Back from Gothenburg, where a group of music and theatre scholars, opera singers and singing coaches got together to discuss ‘vocal color’ in past, present, and future opera. The general opinion was that there is a severe lack of color variety in opera singing today and that this leads to an impoverishment of the expressive and dramatic dimensions of the genre. This uniformity has not been a feature of opera for most of its history, which begs the questions: why is the ‘opera sound’ a feature of today’s opera? should that sound be challenged? and, if so, who should challenge it?

Food for thought… Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, a singer would step on stage aware that only some people in the audience would have attended operas in other towns, and that even fewer would have travelled Europe and heard the prominent performers of their time. Often, they performed newly composed pieces, and even an older opera would not have been easily recollected by most spectators. Singers could attempt a variety of means to carve a memorable impression in the minds of the audience with little fear of being compared to a performer who had delighted audiences 70 years earlier, in a capital 1000 kilometers away. That freedom for an opera performer to fashion a relationship with the audience on their own terms is no longer a possibility. It is profoundly unfair – and highly stifling for the craft – that a young opera singer performing today in a small music hall in the middle of nowhere will be compared in the mind of most listeners to a Callas or a Pavarotti. Yet here we are, having only the future to look forward to. To opera lovers and performers out there, what do you think about this? Is it a problem at all? Please, leave your comments below!