Matteo Pais, coach and music coordinator of the Scuola dell'opera italiana in Bologna, joins us this week to talk about two arias from Le nozze di Figaro , Susanna's 4th act aria "Deh, vieni, non tardar" and Cherubino's first aria "Non so più cosa son". We concentrate on Rs in every position, the letter G and what to do when there are millions of vowels in a row. The libretto for Le nozze di Figaro is can be found at the Opera Guide website here --sometimes it defaults to the main entry page, so...
Sep 12, 2011•31 min
English Diction is our topic this week, covering the texts to "The Roadside Fire" and the aria "Iris, hence away" from Händel's Semele with vocal coach Mark Lawson, contralto Rebecca Raffell and tenor Donald George. Our focus is on what to do with Rs, WH words, the crazy spelling in English and some differences between American Standard and British Received pronunciation. Some of the new phonetic symbols referred to on this episode are [ɝ] and [ɚ] (for those Rs in diphthongs and triphthongs) and...
Sep 05, 2011•35 min
Happy neue Spielzeit! We're back from summer vacation discussing German diction, covering the texts to "Die Lotoblume" and "Liebst du um Schönheit" with tenor Mirko Roschkowski and coach Hans Sotin. We concentrate on the assimilation of consonants and also discuss and compare some common open and closed Es with soprano Karen Bandelow. " Die Lotosblume " is a Heinrich Heine poem set by many composers, the most familiar setting by Robert Schumann (part of Myrthen , Op. 25). The poem " Liebst du um...
Aug 29, 2011•32 min
We're back to basics again today! Conductor Jonathan Darlington reminds us what all the other markings in the score are about--from tempo indications to metronome markings to rubato and col canto, we discuss what composers are trying to tell us, and compare the markings a little between Italian, French and German. There are many online dictionaries of musical terms, but the best one I found for our purposes was from the Dolmetsch Organization . They have all the terms we referred to in this podc...
Jul 11, 2011•34 min
This week, Spanish bel canto tenor José Bros works through the texts of "La maja y el ruiseñor" and "La maja dolorosa No. 3" with us. We're concentrating on diphthongs and other instances when vowels in Spanish come together, which happens quite a lot! We also talk about the difference between [nj] and [ɲ]. Here is the text for Enrique Granados ' Goyescas (this libretto is sideways, so it's probably easier to print out to read!); the aria "La maja y el ruiseñor" starts Cadro III on page 28. The ...
Jun 13, 2011•38 min
Russian Diction is our topic this week--baritone Dmitri Vargin helps us work through the text to Onegin's aria "Вы мне писали... Когда бы жизнь домашним кругом". Our focus this time is on unstressed Os in every position. Finally there's a working link to this libretto that doesn't need to be downloaded! So here is the libretto for Евгений Онегин, scroll down to "page" 37 to find the recitative and aria for today. If you have the book Russian Songs and Arias , be aware of two typos in their trans...
May 26, 2011•32 min
This week we're covering German diction again, with baritone Christoph Pohl and vocal coach Michael Schütze, focusing on the texts to "Mondnacht" and "Die Mainacht". The episode started off being about open and closed Ü, and ended up branching out in a few different directions, including double consonants and open and closed U and I. The text to Josef von Eichendorff 's poem "Mondnacht" can be found here . It has been set by many composers, but the version most people know best is by Robert Schu...
May 16, 2011•28 min
Early music specialist Andrea Marchiol is our guest this week, discussing the texts to "Piangerò" from Händel's Giulio Cesare and the Prologue to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo . We concentrate on the accidental doubling of consonants, open and closed E's and O's (as usual!) and talk a little about the different styles of recitative throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The Giulio Cesare libretto is here --along the left hand margin, scroll down and click on Act 3 Scene 3 for "E pur così in un giorno......
May 03, 2011•33 min
In the second episode of our two-part discussion of French liaison, Dr. Francois Germain takes us through the text of "Chanson triste", with a focus on verbs in the future tense as well as the pronunciation of consonants in liaison. Chanson triste is one of Henri Duparc 's early songs, set to a text by Henri Cazalis under the penname of Jean Lahor. The score to Chanson triste is also available online at the International Music Score Library--make sure that you know the copyright laws of your cou...
Apr 17, 2011•27 min
Happy Anniversary to The Diction Police! I started this podcast on April 1, 2010, so this week marks the first episode of our second year! Episode 32 is the first of a two-part discussion with French vocal coach Francois Germain focusing mainly on liaisons, with some exceptional words in French and the pronunciation of future verbs. Our text this week is En sourdine , a Paul Verlaine poem. The resources that we talk about on this episode are Thomas Grubb's Singing in French and Pierre Bernac 's ...
Apr 03, 2011•29 min
This week is the other half of my conversation with Tuscan tenor Giorgio Berrugi. Our texts today are Christoph Willibald Gluck's "O del mio dolce ardor" and Petrarch's Sonnet 104, "Pace non trovo." We talk about whether or not to use glottals in Italian (spoiler-the answer is NO!), some irregular verbs you may run across, some standard suffixes with stressed E and the importance of knowing every meaning of your lines in an opera. You can find both texts for today at the Lied and Art Song Texts ...
Mar 28, 2011•31 min
Castilian Spanish is our focus this week, with Basque soprano Vanessa Goikoetxea. Our texts for today are the Zarzuela tenor aria "No puede ser" and the Obradors song "Al amor". This time we are concentrating on the S, C and Z, and the LL in Castilian Spanish. The text for "No puede ser" can be found here , as well as a brief history of Zarzuela and a short biography of the composer, Pablo Sorozábal . The text to "Al amor" can be found at the Lied and Art Song Texts Page , and I found the origin...
Mar 14, 2011•23 min
This week we are back to German Diction with vocal coach Michael Schütze and baritone Christoph Pohl. We focus on the text to Agathe's Aria "Wie nahte mir der Schlummer... Leise, leise" from Der Freischütz and Heinrich Heine's poem "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh'" from Dichterliebe . Since German has so many of them, this week we are concentrating on consonants! Double consonants, 2 in a row, 3 in a row, with some ideas on how to practice them, as well as the genitive (possessive) S. You can find ...
Feb 27, 2011•28 min
Our first episode on Czech diction! This week conductor Tomáš Netopil is our guest, discussing two texts from Rusalka, the Song to the Moon (Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém) and the Prince's first act aria (Vidino divná). Since many people are less familiar with the Czech language, we tried to cover a lot of the basics, while concentrating on things foreigners have trouble with like the palatal D [ɟ]and T[c], the voiced H [ɦ] and the accent markings on vowels and consonants, including our favorite Czec...
Feb 06, 2011•33 min
Happy 2011! We're starting back up again with a discussion of "Un'aura amorosa" and "De' miei bollenti spiriti" with tenor Giorgio Berrugi. We concentrate on some common suffixes with stressed o (-oro, -ore and -oso), intervocalic S and using consonants to create expression. Here are links to the libretti for Così fan tutte (scroll down to Aria No. 17) and La Traviata (scroll down to the opening of Act II). Just for the sake of clarity, on this episode we translated the word "esca" as "hook", bu...
Jan 30, 2011•28 min
Before we go on holiday break, I wanted to get another Special Edition of The Diction Police, this time on Bel Canto music. Tenor Javier Camarena and basso buffo Carlo Lepore give us tips on how to practice coloratura and patter, while conductors Henrik Nánási and Erik Nielsen talk about Bel Canto style, cadenzas and what young singers can do to prepare themselves better. We'll be back mid-January with new episodes--I already have several interviews lined up for this month, including one on Czec...
Dec 03, 2010•41 min
This week we are back to Russian Diction, with Siberian-born tenor Andrej Dunaev, discussing the texts to two Rachmaninoff songs, Opus 14 No 1 "Я жду тебя" (I Wait for You) and No 14 "Весенние воды" (Spring Waters). We concentrate on the й (I-kratkoe), the devoicing of consonants, the hard sign ъ (not to be confused with the soft sign ь or the vowel ы!), another way to write the JE vowel - ѣ and a little on the soft consonant щ. Since I'm a big fan of trying to read the Cyrillic, here are the li...
Dec 03, 2010•32 min
We finish up our 2-part series on Hungarian diction this week, concentrating on Zoltán Kodály's "A csitári hegyek alatt" with Zoltán Nyári and Henrik Nánási. This week our focus is on the consonants, especially the fun combinations of GY [Ɉ], TY [c], NY [ɲ] and LY [j]; and the variations of S [ʃ], ZS [ʒ], SZ [s], CS [tʃ] and C [ts]. Here is a link to the text for this week, and I also found these YouTube clips of it in performance as a solo with piano and as a duet with orchestra--there are also...
Nov 13, 2010•26 min
At least Episode 23 is up! Sorry for the delay, and for the static that you will sometimes hear on the podcast! This week is the first of a 2-part series on Hungarian diction, discussing some text from Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle ( Kéksakállú herceg vára ) with conductor Henrik Nánási and tenor Zoltán Nyári. Here is a link to an online libretto--we chose the first two long passages of Kéksakállú and the first long passage of Judit. If you have downloaded this on iTunes, I added the text to the L...
Nov 08, 2010•23 min
This week we are discussing long and short syllables in German with mezzo-soprano Tanja Baumgartner, tenor Virgil Hartinger and Uta Mücksch, a prompter at the Semperoper. The texts for today's episode are " Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen " from Der Freischütz and "Waldesgespräch ", by German romantic poet Josef von Eichendorff, one of the most famous pieces from Schumann's Liederkreis Op. 39. If you are interested in Pennsylfaanich Deitsch, there is actually a Wikipedia page, both in the la...
Oct 29, 2010•32 min
French-Swiss soprano Nathalie de Montmollin is back to talk about three poems of Paul Verlaine, one of the greatest French poets of the 19th century. We concentrate on some of the mixed vowels, especially [œ] and [ø] again, the letter X, and go over some of the confusing spellings that make up French! Our texts for today are " Mandoline ", " Prison " (or "Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit"), and " Green ". At Art Song Central you can find the music for many art songs in pdf form, and also the IPA ...
Oct 22, 2010•29 min
Episode 20 is our first discussion of Spanish Lyric Diction, with Pablo Assante, the chorus master at the Semperoper in Dresden. We discuss some of the differences between Spanish and Italian, as well as the differences between Castilian and Argentinean Spanish, the letters B (which can be transcribed as [b] or [β]), D ([d] or [ð]), the unvoiced TH pronunciation of C and Z [θ] and the aspirate S used in Spain. Our texts for today are the Obradors ' song " Del cabello más sutil " and " Bonita ram...
Oct 15, 2010•28 min
Italian Diction is back this week with conductor Matteo Beltrami from Milan. The texts for this week are "Tutte le feste al tempio" from the second act duet in Rigoletto and Dorabella's "Smanie implacabili" from Così fan tutte , and we talk about when to voice or unvoice the S, the imperfect verb ending -EVA and the problem of rolling Rs! Maestro Beltrami also talks about the importance of text in recitative. For the text to "Tutte le festi al tempio" click here and scroll down to No 10-Scena e ...
Sep 24, 2010•29 min
Today we're talking with Siberian-born tenor Andrej Dunaev about the text to Lensky's Aria from Yevgény Onégin . We concentrate on the vowels e [jɛ] and ё [jo], the hard consonant ж [ʒ] and the soft sign ь. For the text to Lensky's aria, you can download the libretto for the opera through the Wikipedia page here . Just scroll down to "External links" at the bottom and click on "Russian libretto in zip file for Word". I mention on the podcast that the Tenor Anthology has a lot of extra soft signs...
Sep 17, 2010•31 min
Since we talked so much last week about studying the diction of your native language, I thought it only fitting that we discuss a little English Diction today! Our guests are Mark Lawson, an American coach on the music staff of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and Aaron Pegram, an American tenor in the ensemble at the Semperoper in Dresden. Our texts today are "Take O Take Those Lips Away" and Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair". We concentrate on the American diphthongs and ...
Sep 10, 2010•30 min
In Episode 16 we discuss the texts to "Avant de quitter" and Marguerite's "Jewel Aria" from Gounod's Faust with French-Canadian coach Nathalie Doucet. We talk about some letter combinations that make the J-glide (or Jot), compare OE, O-slash and the schwa, and discuss why you should study the diction of your own native language and some of the differences between Canadian-French and French spoken in France. For an online libretto to Faust click here . For Valentin's aria, "Avant de quitter", scr...
Sep 03, 2010•30 min
This week we concentrate on the German CH in all its forms, with mezzo-soprano Tanja Baumgartner and tenors Virgil Hartinger and Mirko Roschkowski. The texts for this week are the Komponist (Composer) Aria from Ariadne auf Naxos and the Brahms Lied "Von ewiger Liebe". You can find an online libretto for Ariadne auf Naxos here , just scroll down almost halfway to "Seien wir wieder gut", and for the text to "Von ewiger Liebe" click here or follow the link at the right to the Lieder and Art Songs T...
Aug 27, 2010•31 min
Welcome back from the summer! Here's the first episode of the new opera season, a discussion of Italian recitative with coach Felice Venanzoni. We focus on the recit before "Là ci darem la mano" and the aria "Non mi dir" from Mozart's Don Giovanni . We talk about many diction details, but also about recitatives in general and how to approach learning and performing them. There is an online libretto of Don Giovanni here , just scroll down after Nr. 6 Aria for the recitative and Nr. 23 Recitativo ...
Aug 20, 2010•33 min
In this special edition of The Diction Police, we discuss studying and working in both the US and Germany with Americans Stephanie Woodling Bucher and Timothy Oliver and Australian James Martin. We talk about how our careers got started and give some tips on how to prepare yourself for the professional world. The resources mentioned in the podcast include: Opera America , whose members have access to a comprehensive list of American opera companies and many international ones, including Young Ar...
Jun 25, 2010•40 min
This week we discuss German diction with Mirko Roschkowski and Clemens Posselt, working through the texts to "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai" from Schumann's Dichterliebe and "O du, mein holder Abendstern" from Wagner's Tannhäuser . We focus on the sound NG, SP at the beginning of words and a few regular inseparable prefixes. The text to "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai" is here , and I found an online libretto for Tannhäuser here . Just scroll down to the Zweite Szene for Wolfram's aria. If you have any...
Jun 18, 2010•30 min
