Saturday night opera

[muckefuck]

Saturday night was the annual Rising Young Stars in Concert event at the Lyric. Nuphy and I have watched this grow from a simple Sunday matinee with piano accompaniment and brief explanatory intros to a full-on evening gala with orchestra, supertitles, and borrowed couture. It's nice to have the full orchestra, but I do miss getting to sit on the main floor.

Curiously, the programme was segregated by language (with the exception of one French aria classed with the Italian pieces due to the nationality of its composer). Unfortunately, even though I'd had plenty of sleep that day, the Italian first half was--at best--soporific, at worst physically unpleasant. There was powerful young soprano that thrilled Nuphy, but her voice had such a brassy shrillness that it actually made me shudder with discomfort whenever she really started belting. Fortunately, she was excluded from the concluding selection, the Act II duet from Norma, and this ended up being one of the high points.

Nuphy reminded me that they generally keep the strongest singers for last, and so it proved to be. We finally ended up with some males who could hold their own against the big voices of ladies, even if their diction often left something to be desired. One couldn't form a front rounded vowel to save his life (which is a real problem if you're going to sing in French) and another had never been told that Germans release final stops even when speaking normally, much less when enunciating for the stage; his Korngold selection had the word zurück in it at least eight times, and every time he made it sound like "zu Rüh'".

Comments

Müde bin ich, geh zur Ruh, schließe beide Augen zu.

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

Would you ever pronounce "back" without the "ck" then?

Du bist die Ruh', der Friede mild

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, no. What I would do fairly often is not release the final stop. You know how when to make a "k" sound, there's a little puff of air right after it? (Hold your hand in front of your mouth and you'll feel it.) Try making the sound without that puff of air. Let you tongue make contact with the back of your mouth as you normally would, but don't release it again immediately. Relax it slowly so that no more sound (or air) comes out. That's an unreleased stop, and it's not at all unusual in final position in colloquial English. It is unusual for German, however, which is what made it sound like the "ck" was being dropped completely.

Ruckediguh, Blut ist im Schuh

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that's really hard to do for me. :) I never noticed that until now!

I also had a hard time understanding your explanation at first - it would have been easier if you had skipped the "relax it" part altogether. ;)