Posted on 01/07/2004 5:08:09 PM PST by blam
Revealed: why you can't understand what an opera soprano is singing
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 08/01/2004)
Physicists have discovered the reason why even operas sung in English are hard to follow. A study has found that in order for sopranos to be heard above the sound of a large symphony orchestra, they tune into resonances in their vocal tract to amplify the sound at the high end of their range.
Although this enables them to make a sound that can fill the Albert Hall, it sacrifices intelligibility because the vowels sung by sopranos in full voice all sound the same.
The discovery, reported today in Nature, was made by Dr John Smith, Elodie Joliveau and Prof Joe Wolfe at the University of New South Wales, Australia. "For sopranos, the price of being heard is a loss in comprehensibility," said Dr Smith.
The physicists studied nine sopranos with an average classical training of nine years and followed up the suspicion that the singers used a resonance effect to boost high notes. "The evidence for this is that they tend to open the mouth and smile more as they sing successively higher notes," Dr Smith said.
The vocal tract (including tongue and mouth) has several resonances that boost or amplify sounds produced in the larynx and the team measured the frequencies of resonances as the sopranos sang ascending scales. In the top half of their range (but not the bottom half), the singers did indeed tune one of the resonances to match the pitch they were singing, producing more sound for the same effort.
But the vowels end up sounding nearly the same, which makes words more difficult to understand, while consonants are affected to different degrees. "The tuning of resonances from their normal values means that different sounds such as la, lore, loo, ler and lee sound very much alike in the high register," said Dr Smith.
"What we've shown is that trained sopranos boost the sound from their vocal chords by 'tuning' or adjusting the shape of their vocal tract so it matches the pitch they are singing," said Prof Wolfe.
"The effect is a little like the amplifying effect you get by singing in the bathroom," he said, adding that even if this did not occur, "the vowels would be hard to distinguish because there just isn't enough frequency information at that high pitch." He added: "It's possibly one reason why local opera houses use surtitles even when the words to an opera are in English."
The effect has been remarked on before, notably by the 19th century French composer Berlioz, whose book about orchestration even warns opera composers to take it into account.
Not three of us on an Opera thread? We're ruining our reputation!
As to the comments on texts, I have to say I have to have those subtitles the first time through, I do want to understand what the story is. But after that first time I'm happy to switch them off and just enjoy the beauty of the music.
Since all of our viewing of Operas has to be done at home, does anyone have some favorite ones on video or dvd to recommend?
La Boheme is a favorite, but for the 'perfect opera' you can't beat La Traviata, IMHO
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