Anna Netrebko
Her vowels were very dark. The way she approached them was very strange and almost mechanical looking. It made me think that she had some tension in her jaw because of the transition of the jaw from closed (for consonants) to open (for vowels). It was almost like she wasn't sure she had enough space, so after some hesitation, she decided to open her mouth some more. I'm not sure if it effected her sound a ton, but I definitely found it distracting to watch in her performance. She even closes her jaw on the double consonant "l" on "nello". Very strange indeed.
Simon Keenlyside
He looked like he had the open space between the back molars, and he was using a lot of lip rounding. Which we know, lowers the formants for a Baritone. I could also tell that the space between the molars increased as his vocal line ascended into the higher range. The transition seemed smooth, and the vowels had a balance of bright/dark which was appropriate for the Italian.
Jonas Kaufmann
There is some manipulation of the lips (in the higher range, which is odd because you would thik that he wouldn't want to lower the formant), but overall I felt like his shaping of the vowels were pretty standard. He has appropriate space between the molars, but sometimes on some words, his jaw would be more closed (specifically in the lower range).
Cecilia Bartoli
Her mouth seemed very wide spread, yet you could hear in her sound that she maintained the space in her upper jaw. I saw that she sometimes would move her lips while sustaining a pitch, yet it didn't effect the sound of the vowel. She was also moving her face, and making lots of strange faces (including closing her eyes) I wonder if this was her strategy to find extra resonance space.
No comments:
Post a Comment