Creation of a vocal and stage image in opera (based on Violetta’s vocal part from Verdi’s opera “La Traviata”)
The creation of a vocal and stage persona is the art of impersonation based on acting. Because the opera singer is essentially a dramatic actor, whose expressive resource is primarily his voice, the tasks of creating an artistic image solves in the same way as in the art of drama. In the theatrical opera practice, the ability to find the necessary characteristic “tonality” for a character is an indicator of professional capabilities of a vocalist. However, this is not an instantaneous but rather painstaking and long-term process, which includes not alone the work on vocal technique, but on psychological and emotional “compatibility” with the type of the artistic character, they play. The need to study the principles and regularities of work towards an onstage personage determines relevance of this article. However, as there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the implementation of the same role, the goal of this research is to summarize some of self-own author’s observations relying on the extensive experience of stage and pedagogic working. Since the genre of opera is a synthesis of the word, music, movements and actor skill, a vocalist must be ready to it professionally. That is, must be a competent musician, have a voice of a beautiful timbre with a large vocal range that fills the whole auditorium, must be able to control the breath, to master technical vocal techniques, to have clear diction and the bright actor gift. These are the essential qualities, without which it is impossible to enter at the opera stage. Moreover, a vocalist has to improve his skills through the whole life that is natural for this profession. Working on a role is quite a painstaking process, where you cannot rely on instant inspiration only. It comes later. After thorough preliminary preparation a singer-actor is able to undergo transformation into a stage persona (literally, “to change the flesh”), and only then inspiration that comes will help to call admiration of publics and professional critics. The first stage of such getting ready is acquaintance with the history of the creation of a composition and learning about literary sources of a libretto, about the style features of the era in general and the composer’s style in particular. The character of Violetta from Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” (1853) is considered in this paper as an example. The second stage presupposes reviewing a content of an opera in the complex with analysis of its music-thematic material and expressive means of a voice, in particular, considering interrelation of the texture features and harmonic language with the plot and musical dramaturgy of the work. As far as the musical score of the opera contains all music dramaturgy, it is necessary to study thoroughly not only your own vocal part, but also the whole music sheet. The third stage is the vocal analysis, which determines the range of the vocal part, its tessitura conditions and the degree of vocal complexity. The fourth stage is performing art analysis, which goes on in close collaboration with a conductor and a director. At this level, the performer should know her part by heart, not only technically, but she must have her own concept of the character interpretation. Working together with stage directors of the performance leads to the final decision of the role. In a result of disputes and discussions about how this image was presented earlier by the creators of the work and how it is perceived today, how it should be in this performance, everyone comes to consensus. From that moment, the soloist already clearly understands the artistic tasks posed to her and starts to implement them. One of the main means of expressiveness in an opera is a voice; with help of the voice intonation a singer passes emotionally imaginative content of a work. However, the musical intonation is already indicated by a composer, and a singer can only “breath life” into a character one plays, can feel the emotional-semantic intonation of a composer, can “let it pass” through one own vision and embody it onstage. In addition, coloration (a timbre) of a voice must be subordinated to nature of a character. Hints of a right decision lie in musical dramaturgy of an opera. Of course, music prevails in opera, but the scenic part of the performance is the projection of sounds in movements, that is why the director’s vision is very significant for the overall perception of the musical production. The main task of a director is to understand the main author’s idea and find quintessence of the whole play. In the rehearsal process, there is an intensive search for characters’ nature, features of their psyche, logic of actions, that is, a director helps a singer to find the scenic embodiment of a role, and an opera conductor – the sound embodiment. The main task of a performer is to impersonate in an artistic character as much as possible using the entire available vocal and plastique means. The character of Violetta Valerie is difficult in terms of interpretation, so a singer must to posses the talent for stage acting, the skill of conveying the subtlest psychological nuances, since the state of the main character is a kaleidoscope of feelings and emotions. The ultimate goal of the singing actor’s work on a role is the creation of a veracious image of the artistic character. The vocalist’s ability to use all the elements of performing art is a gift for impersonation, that is, creating a living person onstage with his spiritual life and traits of a character. This kind of work is done with every performance, as creativity is an endless process.