Category: Vocal Styles
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The Bel Canto Tradition
In my last post I quickly mentioned the fact that Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor is a bel canto opera. Here’s a link to a fabulous 3-year old essay by New York Times critic, Anthony Tommasini that can serve as a primer about the bel canto tradition. Bel canto essentally means fine singing or beautiful singing.…
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Two Vocal Styles, the Same Singer
Here I’ve included two videos of soprano Renee Fleming. The first is Fleming singing Liu’s aria from Puccini’s Turandot and the second is a clip from her new Indie record, Dark Hope. These recordings highlight a distinctive difference in vocal styles. What are the characteristics of classical singing as opposed to a pop sound? To quote pedagogue Richard Miller, “Classical vocalism, as practiced in…