Music Theater Singing . . . Let's Talk. Part 1: On the Relationship of Speech and Singing

INTRODUCTION Si canta come si parla (one sings as one speaks); Chi pronuncia bene, canta bene (who enunciates well, sings well). These adages have long been part of the useful reservoir of pedagogical language. They embody the conviction that the mechanism of singing is not separate from the mechanism of speech.1 There long has been pervasive understanding that speech and singing are closely related, and nowhere has this been more germane, perhaps, than in the various uses of the voice associated with American music theater. The contemporary music theater singing voice has speech as its foundation and is generally understood to be extension of speech, alike not only in its mechanism of production, but also in its inner connection to the emotion and thought that motivate speech in daily life.2 This article brings together writings from the pedagogic literature that explore the origins of speech as the basis for music theater singing, insights into the relationship of speech and singing, and thoughts on how singing is affected by the clarity and level of speech. While somewhat unconventional in format, this article-a compilation of primary sources with commentary-aims to provide the reader with more specific understanding of the fascinating dynamic of speech and singing, and prompt additional forays into research. ORIGINS Finding the ideal balance of speech and singing for the stage seems to have been an ongoing process since the dawn of performance itself. To form some idea of the antiquity of the Divine Art of Singing, one must go back to the time of the ancient Greeks, who were famed for their culture and love of the beautiful. As far as can be ascertained, there is little definite evidence that they excelled greatly in the art of the cultivation of the singing voice; indeed, most of the records go to prove rather the very great importance that they attached to the training of the vocal organs purely for oratorical purposes. This branch they regarded as of the greatest possible importance, and took the most infinite pains to secure that the voice should be developed, for public speaking, to its utmost capacity. Even their most famous athletes scarcely received more rigorous preparation for their arduous work than their future orators.3 Furthermore, their orators seem to have intoned their speeches, the declamatory style, of which they made use, being expressly termed cantus obscurior. As they often spoke to immense audiences, and almost always in the open air, this mode of delivery may probably have been adopted in order to make their voices carry farther.4 These vocal Olympics illustrate many of the more contemporary points we find regarding the relationship between singing and speech, such as the Arthur Lessac Call, si canta come si parla, speech-level singing, and the like, and help to launch our understanding of developments in the field. Retracing the steps to the intoned, declamatory style of their Greek forefathers, the Florentine Camerata set out to find new style of vocal music performance in which text was most important and the voice was at the service of the text. To this end, composers wrote for singers in predominately midvoice range, in style that was not virtuosic for its own sake, but that was suspended in homogenized blend somewhere between recitative and aria, in a sort of half-way house between the sister arts of singing and speaking.5 Little seems to have changed from the end of the sixteenth century in this regard. Rather, since the days of the Florentine Camerata, composers and producers of music drama have taken sides in the continuing controversy over the relative importance of words and music . . . American musical theater is result of historical swing toward the importance of text in music drama, and the rejection of classical singing in favor of vernacular, word-dominated singing styles is another aspect of the same struggle. …