On Mon May 24, at MondayMay 24 12:51 PM, John Howell wrote:
Musicals like Oklahoma were trying even more to blur the line
between dialogue and song, with registers chosen to put some of
the singing in a similar area of the voice used in the dialogue,
I'm not sure I'd agree with the latter, but you may be right.
Rodgers--among others--knew EXACTLY where to pitch the voices to
carry in a NYC theater, which is why many of the songs were taken
down a 4th or a 5th when they were made into movies. But yes, I
take "Oklahoma!" as the tipping point, even though "Showboat" had
tended that way earlier (and significantly with the help of
Hammerstein). The whole concept of opening with a single singer
walking on stage alone and starting to tell the audience "Oh, what
a beautiful mornin'" a cappalla went against EVERY Broadway
convention, and songs like "Surrey" and "Poor Judd" made NO sense
outside the story line.
If I could make a distinction here between the heightened language of
a romantic lead (and a more "legit" type voice to go along with it)
and a character voice like Ado Annie or Aunt Eller, then we are both
right (notice I said "some" of the singing). I hear Ado Annie's song,
for example, as a continuation of her speech, sung with the same
basic pitch and timbre of her speaking voice. If I could bring in the
example of Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady (much later, but an
excellent example just the same) singing "I could dance all night" in
a bel canto soprano, and "just you wait Henry Higgins" in a speech-
like chest, that is a better illustration of the point I was trying
to make.
Male voices are easier to deal with, since an average baritone IS
singing in a similar range as his speech. Curly's songs down a tone
or two wouldn't really make that much difference, I think, to the
identification of his singing voice with his speaking voice. Not like
Anna from The King and I, or Marion from The Music Man, which are
very distinct when singing from when speaking in the stage versions.
You are definitely onto something with your point about projection in
a theatre.
Great discussion!
Christopher
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
