 Italian opera developed in the direction of hedonism and virtuosity because it was the offspring of the Baroque. Improvisation by the opera singer was for a long time to bear the imprint of his contrapuntal training. Virtuosity - lyricism -> smoothness, tenderness, pathos. Bel canto singing influenced the instrumental music, but in turn, solo song needed the support of a "thorough-bass" (basso continuo) in order to take wing; nor would the development of the aria have come about without a simultaneous development of the accompaniment. In the second half of 17th century, melodies tended to become more and more expansive and vocalises broke away from geometrical rigidity. According
to Monteverdi, the appropriate musical language is simple canto
spianto (plain unadorned singing), but the divine
beings should express themselves in the symbolic language
of ornate singing so that legendary, mythical characters would be
distinguished from ordinary mortals.
For both the lyrical extasy and vocal virtuosity, the art of bel canto needed another stylistic device: that of timbre. From this particular point of view, the voice par exellence for bel canto opera is that of the castrato. The voice of the castrato expresses unusual timbres, those that the tenor of the time (the voice of the tenor at that time rsembled the voice of baritone of our time) and the soprano (mezzo), were not capable of. The art of bel canto, with its extreme sensibility in the face of the heavy, metallic, crude sounds of male voices, classified roles on the basis of rarity of timbre and hedonistic, virtuoso qualities and not on the basis of sex. he elements of a true bel canto opera... 1) hedonism - the expression of the smoothness, pathos and tenderness of vocal sound. 2) virtuosity - the amazing feats of daring needed to portray the wonders of a world of fantasy. 3) symbolic flowery language, which underlines the mythical status of the characters. 4) contrapuntal skill and the art of improvisation 5) the abstract nature of the relationship between sex and role, as symbolized by the castrato and the travesti. 6) the taste for role, stylized voices and in contrast, a part of antipathy towards voices regarded as commonplace and vulgar. These are not bel canto singers who ake impeccable runs in La Traviata or take top notes in Tosca. In fact, the moment opera begins to admit realism and to advocate it in place of abstraction, stylization, and ambivalence of timbre, bel canto is on the wane. Terms like "bel canto" and "belcantismo" were unknown in the 17th and 18th centuries. They spread in Italy and abroad between 1820 and 1830, when bel canto opera was on the wane. |