Looking For Bel Canto

WITHOUT a doubt, voice instructors throughout the centuries have not been lax in taking responsibility for passing on what they think they know about singing (although rarely in writing). The whole index of modern vocal concepts and techniques has been the fruit of their labor. Their point of departure has always been the long-standing Italian singing tradition, which reached its fabled “golden age” in the 17th and 18th (especially) centuries.

During this time, legendary Italian voice masters created the first superstar singers, opera singers, who conquered Europe with their beautiful voices and breathtaking vocal skills. This era of great singing—often called the era of “Bel Canto” (beautiful singing)—has always mystified devotees of the art form. And the reason is clear: The ancient singing masters not only produced some of the greatest singers of all time, but they also established the timeless standards against which all artistic singing has been measured ever since. To this day, many of the classic Bel Canto ideals such as beautiful tone, clean vocal attack, precise intonation, seamless legato, clean diction, pleasant vibrato, artful phrasing, creative, but tasteful ornamentation, original stylization, and honest, heartfelt expression are difficult to argue against— at least where operatic and even much of non-operatic singing are concerned.

Nonetheless, there is a long-standing myth about the Italian singing tradition that needs to be exposed. It has become a part of singing folklore that there was a “Bel Canto Singing Method” that was invented by the great Italian singing masters in the 17th and 18th century. The term Bel Canto first showed up in European literature in the mid 19th century. However, the term Bel Canto was never meant to refer to a particular method of singing, but rather described a style of performing music. The Bel Canto ideals—e.g., beautiful tone, creative embellishments, elegant phrasing, connected execution (legato), precise intonation, tasteful musicianship, heartfelt expression—are not only ideals of artistic singing, but are also performance ideals for playing music on any instrument or group of instruments. The great Polish pianist Chopin, for instance, undoubtedly influenced by Italian singers, played his compositions in the Bel Canto tradition—his genius consisted in making the “piano sing.” The real meaning of Bel Canto, however, has not stopped generations of singers and singing teachers from claiming to have rediscovered, learned, or unlocked the precious secrets of the Bel Canto Singing Method.

The very idea of a method of singing—standardized ways of singing—makes little artistic sense. More reasonable is to ask whether or not the singing masters employed a standard “method of teaching.” Was there a single method of teaching singing employed by all the old, Italian masters, one that was responsible for their success in creating great singers? We will never know this answer to our satisfaction. Masters like Giambattista Mancini and Pier Francesco Tosi offer only us hints as to what their methods of vocal exercising consisted of, such as smiling during voice production, gliding from vowel to vowel (portamento), and using the swell tone (messa di voce). But such technical recommendations are a far cry from offering up a systematic, step-by-step method of vocal training. My own view is that the masters did not share an identical method of voice teaching, but, at most, used variations of each other’s methods.

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