Belcanto is the technique of virtuosic singing. Vocals training. Opera singing

Long lines of musical phrases, melodic passages and grace, a striking voice and the refined beauty of virtuosic singing. At the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, a singing school appeared in Italy, giving the world the performing vocal technique, which the Italians called "bel canto" ("belcanto") - "beautiful singing". We will not exaggerate, having designated this period the beginning of blossoming of a theatrical vocal and a starting point of the further development of an opera genre.

Origin of the opera: Florence

The first operas that appeared in the described period of time are due to their birth to members of a small circle of lovers of antique art, formed in Florence and included in the musical story called "Florentine Camerata". Fans of the ancient Greek tragedy dreamed of reviving the former glory of this genre and held the view that the actors did not pronounce, but sang the words, using for the reproduction of the text a recitative, melodic smooth transition of sounds.

The first works written on the plot of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus, became an impulse for the birth of a new musical genre - opera. And the solo vocal parts (arias) that served as its component forced the singers to seriously engage in voice training, which was the reason for the art of beautiful singing - bel canto. This implied the ability to perform lingering melodic fragments on long breathing with the continuity of smooth sound throughout the entire musical phrase.

Neapolitan school

At the end of the XVII century Neapolitan opera tradition was formed, finally affirmed the theatrical scene the art of bel canto. This was simultaneously the development of the Florentine plan, and its change. In Naples, the main component of the performance was music and singing, and not poetry, which until then had been given the dominant role. This innovation was to the taste of the audience and caused a storm of enthusiasm.

Neapolitan composers structured the opera. They did not abandon the use of recitative, which was divided into different types: accompaniment (accompanied by an orchestra) and dry, containing information delivered in a conversational manner under the rare harpsichord chords to hold the musical tonality. Vocal training, which became mandatory for performers, has increased the popularity of solo numbers, the form of which has also undergone changes. There were typical arias in which the characters expressed feelings in general, in relation to the situation, and not based on the image or character. Sorrowful, buffoonish, domestic, passionate, aria of revenge - the inner space of the Neapolitan opera was filled with living content.

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)

Outstanding composer and enthusiast Scarlatti went down in history as the founder of the operatic school of Naples. He created more than 60 works. The genre of serious opera (opera seria), created by Scarlatti, with the help of a mythological or historical plot told about the life of famous heroes. Opera singing pushed the dramatic line of the play to the background, and the recitatives gave way to the arias.

A wide range of vocal parts in a serious opera extended the requirements that opera voices had to match. Performers improved in the art of singing, although sometimes this led to curiosities - each of them wished the composer to include the arias in the opera, emphasizing the dignity of the voice. The result was a set of unrelated solo numbers, which made opera seria a "concert in costumes."

Beauty and craftsmanship

Another contribution of the Neapolitan opera school to the development of bel canto was the use in the vocal parts of ornamental (coloratura) decorations of the musical palette. The coloration was used at the end of the arias and helped performers demonstrate to the listeners the degree of voice possession. Great jumps, trills, band passages, application of a sequence (repetition of a musical phrase or melodic turn in different registers or keys) - thus increasing the expressive palette used by bel canto virtuosos. This led to the fact that the degree of mastery of the singer was often estimated by the complexity of the coloratura performed by him.

The Italian musical culture made high demands. The voices of the famous singers were distinguished by the beauty and richness of the timbre. Vocal training helped to improve the performing technique, to achieve smoothness and fluency of sound in all ranges.

First Conservatory

The demand for bel canto led to the formation of the first educational institutions in which singers were trained. Orphan asylums - conservatories - became the first music schools in medieval Italy. The technique of bel canto was taught in them on the basis of imitation, repetition of the teacher. This explains the high level of preparation of the singers of that time. After all, they were trained by recognized masters, such as Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) or Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676).

The students wrote special exercises for the development of voice, solfeggio, which should be repeated, improving singing technique and developing breathing - skills so necessary for bel canto. This led to the fact that, starting training at 7-8 years, by 17 years professional conservators were leaving the walls of the conservatory for the opera stage.

Joachino Rossini (1792-1868)

The appearance of Italian bel canto predetermined the development trend of opera music culture for the next three centuries. A stage in his development was the work of the Italian composer G. Rossini. The rhythmic energy, brilliance and mobility of the vocal parts demanded from the performers a rich timbral variety, virtuosity and an exceptional singing school. Even the singing arias and recitative in Rossini's writings demanded a full return.

The melody of Rossini paved the way for the classic bel canto, characterized by the completeness of phrases, tender and air-clear, freely flowing in a smooth melody (cantilena) and sensually exalted fervor. It is noteworthy that the composer himself knew about the art of singing not by hearsay. In his childhood, he sang in a church choir, and at adulthood, besides writing, enthusiastically gave himself pedagogy vocals and even wrote several books on this issue.

Pedagogy

Italian opera singing, which became a symbol of European musical culture of the XVII-XIX centuries, appeared due to the work of gifted innovators, who studied vocal and experimented with the human voice, bringing its sound to perfection. The techniques described in their writings are still used in the preparation of singers.

From the attention of teachers, not a single trifle slipped away. The disciples comprehended the secrets of free and easy singing breathing. Vocal preparation presupposed a moderate loudness of sound, short melodic phrases and narrow intervals, which made it possible to use speech breathing, characterized by a rapid and deep inspiration followed by a slow exhalation. Complexes of exercises for training of uniform sound extraction in high and low registers were developed. Even training in front of the mirror was part of the training course for beginners - excessive facial expressions and a strained expression betrayed the convulsive work of the voice apparatus. It was recommended that you keep yourself free, stand flat and with a smile try to sound clear and close.

New techniques of singing

Complex vocal parts, dramaturgy and theatrical performances put the singers in front of difficult tasks. Music reflected the inner world of the characters, and the voice became an integral part of the overall stage image. This was clearly manifested in the operas of G. Rossini and J. Verdi, whose work marked the rise of the style of bel canto. Classical school considered acceptable use of falsetto on high notes. However, dramaturgy rejected such an approach - in the heroic scene the male falsetto was aesthetic dissonance with the emotional coloring of the action. The first to overcome this voice threshold was the Frenchman Louis Dupre, who began to use the manner of sound formation, which establishes physiological (laryngeal narrowing) and phonetic (language in "y-shaped" position) mechanisms of protection of the vocal apparatus and subsequently called "covered". It allowed to form the upper part of the sound range without switching to falsetto.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

Observing operatic vocal art, it is inconceivable to bypass the figure and the creative legacy of the great Italian composer J. Verdi. He transformed and reformed the opera, introduced plot contrasts and oppositions. The first of the composers took an active part in the study of the plot, stage design and production. In his operas dominated the thesis and the antithesis, raged feelings and contrasts, combined everyday and heroic. Such an approach dictated new requirements for singers.

The composer was critical of coloratura and said that trills, forks and groups are not able to become the basis of the melody. In compositions, ornamental ornaments are almost absent, remaining only in soprano parts, and later completely disappearing from operatic scores. Male parties in the climaxes moved to the upper register using the previously described "covert sound." The performers of the baritone parties had to reconstruct the work of the voice apparatus from the high tessitura (the altitude arrangement of the sounds relative to the singing range), dictated by the reflection of the emotional state of the characters. This led to the emergence of a new term - "Verdi's baritone". Creativity G. Verdi, 26 beautiful operas staged at the La Scala Theater, marked the second birth of bel canto - the art of perfected possession of voice.

World tour

Easy and elegant vocal style can not be kept within the borders of one state. Under his charm, a large part of Europe gradually turned out. Beautiful singing conquered the world's theatrical stage and influenced the development of musical European culture. Formed an opera line, called "belkantovoe." Style pushed the boundaries of its application and stepped into the instrumental music.

The virtuoso melody of F. Chopin (1810-1849) synthesized Polish folk poetics and Italian opera bel canto. The dreamy and tender heroines of the operas of J. Masne (1842-1912) are full of bel cant charm. The impact of the style turned out to be so great that his influence on music became truly grandiose, stretching from classicism to romanticism.

Connecting cultures

The great composer MI Glinka (1804-1857) became the founder of Russian classics. His orchestral writing - sublimely lyrical and monumental at the same time - is filled with melodies, in which people's song traditions are seen, and the belcant refinement of Italian arias. Their characteristic cantilena was similar to the melodiousness of the long Russian songs - truthful and expressive. The predominance of the melody over the text, the intra-syllabic chants (the singing accentuation of individual syllables), the verbal repetitions creating the length of the chant - all this in the compositions of MI Glinka (and other Russian composers) was harmoniously combined with the traditions of the Italian opera. Long folk songs, according to critics, deserved the title of "Russian bel canto".

In the repertoire of stars

The brilliant epoch of Italian bel canto ended in the 1920s. The military and revolutionary upheavals of the first quarter of the century obliterated the normative nature of romantic opera thinking, neoclassicism and divided impressionism, modernism, futurism, and others came to replace it. Still, the glorified operatic voices continued to appeal to the masterpieces of Italian classical vocals. The art of "fine singing" was brilliantly owned by AV Nezhdanova and FI Shalyapin. Unsurpassed master of this singing direction was L. V. Sobinov, who was called the ambassador of bel canto in Russia. Great Maria Callas (USA) and the award-winning "voice of the century" Joan Sutherland (Australia), lyric tenor Luciano Pavarotti (Italy) and unrivaled bass Nikolai Giaurov (Bulgaria) - their art was based on the artistic and aesthetic basis of the Italian bel canto.

Conclusion

New trends in the musical culture could not outshine the brilliance of the classic Italian bel canto opera. Young performers search for bits of information about correct breathing, sound extraction, sculpture of voice and other subtleties preserved in the notes of the masters of previous years. This is not an idle interest. The sophisticated public was awakened by the need not to hear modern interpretation of classical works, but to plunge into the authentic temporary space of impeccable singing art. Perhaps this is an attempt to unravel the mystery of the phenomenon of bel canto - how in the era of the ban on women's voices and the preferences of the high masculine register, a singing direction that survived centuries and turned into a harmonious system that laid the foundation for the preparation of professional vocalists for several centuries could be born.