American Idol, The Masked Singer, and.... Cinderella?

Listen, my idea of "reality TV" is watching a baseball game on cable, okay? I'm not a fan of much of the genre, and that goes double for singing contests like "American Idol" and "The Masked Singer" and any others that have had their moment in the sun. Longtime readers of this blog will be familiar with one of my issues: the appearance (read: "exploitation") of young girls singing opera.

Joyce DiDonato: Italian Idol?

I expressed myself on this point in a 2012 post that went viral and still collects hundreds of hits per month. You can read it here.

But I "get it"; I understand the appeal of such shows. Fans of these adjudicated talent parades want to be dazzled by each contestant; they are looking (as are the judges) for the "wow factor" - that rare combination of vocal chops and charisma that makes eyes pop and jaws drop.

And then, I presume, they like to argue about it the next day on Twitter or around the water cooler at the office. Bad singers who won, great singers who got robbed, and so on and so on until the next installment. 

Now let's go back in time a couple of hundred years. Two centuries ago (this will shock some of you), there was no TV and no social media.  No "Italian Idol". 

But they had the 18th-century equivalent: ITALIAN OPERA!

It strikes me that the best way to consume a bel canto opera (more on that term below) like Rossini's Cinderella is to understand it as an implicit competition among the singers who portray Angelina, Ramiro, Magnifico and the rest of the characters.

The basic translation of bel canto is inadequate, as this school of operatic singing is much more than "beautiful", a word that could really be applied to any style of singing that people enjoy. 

To me, the important point is this: during the heyday of Italian bel canto (to my mind, the first four decades of the 1800's), the art of singing reached its highest peak of technical development. The full potential of the human voice was realized at levels previously unknown and never since surpassed.

Composers were now challenging singers to master instrumental techniques; to execute rapid scales and figuration with stunningly accurate articulation just as one takes for granted in an orchestral instrument like the flute or violin. Trills, ornamentation of melodic lines, pin-point leaps from low to high notes and an extended vocal range are other elements that now became commonplace.

Now consider Cinderella through this prism. Each musical number, be it an aria or an ensemble, is an opportunity for the artists on stage to impress us with the "wow factor" of their vocal technique. As the action progresses, each, in a sense, tries to outdo what has come before. Magnifico's rapid patter is great, but then Ramiro takes the lead with an aria combining coloratura with a handful of brilliant high C's -- WOW! And so on.

One after another they make their entrances, showering our ears with pyrotechnics and bewildering us with the apparent effortlessness with which devilishly difficult passages are tossed off.

And then it's all capped off by the final number, Angelina's "Non più mesta", a showpiece combining not only advanced instrumental-like virtuosity, but a common instrumental structure as well: Theme and Variations.

I suspect Rossini may have had Mozart's 12 variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" as his model for this aria. Both feature a particularly simple, even child-like theme followed by figural variations requiring rapid figuration.

To appreciate the comparison, listen to the theme and first variation or two in this recording of the Mozart.

Now Rossini's offering as sung by Joyce DiDonato.

This is an adaptation of Mozart's instrumental style as opposed to his vocal style; the coloratura in his Italian operas never extended to this level of difficulty; only in The Magic Flute is there an example of instrumental virtuosity in the two arias of the Queen of the Night.

Here I must doff my cap to the wonderful classical music critic Anne Midgette, just recently retired from her position as chief critic for the Washington Post, who conjured up this striking image of the effect of a good performance of "Non più mesta":

Angelina’s final aria … should, if it’s to stay true to the spirit of the music, really end with the singer’s head exploding, like a Muppet’s. (Anne, I'm quoting this in all my Rossini lectures these days, but I always credit you. It's a wonderful visual!)

And if the artist meets the challenge and knocks our socks off, perhaps in the minds and hearts of the audience SHE will be crowned ITALIAN IDOL; perhaps her name will be all the buzz in the next day's opera gossip; perhaps she will be the subject of heated argument and debate among aficionados of fine singing.

As it should be.

The photo of Joyce DiDonato is by A MA and is used via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.