An invaluable guide to some of the most demanding aria excerpts

A premier singer and master teacher here tells other singers how to get the most from 151 famous arias selected for their popularity or their greatness from 66 operas, ranging in time and style from Christopher Gluck to Carlisle Floyd, from Mozart to Menotti. “The most memorable thrills in an opera singer's life,” according to the author's Introduction, “may easily derive from the great arias in his or her repertoire.” This book continues the work Martial Singher has done, in performances, in concerts, and in master classes and lessons, by drawing attention “not only to precise features of text, notes, and markings but also to psychological motivations and emotional impulses, to laughter and tears, to technical skills, to strokes of genius, and even here and there to variations from the original works that have proved to be fortunate.” For each aria, the author gives the dramatic and musical context, advice about interpretation, and the lyric—with the original language (if it is not English) and an idiomatic American English translation, in parallel columns. The major operatic traditions—French, German, Italian, Russian, and American—are represented, as are the major voice types—soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, and bass. The dramatic context is not a mere summary of the plot but is a penetrating and often witty personality sketch of an operatic character in the midst of a situation. The musical context is presented with the dramatic situation in a cleverly integrated way. Suggestions about interpretation, often illustrated with musical notation and phonetic symbols, are interspersed among the author's explication of the music and the action. An overview of Martial Singher’s approach—based on fifty years of experience on stage in a hundred roles and in class at four leading conservatories—is presented in his Introduction. As the reader approaches each opera discussed in this book, he or she experiences the feeling of participation in a rehearsal on stage under an urbane though demanding coach and director. The Interpretive Guide will be of value to professional singers as a source of reference or renewed inspiration and a memory refresher, to coaches for checking and broadening personal impressions, to young singers and students for learning, to teachers who have enjoyed less than a half century of experience, and to opera broadcast listeners and telecast viewers who want to understand what goes into the sounds and sights that delight them.

This text features works from 350 composers in 16 different languages and 30 voice categories - all sorted and cross-referenced. This one-of-a- kind reference allows you to search by: Roles, voice categories, aria titles, singers, composers, operas

Since the publication of the first edition in 1964, Phonetic Readings of Songs and Arias has served singers, teachers of singing, and students of lyric diction as a guide to the correct pronunciation of songs in foreign languages.

Bel canto, or 'beautiful singing, ' remains one of the most elusive performance styles vocalists strive to master. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, composers routinely left the final shaping of recitatives, arias, and songs to performers, and singers treated scores freely so that inexpressively notated music could be turned into passionate declamation. In other words, vocalists saw their role more as one of re-creation than of simple interpretation. Familiarity with the range of strategies prominent singers of the past employed to unlock the eloquent expression hidden in scores enables modern performers to take a similar re-creative approach to enhancing the texts before them. In this first ever guide to bel canto, author Robert Toft provides singers with the tools they need not only to complete the creative process the composer began but also to bring scores to life in an historically-informed manner. Replete with illustrations based on excerpts from Italianate recitatives and arias by composers ranging from Handel to Rossini, the book offers discussions of the fundamental principles of expressive singing, each section including a practical application of the techniques involved. Drawing on a wealth of documents from the era, including treatises, scores, newspaper reviews, and letters, this book captures the breadth of practices singers used in the bel canto period. Complete with six scores (recitatives and/or arias) for performers to personalize through the old methods, and a companion website offering demonstrations of the principles involved, Bel Canto is an essential resource for any singer or vocal instructor wishing to explore and master historical techniques of interpretation and re-creation from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This first of its kind text explores voice repertoire from a unique perspective: how it can be used to foster the vocal growth of developing singers. Following in the footsteps of seminal works including Kagen's Music for the Voice, Arneson presents insights into a vast range of specific repertoire, both on and off the beaten track, showing how it can be used to support and enhance learning and skills acquisition in singers, from beginners to experienced professionals.

It is no secret that the opera industry is contracting and that there are fewer professional opportunities. But what causes one singer to be in demand over another is not exclusively a special instrument or exceptional vocal technique—rather, the ability to interpret the music and portray character convincingly plays an increasingly vital role in today’s opera industry. Beyond the Aria: Artistic Self-Empowerment for the Classical Singer provides singers with the tools to develop an inquisitive and analytical mindset about the artistic details found in scores. Neal Goren takes singers through a careful reading of clues provided by the librettist and composer, informed by performance practice, and empowers singers to make their own valid artistic choices. Sample analyses of six standard arias and songs are provided as a guide of characterization. Chapters also address artistic collaboration and audition strategies. Also included are exclusive interviews with eight great singing actors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Jonas Kaufmann, Christa Ludwig, Audra McDonald, and Barbara Hannigan, who share their individual methods for constructing a character.