he declared that the art of bel canto had reached its apogee with Pacchierotti in 1778: five years before the writer’s own birth. Stendhal sought to demonstrate that the lost voice could be remembered by way of both historical evidence and the textual and viva voce “recordings” of earlier listeners: Beckford, the Burneys, and the singer Gabriel Piozzi. In Stendhal’s erotics or mnemonics of musical sensation, such textual and performative recordings allow us to remember the sensations elicited by an absent voice as vividly as the phonographic or digital recordings on which later listeners would rely.

Grand Illusion: Phantasmagoria in Nineteenth-Century Opera, by Gabriela Cruz

<i>Grand Illusion: Phantasmagoria in Nineteenth-Century Opera</i>, by Gabriela Cruz

Broadcasting the Italian voice’s broadcasting: opera and Italy on the air, 1920s–1930s

ABSTRACT Within the early twentieth-century Italian radiophonic imagination, opera occupied a complex position. The overriding ‘voice’ of Italy and its radio empire under Fascism, opera supported the new technology as a political and cultural tool, even as it challenged it as a geographical and perceptual fantasy. This article has two aims. First, drawing on materials from 1920s and ‘30s radio magazines, it sketches a history of early radio listening that restores vision and touch to a more central position than they have had in previous scholarly accounts. Second, it investigates radio and the Italian operatic voice as two mutually broadcasting technologies, ones whose critical co-construction was more than an accident of the fraught political moment. Contemporary definitions of radio as bel canto and of bel canto as radiophonic rested on a subtler, conceptual alignment between the two media, each of which foregrounded a tension between sound and meaning and implied the radial dissemination of voice ‘out’ in all directions. This article thus seeks to answer two questions. Did opera, a fundamentally audiovisual genre, become invariably ‘sonified’ through radiophonic transmission? And what happened when that old broadcasting technology, the Italian voice, met the new communications medium?