Project Description

The term bel canto—beautiful singing—commonly describes the admired vocal practices (originating in Italy) that were prevalent in Europe during the period 1700–1900 (Toft, 2011 and 2013). Bel canto repertoire has been central to Western classical musical programming since its heyday. Remarkably, the singers who originally performed this music had the ability to transform “the scores before them into passionate musical declamation [veritable orations] by treating melodic lines freely and by personalizing the music through both minor and major modifications” (Toft, 2013, 3). This was what composers from the period expected and, indeed, required. Research has established that when first performed, this repertoire sounded very different to today’s performance conventions (Wistreich, 2000; S. Potter, 2014). Yet, little work has been done to rediscover how this singing might actually have sounded. This information cannot be recovered from music notation (scores) as only some fundamental musical practices of the era were captured; widely accepted conventions of singing were not notated. Bel canto involved a range of creative liberties in realising the composer’s expectations that were progressively abandoned during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in favour of a more literal reading of the musical notation. It utilised myriad speech-derived effects and associated tonal colours—quite different from modern practice—to communicate to listeners the meaning, effect, and affect of the words (Toft, 2013, 4; Brown, 1999). How then was the continuum of bel canto practice understood during this period, and how can classical singers and vocal pedagogues today rediscover how these sounds and styles might be creatively used, to bring us closer to bel canto composers’ expectations? Existing research provides only partial answers. It points to diverse practices, which supplied a rich palette of tonal options, and assisted in communicating words and melodies so that they “forcibly appeal” to a listener’s feelings—the central tenet of bel canto (Turner, 1833, 183; Toft, 2011; McMahon, 2017, 3). Many of these practices are no longer transmitted through current vocal pedagogy. This project seeks to discover the sounds that singers in the bel canto period produced to communicate with listeners in such powerful ways.

The main goal of this research-based creative project is to recover knowledge of bel canto practices and, through practical experiments, to develop a model that informs future advancements in vocal performance. The project will investigate the varied sound effects and colours that singers of employed in songs, and recitatives (a style of singing ordinary speech), arias (compositions for a single singer), cantatas (compositions in several movements with accompaniment), operas (theatrical works set to music with singing parts), and oratorios (large concert works with solo singers, choir, and orchestra). It will investigate how these sound effects and colours were achieved in practical terms. The acquisition and dissemination of this knowledge will be directed by world-leading experts in archival research, historically informed performance, practice-led methods, and performance science, working with a community of vocal practitioners (professional and higher-tertiary level singers) guided by the project aims:

1) to explore historical styles for bel canto repertory through implementation of a new multi-modal methodology combining recording emulation, and practical and collaborative active experimentation

2) to generate a taxonomy of bel canto sounds and practices documented in research-based exemplar recordings, made in a range of settings, to inform and expand classical singing practice, teaching and scholarship

3) to foster and influence change in classical singing, disseminating the project’s approach and findings (through symposia, written outputs, and video and audio recordings) to networks of educators, practitioners and industry in Australia and internationally.

This project seeks to re-invigorate bel canto, to illuminate new ways of performing, understanding, and hearing its music. By the project’s end, we will have acquired new knowledge of this significant era in music history, and will have tested and disseminated that knowledge through experimental research-based interpretations captured in recordings, and written outputs.