Bel canto

Bel canto (Bel-Canto) (Italian, "beautiful singing"), along with a number of similar constructions (‘bellezze del canto’, ‘bell’arte del canto’), is an Italian opera term with several possible different meanings that is subject to a wide array of interpretations.^[1]

The earliest usage of the term bel canto emerged in late 17th-century Italy to refer to the Italian model of singing that was developing there. However, the phrase did not become widely used until the mid 18th century and the term did not take on a more specified meaning until the mid-19th century. In fact "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt definition until after 1900." Even so, the term bel canto remains ambiguous and is often used nostalgically in its application to a lost singing tradition.^[2]

History

Gioachino Rossini, c1815 by Vincenzo Camuccini.

Generally understood, the term 'bel canto' refers to the Italian vocal style of the 18th and early 19th centuries the qualities of which include perfect legato production throughout the range, the use of a light tone in the higher registers and agile and flexible delivery. Operas of the style feature extensive and florid ornamentation, requiring much in the way of fast scales and cadenzas known as coloratura. More narrowly, the term is sometimes applied exclusively to Italian opera of the time of Rossini (1792–1868), Bellini (1801–1835), and Donizetti (1797–1848). These men composed opera during what is sometimes called the bel canto era, which flourished from approximately 1805 to 1830.^[3]

While historians typically date the bel canto period to the early 19th century, the term itself did not come into common usage in its current sense until the middle of the 19th century when the term 'bel canto' was set in opposition to the development of a weightier, more powerful and speech-inflected style associated with German opera and Richard Wagner in particular. Wagner himself decried the Italian singing model that was concerned merely with "whether that G or A will come out roundly" and proposed a German school of singing that would draw "the spiritually energetic and profoundly passionate into the orbit of its matchless Expression".^[4]

The popularity of the style of bel canto faded in mid-19th century Italy in favor of a heavier dramatic approach (although not anywhere near as heavy as in German opera) most associated with Giuseppe Verdi. One reason for this is that critics of bel canto criticized the artform as vocalization devoid of content. To others, however, bel canto became the lost art of elegant, refined, beautiful singing. Rossini said in a conversation that took place in Paris in 1858, "Alas for us, we have lost our bel canto".^[5] Similarly, the so-called German style was both heralded and derided. In a collection of songs by Italian masters published under the title Il bel canto (Berlin, 1887), Franz Sieber wrote: "In our time, when the most offensive shrieking under the extenuating device of 'dramatic singing' has spread everywhere, when the ignorant masses appear much more interested in how loud rather than how beautiful the singing is, a collection of songs will perhaps be welcome which – as the title purports – may assist in restoring bel canto to its rightful place".^[3]

Joan Sutherland as the title role of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor during the Mad Scene.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, 'bel canto' rapidly became a battle cry in the vocabulary of Italian singing teachers, who often employed it in reaction to the more vehement and strenuous mode of singing that was being increasingly adopted by performers in order to cope with the demands of verismo opera. Thus the bel-canto concept became clouded by mystique and confused by a plethora of individual interpretations. To complicate the matter further, German musicology in the early 20th century devised its own historical application for 'bel canto', using the term to refer to the simple lyricism that came to the fore in Venetian opera and the Roman cantata during the 1630s and 40s (the era of Cesti, Carissimi and Luigi Rossi) as a reaction against the earlier, text-dominated stilo rappresentativo.^[1] This anachronistic use of the term was given wide circulation in Robert Haas's Die Musik des Barocks (Potsdam, 1928) and, later, in Manfred Bukofzer's Music in the Baroque Era (New York, 1947). Since the singing style of 17th-century Italy did not differ in any marked way from that of the 18th and early 19th centuries, a connection can be drawn; but the term is best limited to its 19th-century use as a style of singing that emphasized beauty of tone in the delivery of highly florid music.^[3]

In the 1950s the term bel canto revival was coined to refer to a renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. These composers had gone out of fashion during the latter half of the 19th century and their works, while not completely disappearing from the performance repertoire, were staged infrequently. All of that changed with enterprising orchestral conductors and singers such as Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills, who popularized the bel canto repertoire internationally.^[6] Today some of the most frequently performed operas, such as Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, are from the bel canto era.^[7]

Vocal technique

Mathilde Marchesi (1821–1913), a famous teacher of bel canto repertoire.

While strictly speaking the term bel canto is a style of singing and not a vocal technique, the style did strongly influence vocal pedagogical thought and practice; thereby significantly altering the way in which vocal technique was taught. The term bel canto technique is sometimes used to refer to vocal technique concepts developed during the bel canto era. That is not to say that there was a uniform opinion among all voice teachers during this time, but that there were developments in thought and practice within vocal pedagogy that have become associated with bel canto singing. For example, teachers during the bel canto era began to describe the voice as possessing three vocal registers. Chest voice was identified as the lowest and head voice the highest of three vocal registers: the chest, passaggio and head registers. Prior to the bel canto era the terms chest and head voice were used but with different meanings. The term 'throat voice' was used and 'passaggio' not used at all. Another example would be major changes within voice classification. Terms like mezzo-soprano and lyric coloratura soprano, along with many other designations were developed during this period and have had a lasting impact on the way singers and voice teachers classify voices. Writings on the voice and vocal exercises created to enhance vocal dexterity, range, and control during this period are still studied and used today by some teachers.^[1] Prominent vocal pedagogues from the bel canto era include: Manuel García, Mathilde Marchesi, Julius Stockhausen, Francesco Lamperti, and his son Giovanni Battista Lamperti.

Notes

References

• Brown, M. Augusta "Extracts From Vocal Art" in The Congress of Women, Mary Kavanaugh Oldham (ed.), Chicago: Monarch Book Company (1894), p. 477. Available online from the University of Pennsylvania Digital Library. Accessed 26 April 2007.
• Coffin, Berton, Sounds of Singing. 2nd Edition. Littlefield, 2002.
• Christiansen, Rupert, "A tenor for the 21st century", The Daily Telegraph, March 15, 2002. Accessed 3 November 2008.
• Marchesi, Mathilde, Bel Canto: A Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method, Dover (1970) ISBN 0486223159
• Osborne, Charles, The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, Hal Leonard Corporation (1994). ISBN 0931340845
• Reid, Cornelius L., Bel Canto: Principles and Practices, Joseph Patelson Music House (1950) ISBN 0915282011
• Scalisi, Cecilia, "Raúl Giménez, el maestro del bel canto", La Nación, November 10, 2003. Accessed 3 November 2008.