# Stop being divas and sing some popular songs



## thatbrit (Dec 19, 2014)

We have an absurd situation. Classical singing , opera etc. is struggling. We are not producing an audience for the future. So why do so many classical singers refuse to do concerts including musical theatre songs are other genres. Instead we have the general public having a perverse interest in pop singers and other performers such as Potts etc. singing Opera arias. Is that good opera. Its the reverse of what should be going on. The original 3 tenors did a fine job trying to produce a new audience. Lets get people out there hearing what 10 years and more of voice training produces. Dont sit in our ivory towers, because they may crumble. Practically all popular voices out there are so heavily computer processed that people dont need to sing in key!! or have any real tone. It will just get added. When was the last time an opera aria was sung on a late night show like Dave Letterman. Everyone needs to take responsibility for the future of this industry.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I love to hear opera singers sing songs from Broadway musicals provided they do it idiomatically. By that I mean that they don't "oversing" the music (i.e. use _too much voice_ for the music they're singing) and don't pronounce the English as if it's Italian.

The soprano Dawn Upshaw was a very idiomatic singer of classic American popular songs; her "I Wish It So" CD is one of my favorite recital discs of all time. And I enjoy Bryn Terfel and Renee Fleming on their "Under the Stars" CD, though I could imagine someone feeling their style is just a little too "grand" for the material. I also own a very nice, idiomatic recording of Sherrill Milnes singing "Old Man River."

As for Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras in WEST SIDE STORY...Just, no.

But I agree with your basic point, which is that snobbery seldom gets anyone anywhere.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

thatbrit said:


> Practically all popular voices out there are so heavily computer processed that people dont need to sing in key!! or have any real tone. It will just get added.


Artificial music, like artificial flavors in food. Ugh! I want the real thing. Yes, opera singers can preform more popular works in a nice way. I think that Kathleen Battle achieved that on this album with Christopher Parkening. At least is seems so to me. Can any pop singers come anywhere close to singing these songs as nicely as Kathleen does?


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

my problem is not so much opera singers singing non-classical works (Renee Fleming's album Dark Hope is wonderful, and I would like to see similar works from other divas), it's non-classical singers singing classical music. granted, if they can actually do it well, cool, but being an opera singer takes almost a decade of training because there is so much you need to have right before you can produce a sound which is elegant and high enough quality. just because people want to be exotic and sing opera on American Idol doesn't mean we should lower our standards.

that said, I _really_ like the trend of classical style vocals featured in anime soundtracks


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Apologies in advance, but I think it rather Pollyanna naive to think that those few successful "crossover" forays where opera singers do popular and musical theater songs lead the fans of those recordings to then purchase full-length recordings of actual operas, or pique their curiosity enough to attend a full-length opera performance.

The audiences for those like them exactly because the arias presented are brief (which is all about and aimed at the musical attention span of the popular music audiences), and the selections are usually the most like popular melodies anyway... often, those recordings present an edited less than complete version of those arias, simplified in order to be tailored to that particular 'popular music average listener' market.

No matter how gorgeous the full-length operas or the sound of the classically trained singer, the popular audiences for those 'lighter fare' recordings _are greatly disinclined to like at all the sound of the classical opera or lied singer in anything but the briefest and smallest of increments_ -- which is why they flock to the popera performers, with their less than operatic sort of voice, and the cut / edited / abbreviated versions of arias those singers do sing. This is exactly the same reason those few crossover performances and recordings by the genuine opera singers do sell, i.e. they are of a similar content and programmatic nature as what the popera singers do.

Ergo, it is not 'taking responsibility' to bring people to real classical opera or lied to do any of the more popular presentations. The three tenors, etc. mainly popularized The three tenors, and not much else, making the performers some cash, while I bet their performances or recordings led very few of its 'lay fans' to seek out any real opera, other than perhaps another recording of a selection of the most tuneful and popular of aria 'hits.'

I have no solution to the 'problem' you present, but I think what you advocate has not been successful in bringing any significant number of consumers to the opera house or in purchasing full-length recordings of opera, and there is little if any changing that.


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## thatbrit (Dec 19, 2014)

thankyou for responding. Implying that I am naive, really is indicative of some of the problems the industry has. Are you saying that the 3 tenors did nothing to help. You start with the premise that all these hurdles exist, so its useless to try jumping over them or find a way of making those hurdles less high. For you the death bell already tolls. Years ago opera singers were celebrities, but now very few people could even name one. We have a society that thrives on celebrities, so much so that the celebrity factor is independent of people having talent. One solution is find a way to make opera singers celebrities again. We have incredible amounts of money spent on reality shows with people that are just idiotic. Unfortunately maybe it needs opera singers to have a public image that is marketed and promoted. While opera singers do nothing to produce or control a marketable image that reflects their true talent, then it is left to bizarre imagery and impressions that exist of fat women with horns screeching out some foreign language.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I believe it was Mark Glanville who once wrote an excellent editorial piece for the magazine _Opera Now_ in which he posited that the "popera" singers generally do not attract more fans to opera. According to Mr. Glanville, these individuals and their repertoire serve as a "halfway house" for those persons who don't want to take the last step and actually attend an opera performance. Are there individuals who are drawn to opera by some of the popular singers? Of course. A couple of well-known tenors have cited the influence of Mario Lanza in furthering their interest in opera. But I'm afraid I don't agree with your premise that opera is not generating an audience for the future. Those worries were around when I was in my 20s (which was rather a long time ago), and I haven't noticed any decline in attendance at performances by the opera company in my city. Those 20-somethings of 30 years ago are well-represented in the audience, and I've spotted quite a few young adults and even some teens and kids at performances over the past three years. Thirty years from now, I suspect those seats will still be filled by a new generation of opera enthusiasts. And it may not have been an opera aria on David Letterman, but over the course of the past 12 months, Renée Fleming and Joyce Di Donato both sang the National Anthem at major sporting events that were broadcast on television (and reached millions of viewers) -- which tells me that certain opera singers do have some amount of celebrity status. I'm also willing to bet that Jonas Kaufmann and Diana Damrau are very well known in the German-speaking countries, even among those who aren't opera fans.


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