# How would you describe operatic singing



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

It certainly depends on the song being sung, but I would call it dramatic. I rarely want to use the word beautiful to describe it, it doesn't feel appropriate to me. It feels like something different than singing to me, more expressive and like an instrument than "singing".

Perhaps this is because I'm still rather new to Opera, but this is my first impressions.


:tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In short, I wouldn't. Singing in opera is extremely diverse among different styles of opera and among individual singers. Listen to as many singers as you can and you will be astonished at the capablities of the human voice.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> In short, I wouldn't. Singing in opera is extremely diverse among different styles of opera and among individual singers. Listen to as many singers as you can and you will be astonished at the capablities of the human voice.


I am starting to hear difference in richness of execution amongst varying singers of Opera.


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## topo morto (Apr 9, 2017)

On average, I would describe operatic singing as sounding 'loud' - and, in direct proportion to the degree of over-use of vibrato, 'silly' and 'out-of-tune'.

(...or 'dramatic' if i _really _like the music...)


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

topo morto said:


> On average, I would describe operatic singing as sounding 'loud' - and, in direct proportion to the degree of over-use of vibrato, 'silly' and 'out-of-tune'.
> 
> (...or 'dramatic' if i _really _like the music...)


Are you saying you don't really enjoy Opera?


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## topo morto (Apr 9, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Are you saying you don't really enjoy Opera?


The nature of the vocals polarises my reaction a bit. If I like an operatic piece, I'll often find it quite involving, and if I don't, I tend to actively dislike it more than I would most music. You wouldn't often find me listening to opera as a background.

Over-wrought vibrato on sustained sounds irritates me a bit in general. I veer away from it on solo violin too.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

> How would you describe operatic singing


As one of the highest forms of art, what people be able to do with their voice always make me feel very humble and wish I could do half as good as they do.


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

Operatic singing brings this to mind:






Daniel


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Painful.......................


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Daniel Atkinson said:


> Operatic singing brings this to mind:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I was enjoying that until the goat.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dramatic is only one side of it. For example, in Don Giovanni there's a trio at the end of Act 1 with Anna, Elvira and Ottavio. I'm not sure that "dramatic" does it justice, it certainly is very different from (eg) The Champagne Aria.


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## David OByrne (Dec 1, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I was enjoying that until the goat.


The goat is the only good thing about it


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

David OByrne said:


> The goat is the only good thing about it


While I genuinely respect your right to your own opinion, sometimes I really wonder if this is a Classical message board.

:lol:


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## topo morto (Apr 9, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> While I genuinely respect your right to your own opinion, sometimes I really wonder if this is a Classical message board.


We are simply defending the legitimacy of goats as a component of opera, are we not?

In fact I would go as far to say that the number of farm animals involved in a production is as objective a measure of its quality as any.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

I hear some opera singers as "bothersome", but others as wonderfully musical. If I notice the vibrato very often, the singer is using too much of it.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

david johnson said:


> I hear some opera singers as "bothersome", but others as wonderfully musical. If I notice the vibrato very often, the singer is using too much of it.


Good insight!
:tiphat:


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## David OByrne (Dec 1, 2016)

topo morto said:


> We are simply defending the legitimacy of goats as a component of opera, are we not?
> 
> In fact I would go as far to say that the number of farm animals involved in a production is as objective a measure of its quality as any.


No, opera singers sound like goats already. If you think goats sound beautiful then good for you but keep me out of it


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Oh dear, bully the opera singers thread.


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

For me at its best, it's the seamless fusion of the voice with the orchestra, so that the voice becomes an added instrument, blending with the whole. Attempting to milk the drama to the point where a singer is no longer following the flow of the music is guaranteed to make me wince. 

At its worst, its a singer with little or no innate sense of rhythm and for whom the addition of an orchestra is simply either unnecessary or an added hindrance.


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## topo morto (Apr 9, 2017)

Pugg said:


> *billy *the opera singers thread.


.....Fixed.....


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Annied said:


> For me at its best, it's the seamless fusion of the voice with the orchestra, so that the voice becomes an added instrument, blending with the whole. Attempting to milk the drama to the point where a singer is no longer following the flow of the music is guaranteed to make me wince.
> 
> At its worst, its a singer with little or no innate sense of rhythm and for whom the addition of an orchestra is simply either unnecessary or an added hindrance.


It's a really interesting post which touches on the heart of the matter. I don't feel the same as you, I'd say prima le parole e poi la musica.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How I would describe operatic singing for the novice:

Not for the squeamish. Takes a lot of "adjusting" to a trained voice with vibrato and louder volume than one is used to. But stay with it. There are only two instruments designed for maximum emotional communication: the violin and the trained human voice.

For the experienced, sensitive listener:

Simply glorious!


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> It's a really interesting post which touches on the heart of the matter. I don't feel the same as you, I'd say prima le parole e poi la musica.


Thank you!

I think it's fascinating that we all get different things from opera and that we all have different favourites. How boring life would be if we all liked the same operas and the same performers and how narrow a field it would become. I just wish it was possible to swap ears sometimes. I'd love to hear what one or two of my friends hear and, by the same token, I think they'd get the shock of their lives if they could experience what I hear.


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## LarryShone (Aug 29, 2014)

One word -warbly


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I posted this once in the past ... a well known and well respected operatic singer had this to say:
_
"Singing is heightened speech, cultivated screaming. I have trained myself to scream really beautifully and loud enough to get over a full orchestra."_

Not everyone liked it at the time and, I suspect, that remains true.


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## Rys (Nov 26, 2016)

Haven't seen this mentioned,---Impressive


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## Rys (Nov 26, 2016)

Becca said:


> loud enough to get over a full orchestra[/I]


In a second life I wish to be an opera singer, but I'm not to fond of my head throbbing.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Highly stylised is how I would describe it. I think it's fair to say that opera singing is not naturalistic, not like e.g. traditional folk singing, and in some cases is frankly an obstacle to good music. 

There are some great singers and some great works for voice, but I tire of it much more quickly than instrumental music, especially when it is some overly-melodramatic rubbish sung in god-awful staccato exchanges.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

IT sounds way better than modern singing & rap crap.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I don't dislike opera singing, but there are times it does sound "alien," not in the sense that I can't connect to it, but that it does sound more like an instrument with its own unique quality than the voice of a human being. For instance when I listen to blues I'm often moved by the singer's inflection in much the same way we're moved by the inflections and subtle emotional accents of actual speech, and these subtle inflections, often lost in classical singing, produce an effect that is probably amusical but that for many people is a huge part of vocal music's appeal in the first place. 

For me this creates the impression that operatic voices are reciting or narrating; it's very difficult for me to perceive it as the character themselves speaking, rather than as a singer, even if beautifully, telling me what that character said in the story, if that makes any sense at all. 

It often seems that the emotion of an opera singer's voice is determined purely by the emotion of the notes they are singing, but that their "tone of voice" itself is entirely neutral. In contrast, if a person is sad to the point of crying we will clearly detect that even if they're singing a happy melody at the time. 

The removal of these speech-like emotional cues, I think, gives operatic singing a sort of uncanny valley effect for a lot of people; it's clearly the voice of a human being, and it's clearly producing sounds with distinct and affecting moods, but it's also clearly different in some way and absent of a few things present in the speech of a voice in its default state (in fact one of my initial hurdles to opera was that I found the singing inherently comical because it seemed the auditory equivalent of looking at a distorted face in a funhouse mirror.) I think that's the reason people aren't bothered by the same thing in regard to regular instruments. 

What's frustrating to me is that I don't understand why singers forego the tones of actual speech 99 percent of time, because the 1 percent of the time they indulge in it it's incredibly moving. For these reasons I find myself more in awe of their sheer power than anything.


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## arnerich (Aug 19, 2016)

I think it's the hardest instrument to master. There are some truly exceptional singers out there but they're rare.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I don't dislike opera singing, but there are times it does sound "alien," not in the sense that I can't connect to it, but that it does sound more like an instrument with its own unique quality than the voice of a human being. For instance when I listen to blues I'm often moved by the singer's inflection in much the same way we're moved by the inflections and subtle emotional accents of actual speech, and these subtle inflections, often lost in classical singing, produce an effect that is probably amusical but that for many people is a huge part of vocal music's appeal in the first place.
> 
> For me this creates the impression that operatic voices are reciting or narrating; it's very difficult for me to perceive it as the character themselves speaking, rather than as a singer, even if beautifully, telling me what that character said in the story, if that makes any sense at all.
> 
> ...


Good observation. In classical singing (let's broaden it beyond opera) the expression of specific emotions is more or less stylized or sublimated - more or less, depending on the style of the music. This needn't rule out a wide range of expressive inflection, attack, and tonal coloration (witness an artist like Callas), but the vocal ideal generally requires a basic steadiness and consistency of sound. This aims at its own expressive effect, unachievable by other means: there is, ideally, a kind of transcendence in it, a sublimity, a defiance of mortality, a raising of the human to the superhuman. With the greatest, most tonally vibrant and technically expert singers, the listener is moved in a way that defies explanation, and the "diva" - goddess - inspires adoration.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'd like to add that singing in classical music (as Woodduck extended it beyond Opera) is so versatile. It can be soft and delicate or fierce and aggressive and everything in between. 

However, I feel this is not credited to the style of singing as much as it is to the attention to detail given by singers of Classical Music. By this, I mean to implicate that other genres could be just as diverse, but lack the talent to achieve this versatility to the same degree found in classical music.

So in contrast to the original OP, I do sometimes find singing in classical music to be beautiful (look at Ravel's Chansons Madécasses as an example) but I wouldn't say my experience has been mostly beautiful at this point which is why I created this thread.

Thanks to those who contributed to help clear up my thoughts on this subject!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

arnerich said:


> I think it's the hardest instrument to master. There are some truly exceptional singers out there but they're rare.


Not if you look in the right direction .


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Good observation. In classical singing (let's broaden it beyond opera) the expression of specific emotions is more or less stylized or sublimated - more or less, depending on the style of the music. This needn't rule out a wide range of expressive inflection, attack, and tonal coloration (witness an artist like Callas), but the vocal ideal generally requires a basic steadiness and consistency of sound. This aims at its own expressive effect, unachievable by other means: there is, ideally, a kind of transcendence in it, a sublimity, a defiance of mortality, *a raising of the human to the superhuman*. With the greatest, most tonally vibrant and technically expert singers, the listener is moved in a way that defies explanation, and the "diva" - goddess - inspires adoration.


That's a more optimistic way of putting it to say the least. I once read Harold Bloom express that he felt no actor could ever live up to a character like King Lear, that for him it would be like trying to find an actor with enough gravitas to play Yahweh. When I listen to certain scenes in opera, a similar respect dispels my recurring suspicion that the singing style isn't "human" enough. When it works for me, it expresses with a raw energy that the style of singing considered standard today, and that I relate to more easily in general, just wouldn't be able to.











In the Wagner example particularly, it's to great benefit that opera singers sound more like Gods from another dimension than regular people.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

From another dimension? I would have said constipated more than anything.


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## topo morto (Apr 9, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I mean to implicate that other genres could be just as diverse, but lack the talent to achieve this versatility to the same degree found in classical music.


...with the obvious exception of any 'other genre' that is in any way commercially successful, because its practitioners will wheel in talent from other musical worlds as and when it serves the music.

Schmaltzy as it is, I rather like Pavarotti's own Eno collaboration, although I'm sure he's about 10dB lower in the mix than he should be!


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

Gorgeous? Sublime? Enchanting? Thrilling?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> In short, I wouldn't. Singing in opera is extremely diverse among different styles of opera and among individual singers. Listen to as many singers as you can and *you will be astonished at the capablities of the human voice*.


I can only describe operatic singing in a very general way by analogy. Operatic singing is Olympic: the singers have to perform at an extreme level of physical and mental focus and ability, similar to what Olympic athletes must do. I am sure this analogy falls short in many ways, and perhaps is more applicable to some types of operatic singing than others, but as a generalization I think it works, and it gives credit to the great effort that these singers put out to make pleasing sounds for us to enjoy.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> I can only describe operatic singing in a very general way by analogy. Operatic singing is Olympic: the singers have to perform at an extreme level of physical and mental focus and ability, similar to what Olympic athletes must do. I am sure this analogy falls short in many ways, and perhaps is more applicable to some types of operatic singing than others, but as a generalization I think it works, and it gives credit to the great effort that these singers put out to make pleasing sounds for us to enjoy.


I do think you described it very well, all have to be in top form for the highest presentation at that moment, one failure and you have a whole audience / critics upon you.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Oaoaoaoaoaowwowooooaaoaoaoaoaoaoaoowwowowowowowoaoaoaoaoaoaoaoaowowwowowowowoaoaoaoaoaoaowowowowwowooaoaoa


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Florestan said:


> I can only describe operatic singing in a very general way by analogy. Operatic singing is Olympic: the singers have to perform at an extreme level of physical and mental focus and ability, similar to what Olympic athletes must do. I am sure this analogy falls short in many ways, and perhaps is more applicable to some types of operatic singing than others, but as a generalization I think it works, and it gives credit to the great effort that these singers put out to make pleasing sounds for us to enjoy.


I am not an opera fan in general, but I agree with this completely.

Even though I don't enjoy the art form, I can easily appreciate the incredible talent opera singers have.

Every night they perform, they have to be on their game.


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

mtmailey said:


> IT sounds way better than modern singing & rap crap.
> View attachment 94775


Swap that sentence around and you'd be correct

Daniel


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