Wednesday 10th September 2014 at the International Symposium 2014 1400 - 1430 hrs Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music Performance Practice and Embellishment in W.A. Mozart’s Opera Arias Dr. Chanyapong Thongsawang University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna – Vienna, Austria In the Viennese classical era, opera singers commonly embellished a simple melody with essential ornamentation and arbitrary elaboration. For instance, the famous prima donnas such as Angelica Catalani, Henriette Sontag and Maria Malibran could spontaneously improvise a melodic line (especially in the recapitulation), emphasize the text expressively with an appoggiatura or add extra cadence in a fermata to show their brilliant vocal technique in a good manner. This reflected a performance practice of that period, which was taught and delivered through the composers’ contemporary musicians and followers, and was obviously different from present day interpretation. The singing schools from the 18th and 19th century by eminent singers and pedagogues such as Domenico Corri and Laure Cinti- Damoreau are valuable resources of vocal performance practice of their time. Furthermore, in some early opera scores one can find notated comments and additional variations of the embellishments, written by a composer or conductor when he directed the performance. Based on historical evidence, my presentation demonstrates valuable examples of documented embellishments in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s four famous opera themes – Voi che sapete and Sull’aria from Le Nozze di Figaro, Dies Bildniss ist bezaubernd schön and Das klinget so herrlich from The Magic Flute – to illustrate how singers of that time performed and deliberately executed ornamentation. From the given clues, singers and musicians should pay more attention to the art of improvisation, which plays the important role in the performance practice of Viennese classical music.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:42:51 +0000
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