An Interpretive Guide to Operatic Arias

A Handbook for Singers, Coaches, Teachers, and Students

Martial Singher

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 1983
• Print ISBN: 9780271003511
• eBook ISBN: 9780271065175
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

A premier singer and master teacher here tells other singers how to get the most from 151 famous arias selected for their popularity or their greatness from 66 operas, ranging in time and style from Christopher Gluck to Carlisle Floyd, from Mozart to Menotti. "The most memorable thrills in an opera singer's life," according to the author's Introduction, "may easily derive from the great arias in his or her repertoire."

This book continues the work Martial Singher has done, in performances, in concerts, and in master classes and lessons, by drawing attention "not only to precise features of text, notes, and markings but also to psychological motivations and emotional impulses, to laughter and tears, to technical skills, to strokes of genius, and even here and there to variations from the original works that have proved to be fortunate."

For each aria, the author gives the dramatic and musical context, advice about interpretation, and the lyric—with the original language (if it is not English) and an idiomatic American English translation, in parallel columns. The major operatic traditions—French, German, Italian, Russian, and American—are represented, as are the major voice types—soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, and bass.

The dramatic context is not a mere summary of the plot but is a penetrating and often witty personality sketch of an operatic character in the midst of a situation. The musical context is presented with the dramatic situation in a cleverly integrated way. Suggestions about interpretation, often illustrated with musical notation and phonetic symbols, are interspersed among the author's explication of the music and the action. An overview of Martial Singher's approach—based on fifty years of experience on stage in a hundred roles and in class at four leading conservatories—is presented in his Introduction. As the reader approaches each opera discussed in this book, he or she experiences the feeling of participation in a rehearsal on stage under an urbane though demanding coach and director.

The Interpretive Guide will be of value to professional singers as a source of reference or renewed inspiration and a memory refresher, to coaches for checking and broadening personal impressions, to young singers and students for learning, to teachers who have enjoyed less than a half century of experience, and to opera broadcast listeners and telecast viewers who want to understand what goes into the sounds and sights that delight them.

Floyd, Susannah

“Ain’t it a pretty night”		soprano
Ain’t it a pretty night!
The sky’s so dark and velvet-like,
and it’s all lit up with stars.
It’s like a great big mirror
reflectin’ fireflies over a pond.
Look at all them stars, Little Bat.
The longer y’look the more y’see.
The sky seems so heavy with stars
that it might fall right down out of heaven
and cover us all up in one big blanket
of velvet all stitched with diamon’s.
Ain’t it a pretty night!
Just think, those stars can all peep down
an’ see way beyond where we can:
they can see way beyond them mountains
to Nashville and Asheville an’ Knoxville.
I wonder what it’s like out there,
out there beyond them mountains
where the folks talk nice,
an’ the folks dress nice
like y’see in the mailorder catalogs.
I aim to leave this valley some day
an’ find out fer myself:
to see all the tall buildin’s
and all the street lights
an’ to be one o’ them folks myself.
I wonder if I’d get lonesome fer the valley though,
fer the sound of crickets an’ the smell of pine straw,
fer soft little rabbits an’ bloomin’ things
an’ the mountains turnin’ gold in the fall.
But I could always come back
if I got homesick fer the valley.
So I’ll leave someday an’ see fer myself.
Someday I’ll leave an’ then I’ll come back
when I’ve seen what’s beyond them mountains.
Ain’t it a pretty night!
The sky’s so heavy with stars tonight
that it could fall right down out of heaven
an’ cover us up
in one big blanket of velvet and diamon’s.

The scene takes place in New Hope Valley, Tennessee—more precisely, in front of the Polk farmhouse with its rickety porch and its tattered curtains at the windows. Susannah Polk is a “girl of uncommon beauty” who lives on the farm with her brother. Neither of them seems to fit in the bigoted milieu of the village, and they keep pretty much to themselves. Tonight, however, Susannah had gone to the square dance where she attracted the attention of the men and caused the women to gossip maliciously. Back home now, she is “still radiant with excitement.” With her is her secret worshiper Little Bat, a shifty-eyed youth “not too strong mentally.”

In the lines preceding the aria Susannah and Little Bat have laughed together remembering the clumsiness of the new preacher as he tried to join in the dance. Then a silence falls, and Susannah “looks up into the night.” The aria begins in a very slow tempo, ♩ = 50, adagio sostenuto. Susannah’s voice is a brilliant and flexible lyric soprano. In this aria it must not only celebrate in Susannah’s naive way the beauty and the marvels of nature but also color itself with more earthy dreams. The voice starts the aria all by itself, and the first interval shows the shape of things to come. The voice must be ready to stay legato and melodious while entering into the musical character the composer has conceived for Susannah’s part. She should sing the lower notes already in the high resonances of the high ones, minimizing for the listeners’ ears the physical distance between low and high. In this moment Susannah needs an outlet for her happy excitement and finds it in her admiration of the starry sky, which is all she has. While “Ain’t it a pretty night” is piano, there must be an effusion in the words, and the dotted quarter note of “pretty” can be prolonged just a little. Then Susannah improvises a hymn to the sky in long, fluid phrases. If it is possible to sing in one breath from “The sky” to “with stars,” and from “It’s like” to “over a pond,” the singer will have suggested the scope of Susannah’s vision, keeping the same very slow tempo.

With the più mosso we are back to earth for a few seconds. Susannah needs to share so much beauty with somebody, if only Little Bat, who after all deserves it for walking her home. Then she sings with more intensity of a heavier sky. After a breath after “with stars,” the voice rises to forte on the naive but scary thought of the sky falling out of heaven. But it soon softens to a velvety roundness for “in one big blanket of velvet” and shines sweetly for “all stitched with diamon’s.”

This time “Ain’t it a pretty night,” one third lower, is wistful and less bright than the first time, and Susannah’s mind drifts toward a more personal vision. Still legato but piano, the new thought is introduced, “Just think, those stars . . . ” During the ensuing crescendo the interval G-sharp–F-sharp must be treated as indicated above, without breaking the line. The enumeration of the southern cities is made with force and a certain awe. Those big centers are exciting and intimidating, and going again to forte Susannah reaches beyond the obstacle presented by the mountains but softens at the lovely vision of the well-dressed people there. The naive ideal of mailorder-catalog aesthetics is stressed by the chatterlike writing of the many notes of the last

bar.

With the ancora più mosso, ♩ = 80, comes the essential statement of the aria. It must be sung firmly, almost loudly, like a challenge to fate. Some high notes seem to stand out but should not when performed. The F-sharp of “myself’ is one high note that should be stressed, for obvious reasons. But “tall” should tie in with “buildin’s” and “street” with “lights.” A deep breath after “lights” prepares the support for the incoming high A-sharp. This broad phrase will find its scope in a very legato singing, in a round, resounding voice, and not in hammering or punching. The triplet on “one o’ them” gives the singer a good opportunity to check on the continuity of the vibration, which will spin into the A-sharp.

But Susannah’s exaltation is short-lived. With the 6/4 at rehearsal number 21 she reflects wistfully on the possibility of bec...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Recommendations
• Beethoven
• Bellini
• Bizet
• Les Pêcheurs de Perles
• Charpentier
• Debussy
• Delibes
• Donizetti
• L’Elisir d’amore
• Floyd
• Manon
• Thaïs
• Werther
• Menotti
• The Medium
• The Old Maid and the Thief
• Meyerbeer
• Mozart
• Don Giovanni
• Die Entführung aus dem Serail
• Le Nozze di Figaro
• Die Zauberflöte
• Musorgski
• Nicolai
• Offenbach
• Ponchielli
• Puccini
• Gianni Schicchi
• Madama Butterfly
• Manon Lescaut
• Suor Angelica
• Tosca
• Nessun dorma
• Saint-SaËNS
• Strauss
• Thomas
• Celeste Aïda
• Ma dall’arido stelo divulsa
• Don Carlo
• Emani, involami
• E sogno? o realtà
• Pace, pace
• Quando le sere
• Credo in un Dio crudel
• Parmi veder le lagrime
• Ah, fors’è lui
• Condotta ell’era in ceppi
• Wagner
• Lohengrin
• Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
• Tannhäuser
• Index Of First Lines