Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

Formed to Perform
beauty of the voice and considered detrimental to breath control (Mancini
1774, pp. 80–86). The disposition of the vocal organs was allowed to determine
what the student could and could not sing. An extensive range was
certainly a goal in teaching, but it was always related to the pupil’s type of
voice. Most teachers recognised the importance of posture for sound production
(Corri 1820, p. 11), and apart from the physiological implications of
posture, they also considered posture a dramatic factor for the effect it had
on an audience. In addition to posture most manuals speak about presentation,
gesture and action.
The demand for pure vowels was, as Cornelius L. Reid has shown (Reid
1971, pp. 34–35), another central principle. Pure vowels depended on a
flexible laryngeal position and the bocca ridente (smiling) position of the
mouth adopted by most teachers of this period. 16 In this case “pure” meant
that the vowels should be produced without the interference of muscular
constriction, and each vowel should have a clearly recognisable quality. The
source material from the eighteenth century is largely silent when it comes
to resonance and resonators. The sources go on at some length about articulation,
mouth position and so on, but specific references to resonance are
rare. This may be due to the fact that resonance was considered secondary,
something of a bonus when the muscle systems functioned well. Resonance
is hard to control voluntarily and therefore hard to train separately. Even if
eighteenth-century manuals speak little about the sources of resonance,
they at least specify what were considered undesirable resonant tones,
such as nasal voices (Bayly 1771, p. 32).
The breathing techniques seem to be based on observation of the effect
of certain exercises, such as the messa di voce. 17 A purely physiological
study of the breathing organs, detached from practice procedures, was not
desirable. Most teaching manuals did recognise breathing as essential for
tonal production, and both Tosi and Mancini offer exercises for increasing
and steadying the breath, mostly in connection with the messa di voce. Often
the fact that breathing capacity must be allowed to grow naturally, without
forcing, is stressed (Bayly 1771, p. 32).
16 A lowering of the larynx modifies the vocal tract, making it longer. A similar effect
can be achieved by protruding the lips. If, on the other hand, the corners of the mouth
back are pulled back, as happens in smiling and the position preferred by eighteenthcentury
voice teachers, the vocal tract is reduced. (Sundberg 1987, p. 20)
17 A crescendo and diminuendo usually performed on one note. (Göpfert 1994, pp.
120–121)
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