Episodes
Saturday Sep 03, 2016
Episode 81-SDU tutorial (audio version)
Saturday Sep 03, 2016
Saturday Sep 03, 2016
Episode 81 (from The Diction Police: Special Diction Unit) covers the text to "Villanelle" from Berlioz' Les nuits d'été. Dr. François Germain leads us through the text, focusing on some deceptive pronunciations and liaisons as well as vocalic harmonisation.
Saturday Sep 03, 2016
Episode 81-SDU Video Tutorial
Saturday Sep 03, 2016
Saturday Sep 03, 2016
Episode 81 (from The Diction Police: Special Diction Unit) covers the text to "Villanelle" from Berlioz' Les nuits d'été. Dr. François Germain leads us through the text, focusing on some deceptive pronunciations and liaisons as well as vocalic harmonisation. No need to go looking for the text, because you can follow along with the text, IPA, and conversation on the video!
Saturday Aug 27, 2016
Diction Tip #4
Saturday Aug 27, 2016
Saturday Aug 27, 2016
Since the podcast will be coming out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we post Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction.
Saturday Jun 11, 2016
Episode 78-SDU Tutorial (audio version)
Saturday Jun 11, 2016
Saturday Jun 11, 2016
This week's episode is from The Diction Police's Special Diction Unit! This is the audio version of the SDU video tutorial, for people who want to listen while they are out and about.
Saturday Jun 11, 2016
Episode 78-SDU Video Tutorial
Saturday Jun 11, 2016
Saturday Jun 11, 2016
This week's episode is from The Diction Police's Special Diction Unit No need to go looking for the text, because you can follow along with the text, IPA, and conversation on the video!
Saturday May 21, 2016
Diction Tip #1-Donc (French)
Saturday May 21, 2016
Saturday May 21, 2016
Since the podcast will be coming out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we will be posting Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction.
Sunday May 15, 2016
Episode 76
Sunday May 15, 2016
Sunday May 15, 2016
Gilles Ragon is back to discuss French Diction with the text to "Klein-Zach" from Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann. Our focus is on what happens when the same vowel sound appears back-to-back with no consonant between them, liaison, and some exceptional pronunciations in French.
- Video Tutorials on songs and arias, including Diction Police-style interviews with leading diction experts
- IPA transcriptions with word-for-word and poetic translations of texts from Art Song, opera and oratorio
- Translations into English, French and German
- Diction Tips
- Skype coachings
Monday May 19, 2014
Episode 75
Monday May 19, 2014
Monday May 19, 2014
This week, French tenor Gilles Ragon works through Don José's aria, "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée", from Carmen with us. We concentrate on the letter "e" and how to tell whether it's the open epsilon [ɛ], the closed lower case [e] or the schwa [ə]. We talk about the accent grave (è) and accent circonflex (ê) which both open the vowel to [ɛ] and the accent aigu (é) which closes it to [e].
The libretto for Carmen can be found at the Opera Guide. Make sure to click on L for libretto and F for French (because it seems to default back every time, and in that order, because it will keep reverting!) and then scroll down to No.17 Duo--the aria is just a little beyond that indication.
The diction book I mentioned in this episode is the second edition of Jason Nedecky's French Diction for Singers: A Handbook of Pronunciation for French Opera and Mélodie, available from the University of Toronto bookstore. It's a great resource, which includes a list of common spellings and their pronunciations as well as over 7,000 proper names with their phonetic transcriptions!
The YouTube that I promised to post is this one, of Gérard Souzay singing "Clair de lune" with Jacqueline Bonneau on the piano. Please feel free to comment below, I would love everyone's opinion as to whether or not you think he is singing "les" open or closed (there are a whole bunch of "les" starting at about 1:55) :-)
With questions, comments or suggestions, you can get in touch with me here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com
Thursday Sep 27, 2012
Episode 64-17th Century French Diction
Thursday Sep 27, 2012
Thursday Sep 27, 2012
Olivier Bettens takes us through the pronunciation of French in the 17th Century with a scene from Armide. We talk about some exceptional words that are the same in modern pronunciation, alexandrines, the imperfect verb tense and a fifth nasal vowel. We got through as many rules as we could in the past 2 episodes, but there is a lot of information on this subject, so to find out more, check out Olivier's website, Chantez-vous francais? Armide was written by dramatist/librettist Philippe Quinault and composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully is considered the founder of French opera, even though he was born in Florence, Italy, and only moved to France when he was 14! Quinault was a playwrite, but in 1671 he contributed to a libretto that Lully set and from that point on only wrote libretti for Lully's works. The text for this episode is in a separate post. I'm leaving for the States tomorrow for a week, but I'll be back next Sunday and will post another episode shortly thereafter! In the meantime, please feel free to contact me here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com NB: In this episode, I pronounced Lully's name incorrectly--the "p" in Jean-Baptiste should have been silent! I'll correct it for future downloads, but for people who downloaded it previously, make sure to take note and not follow my mistake. Many thanks to Jason Nedecky for noticing!
Thursday Sep 27, 2012
Episode 64-Text
Thursday Sep 27, 2012
Thursday Sep 27, 2012
Here is a pdf file of the Armide text for Episode 64, 17th Century French Diction with Olivier Bettens. Enjoy!