Opera Terms

[Schigolch]

The trill is perhaps the most used of the different abbellimenti (ornaments).

Basically, it's a quick fluctuation between two notes, that normally are one semitone, or one tone, away.

Trill duration is usually fixed by the main note. There are different kind of trills, in the end they are very dependent, not only on the markings in the score, but on the fantasy of the interpreter.

Let's listen to some examples.

1.- Mezzotrillo. This is brief and rapid (it's called mordente, if very rapid). In the beggining of the cabaletta "Quando rapito in estasi", Callas trills on the underlined notes:

Quando rapito in estasi....

col favellar del core mi giura eterna...



2.- Cresciuto. This is to join together several ascending trills. (of course, calato will be to join together descending trills).

Again Maria Callas, this time as Anna Bolena singing "Copia iniqua", shows how to trill in 0:34 and 2:08 (col perdono sul labbro si scenda)



3.- Radoppiato, on the same note with the trill notes inserted in the middle, or at the end. If done with different degree of intensity, it's called ribattuto.

There is one famous trill, crowned by three small notes, by Rosa Ponselle in the cabaletta "Ernani, involami". This is monumental singing at 3:19:

Ah, vola o tempo e presto




Trills can be used for many things. For instance, Marilyn Horne is invoking the flicker of the flames in this "Stride la vampa", with several short trills, and a lengthy one in:

che s'alza al ciel.

[Schigolch]

'Voix mixte'.

In origin, as we can deduce for its name, is a French concept. The idea was to amalgamate somehow the more powerful chest voice, and the weaker head voice. From here the 'mixte' (mixed).

One of the best examples we can find is Beniamino Gigli, in the beginning of Nemorino's cavatina "Quanto è bella, quanto è cara". Just listen to the smooth, light sound.



This technique has been related mostly to tenors, but also a baritone like Ivanov or a bass like Kipnis used something similar sometimes.

We can try to understand the concept better using a small fragment from Aida.

In the Third Act there is a beautiful duet between Radames and Aida, "Pur ti riveggo". Radames must reach a high A-flat in the phrase: il ciel de' nostri amori, on the 'i', that is quite difficult. Moreover, the score is marked as dolce. It must be a very delicate note, evocative, quite lyrical. How can a heroic tenor sings this note?. It just there, at the top of his tessitura. Will he use the 'voix mixte'?.

In the attached audio file, we can listen to 9 tenors.

Voix mixte - Aida

The first three give the note with their full voice: John Vickers, Franco Corelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

The second three tenors also attack with the full voice, but try to soften the sound, and look for the "mixte": Jussi Bjorling, Carlo Bergonzi and Gigli himself.

The last group go for the "mixte" from the beginning: José Carreras, Max Lorenz and Pavarotti.

Listening to this, we can figure out what "mixte" is, and also decide our favorite approach for the passage. Personally, I go for Max Lorenz.

[Schigolch]

Canto di sbalzo stands for producing adjacent, or very near, notes with a big difference in pitch.

This is a surprising effect, and difficult to sing well. Some great composers, since the Baroque, have used this. Mozart, for instance, requires the singer a distance of 12 notes, from G2 to C4, in "Vado incontro al fato estremo", from Mitridate (though it's true that the top note will be produced in 'falsettone' at the time of Mozart's writing).

But let's present two of those situations in Verdi.

First, Abigaille must descends two octaves, from C5 to C3. at the end of the terrible recitative "Ben io t'invveni". Listen to Maria Callas from 3:30 to 3:40. This is very difficult, and even more difficult to do it so well. In any case, Callas changes the text from 'fatal sdegno' to 'sdegno fatale' to use the "o" as a support to anchor the voice:




The other example is from Ballo, in the romanza "Di tu se fedele", where Verdi requested the tenor a jump of 13 notes. Few have been able, and perhaps the best rendition is this one from Jussi Björling (in swedish). Look for it at 0:50:

[Schigolch]

Another of the most common abbellimenti are scales. They could be chromatic (the whole 12 notes) or diatonic (the seven notes in each major or minor scale). Ascending or descending.

This is easy to grasp, I think. Just a couple of examples (both with Callas):

Diatonic scale in 'Quando, rapito in estasi', at the words "Il ciel per me si schiuda il ciel per me", between 1:40 and 2:00.



Chromatic scale at the end of Casta Diva, at the words "tu fa nel ciel" at around 5:00

[Schigolch]

Following our brief review of the different abbellimenti, there are a few somewhat more subtle effects to discuss.

Appogiatura is a small note that takes away the time value of the note it prefixed, and is normally a tone or semitone lower. The singer somehow must rest ("appogiare") on the small note.

In the first act of La Sonnambula, in the recitative 'Care compagne' there are several appogiaturas. We can listen to Gruberova, always a master of fioriture:

Care compagne e voi tenere amici che alla gioa mia tanta parte
prendete, oh come dolci scendo d'Amina al core i canti che v'inspira il vostro amore.




Acciacatura is a quick, very brief, 'appogiatura'. In Rosina's cavatina from Il Barbiere there is a passage in semiquavers that requires 'acciacatura'. We can listen to Teresa Berganza (superb here) at 0:47:

Si Lindoro mio sarà, lo giurai. la vincerò




If instead of one small note, we use two (generally the first equal to the principal, and the second a tone or semitone higher), this is a mordente. In this case we use as an illustration a fragment of "Che gelida manina", sung by one of the greatest Rodolfos, Luciano Pavarotti, at 0:40:

Ma per fortuna e una notte di luna e qui la luna l'abbiamo vicina.

[Schigolch]

Fiato is the air, the breath, that allows singing.

A singer with a lot of fiato, is a singer with a great lung capacity, and that knows how to exploit it. Sometimes you need to introduce air in a short time, and need to use what is called fiati rubati, very brief inhalations between notes.

One aria that needs this fiati rubati is Duca's "Parmi veder le lagrime", that we can hear in the voice of Luciano Pavarotti:



About some examples of fantastic fiatos, let's take for example Cesare Valletti in the difficult aria from Don Giovanni, "Il mio tesoro". After the A3 on 'tornar' around 2:27.



Or Alfredo Kraus in La Favorita's "Spirto Gentil".



Spirito gentil ne' sogni miei brillasti un dì ma ti perdei:
fuggi dal cor, mentita speme, larve d'amor, fuggite insieme.
Donna sleal, a te d'accanto del genitor scordava il pianto;
la patria, il ciel; e in tanto amore,
d'onta mortal macchiasti il core.

Starting from 3:00, after the second 'Ahime', he gently descended into the repetition of 'Spirto Gentil' but instead of breathing in 'ne' sogni miei' like everyone else, he continued with the same breath until just before "brillaste un di".

[Schigolch]

Sfumatura: The singer dissolve, soften, the sound, until it almost fade away. It's normally used at the end of a phrase, or between words to introduce some variations in the singing line.

One undisputed master was Tito Schipa (today, perhaps the best practitioner is Juan Diego Flórez). In "Parmi veder le lagrime", we can find in the phrase:

Scorrenti da quel ciglio,
Quando fra il dubbio a l’ansia
Del subito periglio

just before 'quando' and 'subito', in the middle of the phrase (starting in 2:11). And a fantastic one at the end of the aria, en el 'Non invidiò per te".



Smorzatura: It's very similar to sfumatura, the only difference is that, on top of the dynamics, there is also a slow down of the rythm.

Once again let's listen to Schipa, singing "Celo e mar", in the phrase:

L’angiol mio verra dal cielo?
L’angiol mio verra dal mare?

starting in 0:37

[Schigolch]

Sprechgesang is a type of vocal technique between speech and song.

There are some examples in German opera since the 19th century, but the most famous embodiment was in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (1912).



However, Schoenberg himself created later a full role in sprechgesang, in his unfinished opera Moses und Aron. All Moses's interventions use sprechgesang.

A proper rendition of sprechgesang is not always easy, as the exact middle point between speech and song is rather elusive, and for the spoken voice the pitch variations are not that many. However, many operas since WWII use sprechgesang, including non-German composers like Benjamin Britten or Luciano Berio.

Schoenberg's disciple Alban Berg claimed to use a different technique for his operas Wozzeck and Lulu called sprechstimme. According to Berg's instructions: "sprechstimme is a spoken melody. In singing the performer stays on the note without change; in speaking he strikes the note but leaves it immediately by rising or falling in pitch". He also devised some intermediate stages between speech and song, i.e. intermediate stages of sprechstimme.

However, most musicians tend to use both terms interchangeably.

In the score, those techniques are identified by using 'x's in place of conventional noteheads, or using a point or a dash in the stem.

[Schigolch]

Extended techniques are basically non-"traditional" methods of playing an instrument. In search of unusual sounds, usually.

While some of those techniques have been used for quite a long time, just like playing strings 'pizzicato', 'col legno', 'sul ponticello' or 'sul tasto', most of them are contemporary, starting in the 20th century. Some are quite funny, not only to hear, but even to watch, like this piece for 'bowed piano' by Stephen Scott:



There are also 'extended vocal techniques' used in vocal music, including opera. In fact, the sprechstimme of the previous post could be considered a kind of 'extended technique' itself. But let's listen to Ligeti's Nouvelles Aventures:



Perhaps the best integration of those techniques into musical drama are the works of Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino:

[Schigolch]

A Cadenza (cadence) is a series of ornaments performed before the end of an aria. The origins are in early 18th century, when the singers inserted "cadenze" (marked in the score by a "punto coronato"), usually of their own invention, and many times even improvised.

However, starting in the Classical period, the composers themselves included them in their works. One of the best known examples is the "cadenza" in Gilda's 'Caro Nome'. Not that singers completely forgot about inserting their own stuff, generally written by other composers, and not by the author of the opera. Some famous ones are Tita Ruffo's in the toast of Hamlet, or Lauri-Volpi's at the end of 'La donna è mobile'. Even today, a baritone like Leo Nucci sometimes adds brief "cadenze" to display his power in the high register. And, of course, the Bel Canto renaissance since the 1950s give singers like Joan Sutherland great opportunities to showcase her virtuosism.

One interesting example is the "cadenza" at the end of the mad scene of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. It was composed, not by Donizetti, but by the (then retired) singer Mathilde Marchesi for her pupil, the great soprano Nellie Melba, back in 1889. From this moment on, it was widely celebrated, and the performances of singers like Maria Callas ensured her lasting popularity. Let's listen to Dessay's version (with the glass harmonica, instead of flute):

[Schigolch]

Transposition is the changing of the pitch of a composition, without making other changes, usually in order to suit the needs of a particular singer, or make it easier to sing for many singers.

Of course, this could be done both towards lower notes (the most common) or towards higher notes. For instance, speaking of "Casta Diva", when we say it's written originally by Bellini in G major, but it's almost always transposed to F major, what we are saying is:

G major scale: G - A - B - C - D - E - F sharp - G
F major scale: F - G - A - B flat - C - D - E -F

So, if Bellini writes a high C for Norma, by changing the tonality and transposing the soprano can avoid the high C, and sings in its place a high B flat.

Of course, we could also continue transposing to E major. Listen to Marion Anderson singing "Casta Diva":

[Jephtha]

Transposition is the changing of the pitch of a composition, without making other changes, usually in order to suit the needs of a particular singer, or make it easier to sing for many singers.

Of course, this could be done both towards lower notes (the most common) or towards higher notes.

I had always heard that Lily Pons used to transpose Lucia's mad scene up a whole tone, from E-flat to F, but I was never able to verify this. And I believe Mado Robin used to use upward transpositions in order to display her alt-altissimo notes. At the other extreme, I once saw a Dick Cavett television interview with John Carradine in which the actor said he used to annoy his singer friends by singing Sarastro's arias a full octave below their written range. He then proceeded to display this astonishing feat with(as I recall)the final phrase of 'In diesen heilgen Hallen'. Quite astounding!

[Almaviva]

Casta Diva in E Major - I don't like it! It completely destroys the stratospheric, ethereal quality of the aria, making it quite mundane.

[Jephtha]

Casta Diva in E Major - I don't like it! It completely destroys the stratospheric, ethereal quality of the aria, making it quite mundane.

Keep in mind, Alma, that pitch in the early nineteenth century was somewhat lower than today, generally speaking of course. Add to that the fact that Casta Diva is almost always performed in F rather than G major, and it is quite possible that nineteenth-century listeners heard the aria in a key that would be very close to E major, at least to modern ears.

[Schigolch]

Loggione is the term used in Italian for "gallery", the place destined to fans that are unable or unwilling to pay the prices of seats in the stalls (however, in traditional U-shaped theaters, the "loggione" is usually one of the best places to enjoy opera). The term "loggionismo", as practiced by the "loggionisti" is a derived word designing the most radical fans in the audience, that can be compared to football supporters in their passionate behaviour.

For many years, Parma was the world capital of "loggionismo". There, Carlo Bergonzi was berated for singing the high B flat of 'Celeste Aida' in pianissimo... as written by Verdi!. Other singers like Cornell MacNeil shouted back to the audience, and some performances were even interrupted during many minutes.

Of course, this was not restricted only to Parma. Here we can watch some incidents at la Scala, in 1976, with Carlos Kleiber conducting 'Otello':



Today, the audience tend to be a little bit more passive, for the good and for the bad, though now and then there are quite audible protests. Here it's an example with tenor José Cura and the people at Teatro Real, in Madrid:



The Anglo-Saxon audiences are historically more restrained, and the lack of applause is usually the worst singers, conductor and orchestra need to face... Perhaps some stage directors are the exception to this rule in the 21st century.