The culture of classical student singers is one that is not commonly understood by many people, especially other students. From a student’s perspective, opera seems like a distant practice from the 17th century that is not relevant to a young person’s life. However, I am interested in the culture of classical student singers for this very reason: because opera singing is an extremely impressive art form, and I would have never thought that young adults like me could perform such challenging notes with great intensity. Upon closer inspection and observation into the culture, classical voice training is a highly specialized discipline in which singers create, expand, project, perfect, and express their voices, testing the strengths and limits of their vocal cords. The culture of classical student singers is useful to study because it showed me how voices are made, specifically non-traditional voices that we do not typically hear in everyday encounters. Studying operatic voices is a great way to explore the performativity of voice, how voices can be used for storytelling, and how to turn thinking into feelings that are delivered to the audience.
To gather information about the culture of classical singers, I first read about this history of opera in Richard Wistreich’s Vocal Performance in the 17th Century and learned about different types of male voices. I also read about pushing the limits of voice and body and about the difficulty and precision that comes with training the operatic voice, especially in extreme conditions like Julianna Snapper’s underwater opera performances, in Nina Sun Eidsheim’s Sensing Voice and “Situating Snapper’s Five Fathoms Deep Opera Project.” In addition, I observed an interview between ethnographer Lauren Vanderlinden and opera singer Naomi Merer. In this interview, I noted how in order to express yourself, you have to have a solid technique behind your singing voice; an operatic voice is one that is unnatural, it is curated. Naomi Merer taught me how when you are performing, you must express yourself, and to express yourself, you must sing comfortably. Gaining technique and becoming comfortable will come from dedication to the craft and practice through voice lessons. To further gather information about the culture, I observed a live voice lesson led by voice professor Dr. Isabel Bayrakdarian to UCSB student Terra Giddens. Observing the voice lesson gave me insight to how challenging, disciplined, and specialized the act of opera singing is. I learned how positioning your mouth slightly differently can completely change how the voice sounds. I learned that you may fail over and over again before reaching the perfect note, but to not give up on your craft, as it is all part of a difficult process and results in angelic sounds. Overall, observing the interview and the voice lesson pointed out how much control, discipline, and skill desirable opera singing requires. To participate in this culture, one must be fairly educated and know how to read lyrics and notes. Further, many operas are written in foreign languages, and I learned that it is essential to fully understand every word in the opera to effectively express the story and feeling to the audience. The singer must be educated enough to be able to translate the opera from one language to another, and to channel their curated voice to perform the story in a convincing way. Another key requirement to participate in opera singing culture relates to demographics, including both social status and financial resources. First, opera is known as an elite practice, as the word “diva” originally described a female opera singer with extraordinary talent. Also, because opera singing culture is highly disciplined and specialized, it requires countless hours of training to master the techniques. This means that the singer has to take singing lessons or attend a music school, which will be very expensive, requiring the aspiring singer to fall within a certain class level with the appropriate resources. Lastly, through both the interview and the singing lesson, I learned that to participate in this culture, one needs to have high levels of confidence in what they are singing and how they are singing. Confidence comes from practice, from being comfortable with your skills, and from clearly understanding the scene being performed, the emotion intended to be delivered, and most importantly, the words being sung. While observing the voice lesson, I learned that voice and soul are deeply connected. Dr. Bayrakdarian revealed how the soul is wise, and is released through operatic singing. The soul is channeled by understanding the words you are singing and acting out, it is cultivated by relating to the words and character you are performing. This information taught me that opera singing is an extremely specialized talent that requires a substantial amount of training, control, and confidence. As our voices are used for expression, and the body is the carrier of the voice, opera singing is a skillful way to story, to transform thinking into feeling through specific positioning of the mouth and tongue, and to cultivating the soul.
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March 2020
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