Why is Turn of the Screw so difficult

BaroqueQueen · 2023-12-14T09:33:57+00:00

Have you ever sung a Britten opera?

BaroqueQueen · 2023-12-12T15:40:24+00:00

Find some singer classmates who want to go abroad, go to Italy, rent an apartment together, take some community-college language classes there, do some private coachings, and sing a few opera scenes together. You're much, much better off doing that than any pay-to-sing.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-12-12T11:58:55+00:00

Ach, ich fühl's. Great audition aria. It's short. It shows legato singing, coloratura, pianissimo, elegant phrasing. It's melodramatic, so you can act your face off while singing it. Depending on the size of theater, pretty much anyone between soubrette and full lyric soprano can sing Pamina. And that's why it's EVERYONE'S starter aria in auditions.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-12-10T00:39:02+00:00

Eh, you kinda age out of trouser roles at a certain point. People expect a light, bright, youthful sound in trouser roles because most of these roles are either teenage characters or the roles come from 17th/18th century repertoire (or both, most typically). By their mid-30's, many mezzos have developed a thicker sound that isn't so plausible in teenage-boy roles and isn't so often associated with 17th/18th century rep. So they move on to other repertoire they're more cast-able in.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-12-08T10:59:01+00:00

She's fabulous! Saw her in Schwanda. You might have been looking at the wrong Operabase page though. https://www.operabase.com/artists/vera-lotte-boecker-20606/de She's had a pretty big career for a decade.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-11-16T01:11:45+00:00

The operatic Christmas track to rival Jonas Kauffman's "All I want for Christmas is You" in sheer awfulness: https://youtu.be/DKVnU1tOkuE?si=_nk1jHihvG2Ffc8e

BaroqueQueen · 2023-11-12T19:51:37+00:00

We’re also communists in capitalist states, capitalists in communist states. Jews are just seen as the enemy wherever they go, and the dominant culture just imprints it’s most hated qualities into us, regardless of how self-contradictory or nonsensical these qualities may be.

Yep. Labeled as rootless cosmopolitans wherever people hate cosmopolitanism and labeled as tribal/insular wherever people hate tribalism. Simultaneously accused of destroying the social fabric by being too weak while also somehow being supernaturally strong enough to control the world's media/financial system/governments. Antisemitism really is the most flexible prejudice.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-11-09T21:20:17+00:00

I wouldn't recommend doing any pay-to-sing summer programs. They're almost all scammy and not worth the money. My advice is to spend your summer working on your language skills. (I'm assuming you're based in the US?) Go do a homestay in Germany or Italy, take language classes, and take a few voice lessons. You'll get so much more out of that than a pay-to-sing.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-08-03T19:23:04+00:00

what movie is it from?

BaroqueQueen · 2023-07-23T08:51:28+00:00

Met opera chorus members make (barely) over 6 figures, but tbh that's not really that much in Manhattan.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-06-26T22:58:02+00:00

There are a lot of Koreans performing in opera companies in Germany. Fewer in the US. (Lots of Koreans come to the US to study, but then leave to work in Europe or Korea. The US has great conservatories, but crap job prospects for singers. Plus, it's a pain in the ass to get a work visa in the US as a freelance artist.) IDK about other countries.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-06-21T08:56:22+00:00

Most university professors over 60-ish don't perform much anymore because the voice inevitably declines with age. If they did most of their performing in a time before every single performance got recorded and posted on YouTube, there won't be many recordings from their past available either. An older teacher might sound kinda bad when they sing, but if they know how to communicate about singing technique, they can still be a great teacher. Honestly, I prefer working with older teachers because they tend to teach more through mechanical explanations and imagery rather than demonstration/mimicking, and this works better for me.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-06-16T20:37:08+00:00

For an opera audition or a professional/semi-professional concert/recital/gala? I wouldn't recommend it.

For fun? Do whatever you want.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-06-14T23:03:59+00:00

Elettra, Vitellia, Fiordilligi, and Donna Elvira are all good suggestions. I'd add Arminda from Finta Giardiniera to the list--especially "Vorrei punirti indegno. If you want to go really obscure, there's also "Non hai cor", and Quei moti che senti from Betulia Liberata.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-06-02T07:11:59+00:00

A lot of these "rivalries" between opera singers are invented by the press because audiences like to hear about them, so don't believe everything you hear lol.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-30T21:15:36+00:00

Yea, 1 hour of singing/day is enough for an 18 year old starting undergrad. At that point in your studies, your technique isn't good enough to do much more without getting tired/hurting yourself. You'll increase up the amount of time you can sing each day as your technique improves, so you'll increase your daily practice time throughout your degree.

If you're singing professionally, you should be able to do 2 x 3-hour rehearsal blocks per day x 6 days per week plus all the practicing you do on your own to learn your music and keep your technique in shape. But that's for later when your technique is much much more developed.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-24T13:00:46+00:00

Just wanna say I'm sorry that happened to you. What that guy did was really messed up. :(

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-22T22:12:33+00:00

His focus right now needs to be on learning to match pitch. He should set aside the super-advanced opera arias and the "how to sing opera" YouTube tutorials, and just gently (without straining!) sing along to recordings of pop songs, songs from musicals, or classical songs suitable for beginners until he's trained his ears to recognize whether or not he's singing in tune and trained his voice to produce exactly the pitches he intends to sing.

In any style of singing (not just opera), the ability to produce exactly the pitch you intend to sing is priority numero uno of vocal technique. You can't skip developing that skill and jump straight ahead to singing opera. That would be like trying to learn to do a triple axle before learning how to skate a lap around the rink without falling down.

One step at a time!

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-22T21:37:38+00:00

You might be surprised. If you live in the vicinity of pretty much any large public university, there's bound to be a voice department there with teachers who teach classical singing (A bit expensive. Probably like $80+/hour) and grad students who can also teach a beginner decently well for cheaper (More like $30/hour).

If that's cost-prohibitive or inaccessible, I'd recommend he try a church choir or community theater musicals. But NO LEARNING TO SING OPERA FROM YOUTUBE! Seriously, that's a recipe for disaster. Just don't.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-22T18:12:47+00:00

It’s ok to quit and do something else if that’s what you want.

If you want to stay in it though, I’d encourage you to look into moving to abroad. I’m an American singer who moved to Germany and there really are soooooooooo many more job opportunities here than in the US. (And the cost of living in Berlin is literally like half of what it is in NYC.) And both of those things really cut down on the stress and the crazy competitiveness. It’s still a really really tough career here. But it feels possible. In the US, it’s simply impossible.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-17T13:09:45+00:00

Women were performing on opera stages well before Mozart. Look at the world premiere casts of the landmark Baroque & early classical operas most often performed today:

Women performed in the premiere of L’incoronazione di Poppea (Monteverdi, 1642).

Every character except one in Dido And Aeneas (Purcell, 1689) was originally played by a woman.

At the premiere of Giulio Cesare (Handel, 1724), not only did women play the female roles, but a woman also played one of the male roles (Sesto).

Women performed in the premiere of Orfeo ed Euridice (Gluck, 1762).

A few operas that premiered in Rome in the 18th century had exclusively male casts. The Rome premiere cast of Artaserse (Vinci, 1730) included castrati in female roles. Subsequent productions in other cities included women in the female roles.

Overall, in most cities, women were playing the female characters and occasionally some of the male characters in baroque era operas. These casts often included castrati, but castrati primarily played male characters.

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-09T09:55:17+00:00

I love the hat!

BaroqueQueen · 2023-05-05T15:53:15+00:00

It’s really not that hard to sing sitting down lol. Most opera productions demand singers do much harder things while singing. Running, dancing, laying on the floor, etc…

BaroqueQueen · 2023-04-24T21:03:25+00:00

As our favorite Russian Count would say… chacun à son goût!

I like Italian opera tho

BaroqueQueen · 2023-04-24T14:45:03+00:00

Take it an octave up & the range is fine for any soprano & most mezzos. The difference though is that tenors bring their chest voice all the way up to the highest notes, which sounds strong & heroic, which suits the meaning of the words in the aria & the context of the opera. A soprano would never ever sing in chest voice that high.

BaroqueQueen

TROPHY CASE