Rehearsal Notes

Recitative Coachings:  Day 4

Progress is continuing admirably for most people, while a few others are falling a bit behind in their individual preparations.  You absolutely must invest yourself in this material now because once we move into musical numbers and staging rehearsals there will be very little time to devote to learning recitatives (especially as everyone gets busier during the course of the semester).  Continue to study text and drill your pitches.  Enough has been said in other posts about learning text and connecting to the natural rhythms of the language.  Just make a point to carve out a portion of each day to devote to recitatives to keep them fluent.

Now, one concern needs to be addressed in your individual voice lessons.  PLEASE ASK YOUR TEACHERS FOR HELP WITH THIS! The voice faculty is invested in this production and your success in it, so be sure to use this valuable resource.   The concern is the over singing in recitative. 

Many of you have little or no experience with recitative and so it is entirely understandable that you will wrestle with the style of ‘singing’ required in performing them.  Your teachers will help you approach this in the best technical way, so consult with them on this material.  The point is not to sing too much.  These are not arias, this is dialogue that at all times must retain some qualities of speech.  It is a style called Parlando and lies somewhere between speech and fully invested singing.  Keep in mind that in secco recitative (ie. the recits accompanied by harpsichord), there is no orchestra to compete with, so projection is limited to simply getting the voice into the hall. My suggestion has been to practice speaking your lines (always with appropriate dramatic pacing and inflection) then simply add pitches to it.  However, another approach may be to consider removing spin or legato line (beyond the normal legato quality of the spoken language).  Regardless of how one thinks about the approach, do not try to “sing” recitatives in the manner in which you would sing any aria or ensemble.

On another note, we will talk a bit more about appoggiaturas as we continue to work and shape recitatives (especially in the context of staging), but as a quick mention: words such as “mio” (which can be considered to be either one or two syllables) should contain an appoggiatura only if there is a good, dramatic reason.  Possessive pronouns should usually have a certain amount of emphasis usually created by the diction itself.  Adding an appoggiatura on its two syllables adds a very pronounced emphasis that must be motivated by something in the text.  So, use it expressively but not too often.