The set up is very standard for a recorded for television performance. The singer is in front of the accompanists, with a microphone and standing up, while the rest of the performers are sitting. There seems to be a relatively large audience as well, though that could easily be a camera trick. The singer in the opera surprised me with his voice. While I did expect the normal low baritone tone to the voice, his stature and face just don't seem to match up. I also think the uncanniness may be linked to the fact that the audio is slightly off with the video.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Rossini: Barber of Seville
The opera Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini is easily the most well-known opera by the composer. In this particular clip, the song employs very fast 16th notes and is forte throughout the majority of the piece. This contributes to the singings feel of snappy rhythm. The song's accompaniment, like most of Rossini's work, is very light and uses only strings and winds. Like nearly all opera, the singer himself uses a lot of vibrato. The vibrato may hinder the ability to understand the opera, but since I don't speak Italian it is a little hard to tell. While most of the song remains in forte, their are definitely a few of the 'Rossini crescendos' throughout the song.
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I've actually gone to a performance of The Barber of Seville, and the vibrato is actually even more noticeable (reverberation isn't quite captured in YouTube due to the low quality of the audio). The interesting thing to note is that you aren't necessarily supposed to understand what exactly is being said during the moments of high vibrato. In the performance there was a large translation of what was being sung at the time. During the times that vibrato was extremely heavy, he was actually just repeating himself. Another thing that's interesting about this piece is that the entire accompaniment is actually playing the same couple notes for a majority of the piece where there isn't a new movement going on. The reason the actual song is so chaotic sounding is due to the sheer number of people doing it, as well as the different starting times.
ReplyDeleteOne question that is what exactly is the concert over. Is it just about Rossini, The Barber of Seville, or Opera in general? I say this because the set is definitely not what would be used for the actual performance (high lightning and background being a cityscape).