Opera Terms

[Almaviva]

This thread is for educational posts about opera terms and techniques.

The passaggio is the transition between the chest voice and the head voice. When amateur/non-trained singers sing, they're using the chest voice - which is the same one we use to speak. They are breathing through the vocal cords and modulating the pitch by flexing their vocal cords, and the volume by increasing or decreasing the amount of air that is being expelled from the lungs. However to achieve more power and resonance, singers must use the head voice, which augments the sound that is coming from the vocal chords by using the spaces in their heads - mouth, nasal cavities, etc, and the way the head bones vibrate, as a sort of resonance chamber to amplify the voice. Correct use of the head voice can only be achieved by training (the amateur singer usually doesn't know how to transition to it appropriately). If singers are increasing the power with which they are producing a certain note, at one point they go as strongly as they can with the chest voice, and need next to transition to the head voice. The moment when the transition occurs - that is, they call to their help the bones and the cavities in their heads and push the power up - is called the passaggio. The higher the note, the more it will only be produced in a loud and well projected way (audible from a distance - think of those cavernous opera houses) if it's done in the head register (amateur singers are familiar with the phenomenon that makes them lose power when they try to go up the higher reaches of their range) - this is why the passaggio points are often referred to as residing on certain notes of the scale, above which singers will have to go to the next register if they want to be heard.

So, it's not just a question of volume (it's actually not entirely correct to understand this from the standpoint of volume). Usually people *can* use a higher pitch if they drop the volume. It's a question of going up in pitch but in a still powerful and very audible way - this can only be done by switching to the head register.

The main problem here is that once they make use of the head voice, it's a different set of cavities with different dimensions, therefore the sound waves produced by this additional chamber result in different set of amplitude/frequency of vibrations and sound quality of the vibrations - this other set is called another register (see below) - or in other words, when you up the pitch and go into another set of vibrations, the timbre of the voice may change.

A poorly executed passaggio, therefore, will produce a sudden change in timbre that will be unpleasant to the ear and be heard as a vocal error. The trick of the well executed passaggio is to amplify the resonance and the power, but to conserve even the same timbre so that the voice soars to the next level without sounding like a sudden break has occurred.

You've heard this, even if (in case you're a novice) you didn't know that it was a passagio error. You're familiar with tenors who push their voices up and then - eeeewww, something is not right - and you cringe! This is called a passaggio break or a register break.

Here on the other hand is, for your delight, an example of well executed passaggi:

At 1:50, and also at 3:49 and even more explicit at 4:03 and then in the long modulation from 4:28 through 4:46.



Why are we talking about a passage - passaggio? Because it is a transition between registers. A register or vocal registration is a modality of production of sound with the same vibratory pattern. Notes can be produced and sang along the same vibratory pattern. There are four types of registers - chest, middle (for females; for males, zona di passagio, see below), and head; these three are the most common ones that both males and females can produce; and then males can produce another one called fry register, and females another one called whistle register .

To make things more complex, the classical Italian school of singing recognizes two different degrees of passaggio - first and second (primo passaggio, secondo passaggio). In between them, is what we call the zona di passaggio for men, or the middle register for women.

Many vocal teachers don’t acknowledge the existence of a middle register, but might instead treat the middle section of the voice as a zona di passaggio in which the chest and head tones will become blended or mixed. There may also be some disagreement on what constitutes head voice or how it is defined, and this confusion may explain why some teachers call the lighter tone of the voice that begins at the first passaggio in female students (or any tone that is produced at pitches above the chest register) “head voice” whereas classical Italian-style teachers would refer to this register as “middle” and the register beginning around E5-F#5 (at the second passaggio) as the true head register.

The primo passaggio is the point between the speech-inflection range - that is, the range of pitches that people use to speak - and the call range - that is, the point in which they would have to yell in order to try to speak.

About the interval of a major forth above this, is the point of the secondo passaggio which is the end of the zona de passaggio and the beginning of the true head voice.

If someone tries to sing the same note and push it up in volume without readapting/reconfiguring the muscles to incorporate the head voice vibrations into it - that is, increasing volume with the chest but not doing the passaggio - the voice becomes strained due to increasing effort and discomfort.

The tenor’s primo passaggio, (typically occurring somewhere between C#4 and E4, depending on the individual's voice), lies roughly a minor or major third above that of the baritone, (usually occurring around B3 or Bb3), with his secondo passaggio occurring roughly a major fourth above his primo passaggio. Most women experience their first registration pivotal point between Eb4 and G4, and their second passaggio between Eb5 and G5, with the alto’s voice switching into the next register a little earlier in the ascending scale than the soprano’s voice would.

To make the passaggio smooth, a singer needs to allow the larynx to progressively make changes (e.g., the vocal folds should ideally change into different vibratory patterns and either elongate or shorten gradually) while ascending and descending in pitch. These progressive elongations or shortenings are physiologically called static laryngeal functions. It's by learning to control these functions that a singer can sing the passaggio without a register break. In musical terms, this gradual transition is called aggiustamento.

Breaks are typically marked by noticeable changes of tone quality and volume. For example, when a female singer moves upward from her chest register into her middle register, her tone may abruptly become thin and weak, or her voice may crack or even cut out completely. Flatting or sharping notes are other problems that may occur during the passagio.

By the way, let's define a bit more the odd/zebra registers I've mentioned above - the ones that are less common, unlike the chest/middle/head ones.

The fry register (or pulsing register) is only possible for males. It sounds like a frying, sizzling, or rattling sound. It's the lower vocal register that can be produced by a human voice. This is used to obtain pitches at very low frequency. These pitches lay below the chest register. Not all singers can access them - some basses can. In addition to this, it is damaging to the voice and frequent use will cause voice deterioration.

The whistle register (or flagiolet) occurs between C6 and D7 and is the highest sound a human voice can produce, only accessible to females. It sits above the head voice. It sounds like a whistle, obviously, thus its name. It is bright and edgy and ideally should be very similar to the head voice, to allow for a swift and pleasant transition into it. Most females except true contraltos can learn to produce the flagiolet.

[Almaviva]

The letter/number notation refers to a complete piano keyboard with 88 keys. The Middle C (this most important key) is the fourth C from left to right, therefore it is called C4. If you only count white keys, Middle C is the 24th white key from left to right. The note C marks the beginning of each octave, so the D above Middle C is labeled D4, while the B below Middle C is part of a different octave - the third octave - therefore it is labeled B3. One octave above C4, you have C5 which starts another octave. These notes simply written with a letter and a number are the white keys on the keyboard. Now, the small b and the # that can be written between the letter and the number refer to the black keys on the keyboard, either # for sharp or b for flat. Actually it is not b but rather a little symbol that looks like a b, called a b rotundum, but instead of inserting a symbol, in the name of convenience we just type a small b. In French, this symbol is called bémol (and the sharp symbol is called a bé carré or square b). A sharp raises the pitch of a note one semitone, while a flat lowers the pitch one semitone. So when I write F#5 I'm referring to the black key that is located immediately to the right of the fifth F key.

If you sit in front of a keyboard, you can determine your vocal range by hitting the keys and trying to reproduce the sound with your voice.

Here are the common vocal ranges, counting from Middle C:

[Almaviva]

Here you have a passagio break at 4:20, and another one not as bad at 5:06; then there is one very clear at 6:01 (then right after that she does it better); these are all in the primo passagio. Then in the secondo passagio she starts by doing it well then she has a little break (a change in timbre, not too bad) at 8:18.



Here you have a break at 1:12 and at 1:52:



She demonstrates it in an exaggerated manner here:

[Almaviva]

Voice types
This one is pretty basic, folks, but we do have some opera novices joining from time to time so I thought I should write it up.

To classify a voice, we need to take into consideration range, tessitura, vocal weight, and color (timbre). Many opera houses will keep lists of singers classified this way, for casting purposes.

While for choral singers the range matters most, for solo singers tessitura is often more important than range.

So, what is range, and what is tessitura?

Range is the interval of notes a singer is able to produce. It goes from the lower note the singer can utter, to the highest. However, many of these notes are not useful, because the extremes (the lowest and the highest part) may suffer in volume and be inaudible in an opera house without amplification. Besides, when a singer goes too low or too high, there is discomfort and changes in tone. Tessitura is the comfort zone, the interval of notes where the singer is most comfortable and maintains a pleasant tone of voice. So while choral singers can add their voices to each other and be able to go usefully beyond the tessitura, soloists shouldn't be venturing too often beyond their tessitura.

Sometimes singers are misclassified. Lyric baritones can be thought to be tenors because their voices are light and "tenor-like" in vocal quality. Some females who can sing high notes are said to be sopranos, but actually they may be mezzo-sopranos with an unusually long range.

Singing too frequently in the wrong tessitura can strain the voice and lead to wear and tear.

Timbre is the quality or color of the voice.

Vocal Weight defines whether a voice is light or heavy. It is determined by the thickness of the vocal folds. The thicker the vocal folds are, the less agile and flexible the voice is. Therefore, heavier voices are less agile for florid coloratura, and less flexible for staccato.
On the other hand, lighter voices are not as well equipped for legato, and have trouble projecting above and beyond the orchestra.

(By the way, staccato refers to notes that are sung one after the other but are unconnected with the preceding note - it's Italian for detached. Legato refers to notes that are tied together and are sung smoothly and connected).

So, it's by thinking of these characteristics that voice fachs are determined.

Lighter voices are often called lyric and have a timbre that is smooth, silky, mellow, sensitive, graceful, soft, with good agility and strong diction.

Coloratura voices are light but with great agility and can handle floridly ornamented or embellished lines, such as running passages, staccati, and trills (the latter has already been defined above).

Heavier voices are often called dramatic because they are large, strong, powerful, vigorous, and rich, and can sing over a full orchestra (even those with one hundred or more instruments). They are not as agile, but are capable of giving gravitas to a role.

Spinto voices are somewhat in between lyric and dramatic voices. They can display brightness and height like a lyric voice, but can also be pushed to dramatic effects without strain. It is often said that spinto voices slice through the orchestra instead of singing over it like a dramatic voice. Sometimes spinto voices are called "baby dramatic."

Soubrette as a voice type is a concept that is somewhat controversial. It started as a definition of a role - young, flirty, active roles - often a spicy servant that mocks the masters and is a mix of a a somewhat promiscuous airhead and a street-wise person. As singers who were cast to sing/play these roles often had a warm, bright, sweet timbre with lighter weight than other sopranos, and also richer in the middle and upper middle of their voices than in the upper range, this term got to be applied to this exact voice type and today we can classify a voice as soubrette regardless of the role being sung.

Male voices also have the same general classification, with light-lyric (leggiero in Italian) being applied to the male equivalent of a lyric coloratura, lyric refering to a strong yet light voice with a high tessitura, spinto referring to a voice in between lyric and dramatic, and dramatic referring to a powerful, rich voice with a lower tessitura.

These classifications can combine - e.g., lyric coloratura soprano.

In addition to this, we say full when a voice is more mature and more suitable for mature roles, with less of a youthful quality, as opposed to the youthful quality of light voices and soubrette voices.

Heldentenor - (heroic tenor) refers to a dramatic tenor with baritone qualities, or a baritone with unusually strong top register who can reach the tenor range. These singers are suitable for the German romantic repertoire and for Wagnerian roles such as Siegfried, Tristan, Lohengrin, and Tannhäuser.

So, the above terms are adjectives applied to the voice types. Then, you'll see these adjectives applied to the range itself, that is, to the interval of notes the singer can produce, as in, for example, full dramatic soprano.

These ranges are:

Male voices

Contrabass - a bass who can sing G1 or lower is called a sub-bass, a contrabass, or a basso profundo.

Bass - the typical range is F2-E4, with the comfort zone falling between G2 and A3. True basses are rarer that bass-baritones, which are baritones who can also access bass notes.

Baritone - typically F2-G4 in choral music and G2-E4 in operatic music.

Tenor - Usually C3-G4, although the extremes can vary.

Countertenor - males with high vocal ranges or who can project falsetto pitches in a clear sound. They have ranges equivalent to the female ranges alto, mezzo-soprano, and soprano. A male soprano is often called a sopranist.

Female voices

Contralto - lowest range for female singers who can sing below E3

Alto - E3-E5

Mezzo-soprano - A3-F5

Soprano - C4-A5 or higher.

Sopranino - Sopranos who can sing higher than C#6

[Almaviva]

Vibrato is the alternation between two pitches (frequencies) that are very close together - it sounds like a pulsation.
It shouldn't vary by more than one semitone around the note that is being sung, in both directions, that is, half a semitone up and down from the pitch center.
It adds warmth to the voice and improves intonation centering (that is, it is easier to maintain the pitch when singing vibrato than it is when singing a straight tone).
Vibrato has certain parameters.
They are:
Oscillation or pitch excursion
Temporal rate (cycles per second) - ideally it is six to eight cycles per second
Amplitude variance

Vibrato is useful to rest the voice a bit, since a sustained pitch is more tiresome to produce.
True vibrato is an alternating pulse in the laryngeal muscles. It's not to be produced by vibrating the jaw.
This alternating pulse is similar to what happens when you lift a weight and after a certain point of long tension or strain your muscles start to shake. The muscles of the larynx start to pulse in response to subglottic pressure.

But it's not just the larynx. These vibrations also transmit to the tongue, epiglottis, and pharyngeal wall. They get to be visible in the neck muscles of singers with thin necks and prominent Adam's Apple (but being too visible may be a sign of forceful and incorrect production).

When the muscles of the larynx develop chronic fatigue and weakness due to overuse of the voice or aging, they stop being able to sustain and contain the vibrato, resulting in wobble or tremolo (more on this later).

Vibrato shouldn't be overused either, even when well done. Singers who sing with constant vibrato get to be as predictable and uninteresting as those who don't use vibrato at all.

The problem with using the wagging jaw or tongue to fake a vibrato (instead of allowing the laryngeal muscles to vibrate) is that it becomes strenuous and forceful, with too much tension. This is referred to as "the Gospel jaw." Another trick like moving the stomach in and out with the hands will make the voice waver but it is not a true vibrato. Some singers will pant and train their diaphragm to pulsate, which is called diaphragmatic vibrato, but this type of vocalization produces a tremolo, not a vibrato.

Tremolo is an effect in which dynamic level (in other words, volume) changes but the pitch remains the same.

Singers must also be careful to avoid mixing a trill and a vibrato. The trill has wider pitch excursion and is not the natural vibrancy rate of the voice (which is the vibrato, not the trill). A trill will be an alternation between two notes (therefore going from one semitone to the next) or even notes one tone apart, while the vibrato will be a vibration around the pitch center. The maximum pitch excursion of a well-produced vibrato is at least half of that of a trill, or even four times smaller.

Vibrato errors:

When a singer is not technically skilled in producing a natural vibrato, errors may occur. The vibrato may not happen, or happen too fast, too slowly, too narrowly, or too widely.

Here are some of these errors:

Caprino, or goat-like - it's when instead of vibrating in between a semitone, the voice instead produces a pulsation of only one note, like the bleating of a goat. Its frequency is higher than that of a healthy vibrato.

An overly wide and slow vibrato is called a vocal wobble. It has a larger variation in pitch and its frequency is lower. It happens due to several defects, such as improper adduction (closure) of the vocal chords due to chronic weakness, or a shaking diaphragm, or too much thickness in the vocal chord mass, or excessive use of the chest voice.

The tremolo is an overly fast oscillatory rate affecting the volume. It happens when singers try to support the vibrato by using too much pressure.

So how is the natural, healthy, correct vibrato produced?

It is a steady tonal oscillation of the pitch center - a slight variation in pitch. It results from an open pharynx, or open throat, in which the external and the intrinsic muscles remain in a relaxed "ooh" posture along with healthy closure (adduction) of the vocal chords and good breath management. It needs to vibrate in an even rate which can only be achieved with good breathing technique. There is need for good posture with alignment of back, neck, and head. Subglottic pressure needs to be moderate and regulated by the support muscles (abdominal, intercostal, pectoral muscles).

Good vibrato needs relaxation, but not too much relaxation. Relaxing the vocal apparatus is essential to allowing or inciting vibrato.

Vibrato can also be undesirable in certain situations. When a singer is singing a melisma (string of notes on a single syllable) the singer needs to suppress the vibrato. It is also undesirable in very quick passages (there is no time for each note to accommodate the vibrato). In choral music, different singers will have different frequencies of vibrato so they must all suppress it otherwise the effect will be unpleasant and destroy the quality of a unison passage. Singers will need to sing in straight tone.

Therefore, singers need to not only learn to produce the vibrato, but also to suppress it because they can't use it when they are singing an ensemble. However singing in straight tone can limit the color of the voice, so, some choral directors want to achieve choral blend through other means such as vocal alignment and acoustical alignment.

In this trio the two females produce several examples of well-executed vibrati, especially the mezzo-soprano who at 1:00 and beyond does it effortlessly, while the soprano does vibrate the jaw a little (although the result is still very beautiful). At about 1:50, 1:55 to 2:00 you'll see that the soprano's vibrato is a bit wider than the mezzo's (nothing outrageous but just to demonstrate a difference in width).



To understand the difference between vibrato and trill, it's good to listen to the above, and then listen to Marilyn Horne here:



Horne is not vibrating one single note by one half of a semitone up and down, but is oscillating between two notes and producing both notes - which is a trill, not a vibrato.

So now we gotta get to examples of bad technique. I'll be on the lookout for those.

OK, got it, a very excellent demonstration of caprino and wobble. This voice teacher demonstrates the whole gamut, you may skip the first 4:30 that refer to no non-operatic music. What he calls controlled vibrato to me sounds like a slow trill (at 8:00), but other than that I think this is a good educational video (of course all these educational videos exaggerate things a bit, but it gets really easy to understand).

[Almaviva]

I was about to write up a list of opera genres with their definitions, main characteristics, and representative composers, when I found out that Wikipedia contributors have done it already and quite well, so I see no need to redo it here. I'll just post a link to that page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_genres

Don't miss the very useful link on the bottom of the page, "Operas by Genre" - when you click on it you get to an alphabetic list of genres, and when you click on each genre, you get to an alphabetic list of the operas that are representative of that genre. Pretty neat.

[Schigolch]

A brief introduction to the Twelve-tone system.

Tonality, the musical system used in the West since the 16th century, is only one of the many ways that can be used to write music. If we could get our hands on all the music written by Mankind, most of this music won't be tonal. Gregorian chant, Javanese gamelan, Navajo lullabies, Hindustani ragas... or operas like Lulu, are outside of the tonal system.

Some people, naively, think that there is a kind of mathematical or physical reality that impose some specific chords, or relations among them. But there isn't. It's just a convention.

During the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th, composers like Wagner, Debussy, Mahler,... were going more and more outside the limits of tonality. Schönberg was the first to flatly renounce tonality, and compose "atonal music", breaking with the attractions among notes, and harmonic relations. However, Schönberg was not happy because atonalism was more a denial of tonality, that something new.

Twelve-tone was not created to refine atonalism, but rather to use as the basic stone of the new musical building "atonicism", to take away the tonic, and give all the notes the same importance. Because, how do you give more importance in a musical phrase to some notes, over others?

1. By repeating the note more
   
2. By playing it longer
   
3. By placing it in a determined place
   
4. By stressing the rhythm in this note...

Twelve-tone techniques try to avoid these situations, and place all the notes in the same plane.



Looking at the piano keyboard, we can see there is an unit that repeats itself, formed by 5 black keys, and 7 white keys. This unit is an octave and is divided in 12 notes, that are the basis of the Western harmonic system. Together, they are the chromatic scale:

C - C sharp - D - D sharp - E - F - F sharp - G - G sharp - A - A sharp - B

or

0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11

and the distance between two adjacent notes, is a semitone.

Within the Twelve-tone system, all the 12 notes must be played (in any octave) before you can start again the cycle. When the order in which the notes are played is decided, we get a Twelve-tone row, that gets indentified by its numerical sequence. In this way, the following Twelve-tone row:

D - E - F - F sharp - C - C sharp - B - A - D sharp - A sharp - G - G sharp

is also: 2 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 0 - 1 - 11 - 9 - 3 - 10 - 7 - 8

and it will be for us a prime series, P(2), the 2 is because starts in D, and could be the basis to write one piece of music.

We can use three basic techniques to work with series:

a) Transposition, each note of the prime series moves up or down a fixed number of semitones. If we move down P(2) two semitones, we get 0 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 10 - 11 - 9 - 7 - 1 - 8 - 5 - 6, i.e. a P(0) Twelve-tone series.

b) Retrograde, each note in the prime series invert the original ordering. In our example it will be :

R(2) ==> 8 - 7 - 10 - 3 - 9 - 11 - 1 - 0 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 2

c) Inversion, each notes is replaced by her mirror note in the chromatic scale, taking as center the first note in the prime series. In our example;

I(2) ==> 2 - 0 - 11 - 10 - 4 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 1 - 6 - 9 - 8

Of course all three transformations can be combined.

Also, the composer can choose to present the Twelve-tone row either in the melody, or in the harmony. That means that our P2) can be just played note after note or, maybe, we can start with D, the use a chord with E, F, F sharp and C, continue in the melody with B, another chord using A, D sharp, A sharp and G,...

All this in the octave of your choosing, with the instruments you want, any rhythm .....


It's a system less predictable than tonality, and you can use it to write marvels like Alban Berg's violin concert, Dem Andenken eines Engels.

In the Opera world, there are several very good pieces. Just to name a few:

Lulu by Alban Berg

Moses und Aron by Schönberg

Karl V by Ernst Krenek

[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.

[Almaviva]

Hehehe, after that disaster of a DVD of Il Trovatore with Cura and Dmitri (the only case in my "career" of an opera lover in which I threw the DVD in the garbage can), and after having heard Cura live recently in Otello at the Met and being thoroughly unimpressed, I think that there is a good chance that the Teatro Real loggionisti were actually right regarding the technical merit of their claim. Of course I can't tell because I wasn't there; I'm just talking of the odds. However, I do abhor boos. I think they are disrespectful. The best reaction is a lack of applause. So, I can't endorse the reaction of the public, even if they were right about the shortcomings of the performer. Just don't applaud the specific singer at all during curtain calls; it's more than enough of a message. Booing is inelegant.

This said, I think the Met audience is *too* generous. I've heard wild applause being granted to rather appalling performances. I think a well-educated, seasoned opera audience should at least get the order of magnitude, in general, of what constitutes a good/decent vocal performance (at least), and what constitutes a thoroughly unacceptable one. Wild applause for the latter betrays the naivete of the public. One wonders if they're attending just to show off their outfits, without having any notion of what good opera singing is about.

In that particular Otello which was globally weak, I did applaud a couple of singers who did better, and refrained from applauding Mr. Cura. I was surprised to see many people applauding wildly his incredibly weak performance.

[Schigolch]

The Teatro Real loggionisti were fully right regarding the technical merit of Mr. Cura's Manrico.