Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Series VIII: Performing Arts • Vol. 7 (56) No. 2 - 2014 NINETEENTH CENTURY’S DONIZETTIAN SINGERS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VOCAL TECHNIQUE 1 Cristina SOREANU Abstract: The opera has always reflected the historical times it has been going through. Romanticism brought on stage tragic themes, inspired from history, imposing the typology of the Romantic hero. The dramatic scoring, sketched by the profile of the Romantic roles, induced the need for powerful vocal emission and for wide extension of the vocal registers. A revolution in the field of the vocal technique occurred and new resonating modalities were thereby found. The female main characters dominated the Romantic period and the roles of heroines were entrusted to sopranos, the vocal typology with the widest expressive and technical palette. All opera creators’ general tendency was to confer real identity upon the protagonists. These exigencies turned into expressive connotations with nuances of heroic exaltation, in an innovating technical-vocal manner. Key words: opera, Romanticism, vocal technique, typology. 1. Introduction would lose their own contours and only the extremely long and intricate cadencies The opera, as blending of all arts, has would be highlighted, technically always mirrored the historical times it has introduced for one’s personal fame. been going through; hence, in early nineteenth century, change was identically 2. Change of perspective a prerequisite and singing was adapted to the new requirements. In Italy, during the period 1820-1830, the Until that watershed moment in the art of taste for opera show developed, out of the the opera theatre, composers and singers audience’s desire to see and listen to tragic had been equal partners in show themes, inspired from history, in the sense construction; the composer would sketch a of Romanticism. There had been simple melodic line, to be subsequently forbidden, until then, the deeply tragic completed with variegated ornaments, by subjects, concluded with the death of one singers. or several characters; all theatres had Therefore, in a short while, the singers employed censors and the libretto had to transformed the opera show in a mere pass censorship. costumed concert, wherein the characters Romanticism brought on stage the 1 Faculty of Music, Transilvania University of Brasov. 126 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Series VIII • Vol. 7 (56) No. 2 - 2014 sacrifice, the death for a noble cause, as prevailing voices of the Italian lyrical refusal of the compromise, imposing theatre, namely the soprano and the tenor. thereby the typology of the Romantic hero. The dramatic scoring, sketched by the These new subjects, with a powerful profile of the Romantic roles, led to the denouement, rapidly stood out on the need for powerful vocal emission and for lyrical stage, captivating the audience by wide vocal ranges. Therefore, the robust the possibility to step into the psychology voices of tenors, sopranos or mezzo- of the main character, which chooses sopranos were a prerequisite, leading to a death, as unique option. revolution in the field of vocal technique, Under the influence of the libretto and likewise explained by new resonating out of necessity to bring on stage modalities (chest resonance for the believable characters, the vocal scoring tessitura and low register, as well as chest modified, in order to illustrate the heroes’ resonance in combination with head inner torment, and it became intensely resonance for the high register) and by new dramatic, by renouncing useless cadences respiratory modalities, with a view to and coloraturas and by pre-eminently using sustaining the dramatic phrases. Bellini the tessitura; whereas the acute range was and Donizetti introduced the tenor with only used for culminating moments, high vocal texture and of heroic nature – a climaxes, or in conclusive moments. typically Romantic genre of scoring, inexistent until then, in the Italian opera. 2.1. Vocal technique and expressiveness The tenors’ vocal texture was much like the one of today’s baritones, given that the Vocal-scenic expressiveness was the major baritone’s typology had not yet been perspective aimed by Romantic composers, clearly defined in Italy, in early nineteenth imposed by the musical drama of the time, as century (except Mozart’s operas, wherein well as by the main characters’ new the baritone’s voice acquired a special typologies; in Baroque Bel-canto opera, the distinction, by the roles destined to this triad of the main typologies was ensured by typology - Don Giovanni, the Count and the castrato, the tenor and the soprano; the Figaro, in Le Nozze di Figaro) whereas the Romantic Bel-canto opera placed in the tenor’s vocal scoring displays high texture, forefront, the triad made up of soprano, tenor, deprived of heroic character (Don Ottavio, baritone, as leaders of the dramatic conflict. in Don Giovanni, Ferrando, in Cosi Fan Vocal colour became, for the first time in Tutte); the differentiation between the two the history of the lyrical theatre, defining male typologies is clear and it transpires in differentiating the vocal fachs; therefore, from the texture of the vocal lines and the singers had to choose between the from the character’s personality). The flexible vocal genre, adequate for the combination between chest resonance and ornamented phrases, and the vocal genre head resonance conveys the brilliance and based on timbre amplitude. homogeneity of the registers, allowing the Vocal technique, in early nineteenth direct attack of the high sounds. century, had not yet allowed a single voice to possess both flexibility, mobility in 2.2. Vocal typologies executing coloraturas, and amplitude, necessary for the Bellinian or Donizzetian- Vocal technique evolved thereby; timber specific phrases. The newly emerged vocal amplitude and register extension became sub-categories, the lyrical genre and the basic elements for the opera voice. In dramatic genre, mainly addressed the terms of amplitude, voices are nowadays C. SOREANU: Nineteenth Century’s Donizettian Singers and their Contribution … 127 divided in subcategories: lyric baritone, Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, characteristic dramatic baritone, leggero tenor, tenor di for the Romantic period, along with the grazia, lyric tenor, lyric-spinto tenor, spinto-dramatic tenor). The voice of the dramatic tenor, heroic tenor, lyric mezzo- dramatic sopranos d’agilita interweaves soprano, dramatic mezzo-soprano, the qualities of the dramatic soprano with coloratura soprano, lyric-leggero soprano, the ones of the lyric-leggero soprano: lyric soprano, lyric-spinto soprano, spinto powerful voice, full tessitura and low soprano, dramatic soprano, dramatic register, flexibility, softness, easiness in soprano d’agilita. The German theory of attacking high sounds, agilita di forza. the vocal fach prescribes, with reference to Since late nineteenth century, roles such the soprano typology, the subdivision into as Norma or Abigaille (Nabucco), the following vocal groups, based on the extremely strong characters, who impose integration of the coloraturas and their authority on a community, have been ornaments into the dramaturgical musical sung by dramatic sopranos; whereas roles context and on the technical requirements, such as Amina (La Sonnambula) or Gilda which stood out throughout the twentieth (Rigoletto), characters who embody young, century. According to these ones, any simple women, who turn into innocent vocal typology is endowed with extension victims of their own personality, have been and flexibility, which allow the singer to sung by lyric-leggero sopranos. In the approach a wide repertoire, with a view to times of Bellini, Donizetti or Verdi, these fully manifesting one’s vocal technical roles were sung by dramatic sopranos aspect, as well as one’s acting, d’agilita. The vocal scoring for sopranos interpretative aspect. intensified, covering the whole ambitus. The vocal texture and dramatic aspect of the roles are the two ways to make a 3.1. Vocal-interpretative approach in distinction and further classification into contemporaneousness vocal typologies, with a view to distributing the roles based on the The ambiguity in terms of vocal- characteristics of each voice. interpretative approach to female Romantic Bel-canto roles, in contemporaneousness, 3. Main female characters starts from the absence of the nineteenth century’s total voices, despite the intense The main female characters dominated development of the vocal-technical the Romantic period; the roles of heroines phenomenon, during the last decades. The being entrusted to sopranos, which is the vocal scoring for wide register, towards vocal typology with the widest expressive both extremes of the vocal ambitus, allows and technical palette. The sopranos’ voice mezzo-sopranos with stable, firm emission may express the most variegated feelings, in the high register, as well as sopranos technically highlighted by cantilenas that with powerful tessitura and low register, of require homogeneity, equality of the air a strong timber, to assume Romantic roles. column; likewise, sustained in varied The exceptional natural endowments and dynamics. The themes of the Donizzetian technical skills of the current female voices operas call for special soprano voices, with denote a wide expressive palette, an exceptional natural endowments and intensely cultivated timbrality in the Bel- technical possibilities: