A QUESTION OF STYLE BY

By RICHARD BONYNGE

The history of opera, from its early 17th-century awakenings with Monteverdi, is, in one sense, the history of vocal ornamentation. As an antidote to the early austere line which was negligible in its vocal color, composers began to add fioratura. And, as the melodic vocal line became more florid through embellishment, so the importance of the highly-trained, virtuosic solo singer became magnified. The term bel canto means no more than the art and practice of beautiful singing. It originated in the Italian school of ecclesiastic singing, associated with the church choirs of the baroque. The soloists were male sopranos, castrati, who reigned supreme until the end of the 18th century. They established a style of singing that called for absolute precision in the execution of scales, runs, trills, turns and all other baroque ornamentation of the vocal art. The male sopranos had higher, purer, more flexible and more powerful voices than the female voices of the time. These castrati were also teachers and founders of the school of bel canto. They imparted their exacting standards and technical skill to pupils who, in turn, taught the women who became the great performing sopranos of the 19thcentury: Catalani, Pasta, Sontag, Mailbran, Grisi, Strepponi, Lind, Nilsson and Patti. The art of ornamentation and embellishment reached its apex in the music of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini in the 19th-century.

In the 18th century, Handel had written music for singers who had tremendous breadth both in length and control; and with it they were able to deliver legato, sostenuto lines that were more exacting than anyone else had written for the voice. These singers, male and female, also had to have the agility, precision and technical accuracy for faultless scales, runs, trills and turns. In the 18th century of Bach, Handel and Mozart, instrumental performing techniques exercised enormous control over vocal style. These early singers learned to sing instrumental figurations such as 16th notes which often don't lie easily in the voice. In Mozart, for example, the figuration for the piano and violin is identical to that of his vocal music.

Today, the matter of style and ornamentation has become as confused in vocal music as it is in instrumental music. For instance, in Mozart's piano concertos there was originally a great freedom of decoration. Now we hear these works played in a manner that is small, light and delicate, rather than dramatic and highly decorated. Today's pianists are as unfaithful to Mozart as most of our contemporary singers are to Handel, Donizetti and Bellini.

Our audiences, too, have become accustomed to an emotional type of singing instead of a technical—in the theater it is akin to the Method versus the Stanislavskian approach to acting. The late 19th-century operas of Wagner, Puccini, Massenet and Strauss changed the taste of opera-goers. A greater emphasis was put on the orchestra and, as a result, larger voices were needed to be heard through a complex orchestral fabric. Bel canto was tossed aside in favor of big and exciting sounds and an emotional delivery.

But now that we have passed the era of Wagner and verismo opera, we should be able to consider all the various schools of opera and appreciate each of them for the virtues they offer. The operatic stage should be able to hold both verismo and bel canto, Handel and Richard Strauss. Puccini is beautiful for the voice, particularly the emotional qualities it elicits and the emotional resources it draws upon from the singer. But so are the operas of Bellini and Donizetti beautiful for the voice, particularly the technical demands they make upon the singer and the vocal display they produce.

The keynote for bel canto singing today is what it has always been: style and taste. As with singing in general, technique and study are most important in the long run. In learning the bel canto style and technique a singer needs at least a seven-year apprenticeship, though there are exceptions. We see today what happens when singers don't base their careers on solid technique. Many first make their career on a minimum of technique and an abundance of natural voice. But they fall off quickly. After the age of 30 a singer needs a solid technique upon which he or she can rely. Otherwise there is serious trouble ahead.

A singer in the bel canto tradition must have plenty of voice. In days past a soprano was a soprano. She was not the high, light soprano which today we call a coloratura. She had a range of two and a half to three octaves—from E in alte to the octave below middle C. It was a full range with great flexibility. To this she added a technical proficiency and a perfection of breath control necessary for the long, sustained passages that are the foundation upon which the structures of ornamentation are built.

In ornamenting today, a singer must always be aware of the proper style. The singer must find the right cadenzas and ornamental devices which suit the voice; but they also must be aware of the enormous differences in style between composers like Handel and Bellini. You cannot toss in anything at random. Ornamentation must suit both the voice and the music, and it must be sung with conviction, not just on the surface of the music. A cadenza, for example, cannot sound like something extraneous; it must sound like a natural part of the music, like the composer himself had written it. The singers for whom Donizetti and Bellini wrote their operas often had the ornamentation written out for them. But from there they elaborated even further, always keeping the composer's style and intentions in mind. Each change of cast in these operas restyled the ornamentation to suit their particular voices and vocal style. Often a composer merely wrote a pause in the music and a singer could do what he or she wanted in order to show off the voice.

At times in both the 18th and 19th centuries the cadenzas became as long as the aria itself, but this was ornamentation carried to ridiculous exaggeration. Singers must also remember the emotional quality inherent in the use of embellishment, though it can just be for display in the right parts of the music. Though it is possible to overornament and lose sight of the basic vocal line and melody, what is beautiful in the end is based on musical taste. And this is the main clue to ornamentation.

In reestablishing bel canto singing today we can only suggest the correct styles. Direct imitation will not suffice. It is most important to make these techniques and styles our own, for our own time. It cannot be a matter of pedanticism. It is what suits the music and what suits a certain voice within the range of a certain style, whether it be Handel or Bellini. As a result, there can be no hard and fast rules as to the manner of embellishment. We can only look at the various means and adapt them to today's voices.

The basis of bel canto singing is cantilena, the ability to sustain a smoothly flowing melodious phrase with expressive powers. To the basic line are added such ornaments as the mordent, appoggiatura, trill and turn. They are all necessary, for without them the line would seem uninteresting and imperfect. It is from them that the effect of the line is largely derived. Appoggiatura, for instance, is a leaning note which has the effect of weakening the phrase. It can either be used to affect sighing and love or it can denote strength and pleasure, depending on the mood of the music. It is used when repeated notes are written—a small note is inserted between them. There are many variations such as the fourth or the fifth above or below the repeated notes, or the second above and below. The trill is the juxtaposition of two adjacent notes sung alternately in a fast tempo that resembles a quaver or a tremolo. The singer must maintain the true tonal values of both notes. As with the violin or piano, a trill can begin above the note or on the note itself. A turn is like its instrumental counterpart also, using the note itself and those surrounding it. In baroque ornamentation a turn begins above the note, while in the next century the style called for turns on the note itself. Another difference between the two centuries was the placing of embellishment. In the 18th century ornamentation begins on the beat whereas in the 19th century the ornamentation begins preceding the beat.

In much of this music, the florid devices are used in a sort of “Air and Variation.” In an aria like “Ah, non giunge” from Bellini's “La Sonnambula,” for example, the first verse is sung without any sort of decoration—the melodic line is established. In the repetitions the soprano proceeds to make the music her own, adding the line musically, emotionally and acrobatically. It is this building, layer upon layer, of embellishment which truly establishes the art of the singer and which recreates the music as the composer intended.

Conductor Richard Bonynge is an expert in 18th and 19th century music as well as husband and coach of soprano Joan Sutherland, a specialist in the music of this period.