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Operatic Characters and Voice Type
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1970
Extract
In real life as well as on the theatrical stage, the voice is just one out of the many external features of a person such as facial expression, gestures and general appearance which inform us about his inner character. In opera, because of its very nature, the singing voice assumes a more dominant role. In analogy to the visual mask of old (the persona in the original meaning of the word), which conveyed to the theatre audience the character of the dramatic role, the voice type allocated to an operatic part can be regarded as an auditory mask, which through its distinctive tone quality provides an impersonation of the operatic character. In the same way as the visual mask was intended to give a broad idea of the kind of character appearing on the dramatic stage, the auditory mask of the voice type is meant to be expressive of the character type represented by the operatic personage.
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- Copyright © 1971 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors
References
1 That such a given framework of relationships plays an important role in recognizing physiognomic correspondences between different objects of our experience is stressed in Charles E. Osgood, George J. Suci and Percy H. Tannenbaum, The Measurement of Meaning, Urbana, Illinois, 1957-Google Scholar
2 Quoted in Oscar Bie, Die Oper, Berlin, 1920, p. 50.Google Scholar
3 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, tr. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, London, 1896, iii. 238.Google Scholar
4 Quoted in George Martin, The Opera Companion, London, 1962, p. 28.Google Scholar
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