The Diction Police

Episode 21

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 as well. I'm a big fan of doing your own transcriptions, but these can be a great free resource to check your work. Here are the links, if you are interested in finding out more about Antoine Watteau (on Wikipedia, or at the Watteau website) and the Fete galante, the Commedia dell'arte or Paul Verlaine. If you want to practice reading French, I found this website called Verlaine 20 poèmes expliquées and had promised to repost the website with liaison rules in French. Please feel free to contact me here, on the Facebook page, or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 20

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 rama de sauce" set by Argentinean composer Carlos Guastavino. In "Bonita rama de sauce", the word that looks like "río" on the Lied and Art Song Text Page is really just "rio", it's just a strange quirk on the page. If you are interested in hearing these songs, there are many YouTube clips of both of these songs, by many different performers, you can find them by going to YouTube and typing in the titles. For those of you who want to know more about the River Plate, here is the Wikipedia article. You can find Spike Jones' "All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" here--remember that this is totally exaggerated, I'm not saying it should really sound like this! But it's a fun way to hear someone whistle through an S and get in the holiday spirit awhile! Please feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions here, on the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 19

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 Duetto. For the text to "Smanie implacabili" click here and scroll down to just before No 11-Aria. In case you want to read about the life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, here is the Wikipedia link. There will be no episodes for the next two weeks since I'll be in the US doing some master classes, but TDP will be back on October 15! As always, please feel free to contact me here, at the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 18

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--I've discovered an older piano/vocal score online here (scroll down to page 58) that uses the old spellings including the hard sign (ъ) which we don't see much anymore. This letter is very similar to the soft sign (ь), and it seems that in the Anthology they use the same symbol for both, which is a little confusing; be sure to check the text with the libretto or the full score here (scroll down to page 115) if you are using this score to learn the aria. While there's never any singing on the actual podcast, I found a YouTube of Andrej singing Lensky's aria in Paris here. I really don't like the staging, but it's fine if you can ignore the woman on stage distracting the audience from the aria! Feel free to contact me here, on the Facebook page or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com with any questions or comments.

Episode 17

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 how to handle the Rs when singing in English. You can find the texts through the Lied and Art Song Text Page link at the right. On this episode, we talked about the standard textbook, Madeleine Marshall's The Singer's Manual of English Diction, which has been around for several decades. I also mentioned Kathryn LaBouff's book, Singing and Communicating in English, which includes separate sections for Mid-Atlantic, American and British pronunciation. A big thank you to everyone who has shared The Diction Police on their Facebook pages, word-of-mouth is the greatest commercial! And also many thanks to the people who have rated this podcast on iTunes, I really appreciate it! As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me here, on the Facebook page, or to write me directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 16

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", scroll down to No. 6-Scène et Récitatif, for Marguerite's "Jewel Aria" scroll down to No. 14-Air des bijoux, the recitative begins just above the aria. If you wanted to check out Podcast Francais Facile, click here--at the top of the page in the main picture you will see links for the levels débutant, intermédiaire and avancé. For the listening/fill-in exercises click here. I did try a few of the exercises, and no matter what answers I gave, when I clicked "check" it told me I got everything wrong! But you can check your work by looking under "voir la correction" to the left under each box. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for me, please write to me at the Facebook page, leave a comment here, or contact me directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 15

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 Text Page. For those of you interested in the German version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock" click here! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them here, at the Facebook page or contact me directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 14

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 ed Aria for "Non mi dir". On this episode, I also talk about 7 steps to learn music and have added a page to this website to list them out and explain them a little more fully than in the podcast. I hope you find them useful! You can find this page by clicking here or following the permanent link to the right. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me here, on the Facebook page, or to write me directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 13 - Special Edition

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 Artist information, chorus auditions, job listings and contact names and addresses throught Opera Source. Musical America, a yearly publication and website, which contains contact information for over 14,000 performing arts organizations in the United States and abroad. Deutsches Bühnenjahrbuch, which is unfortunately still not available online anywhere I can find, but this book contains a comprehensive listing of theaters in the German-speaking countries, plus agencies and all performers working in those theaters (including me!). What the Fach?! The Definitive Guide for Opera Professionals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by Philip Shepard. This book has interviews with professionals working in Europe, lists of agencies and houses, as well as a plethora of information about setting up audition tours and moving to, working and living in Germany. You can also follow What the Fach on Twitter. NYIOP is the acronym for the New York International Opera Auditions. For a rather substantial fee, singers may have the opportunity to sing for groups of international opera company representatives, after a screening audition. The fee pays for the travel and housing of the panel, which is still considerably less than the costs accrued by an audition tour in Europe. While these auditions may not be for everyone, I do have several friends who have either gotten a fest contract, a guest contract or an invitation to audition in an opera house after having done the NYIOPs, so it has worked for some people. There are also NYIOPs set up in several different cities in Europe as well, including Vienna and Napoli. After this I'll be on break for the summer, so the next episode will be posted on August 20, 2010. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions at ellen@ellenrissinger.com Have a great summer!

Episode 12

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 questions or comments, feel free to leave them here, on the Facebook page or contact me directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com