This course is presented In-person ONLY.
Many commentators and vocal experts have declared the demise of opera. Professional papers by vocal pedagogues and YouTube videos abound with titles such as Where Have All the Great Singers Gone? and The Death of Opera. These professional vocal experts are not referring to modern opera stage productions and the dominance of the Regieoper since Adolphe Appia but rather to what they perceive as the death of Bel Canto and the development of a very different (and, to them, ugly) singing technique.
This course will describe the Bel Canto style of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century and discuss how that style evolved into what is currently heard in the world’s leading opera houses. Why did these changes occur? Why did singers during the 20th and 21st centuries have to develop a new style of operatic singing? Join us to consider how opera continues to survive and to better understand what opera goers hear today.