Does it matter what opera singers look like?

[rodney_h_d]

Please will somebody explain to me why so many opera performers, both male but especially female, veer towards (and often beyond) the obese.

Please will somebody also explain to me why so many people, both male but especially female, veer towards (and often beyond) the obese.

[Sir Velo]

I found the shape of some of Opera North's recent Valkyries quite distracting, perhaps because their dresses did nothing to conceal various bulges.

http://recitative.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120630-img_0268-2.jpg

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/cdn.operanorth.co.uk/uploads/image_asset/asset/398/cropped_Walkure01.jpg

Please will somebody explain to me why so many opera performers, both male but especially female, veer towards (and often beyond) the obese.

I think some sopranos have claimed that it helps with voice production and projection - i.e. it lends extra weight and resonance to the voice. Of course this could just be an excuse for being unable to control their eating habits.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Interestingly colour (which also might be thought to require some suspension of disbelief) is not an issue for anybody - opera has been colourblind, more or less, since Marian Anderson.

Nice one RT! I've seen quite a lot of productions where this jumps to the eye first off. (Black people in Mozart's late-C18 Spain, Italy or whatever. How likely is that??) But somehow 2 minutes later it doesn't seem to matter.

Rather than taking immediate cliched (e-acute) refuge in "willing suspension of disbelief" I just never cease to wonder how we get so caught up in any theatrical presentation for which we know we bought tickets, we're sitting on tip-up seats in a darkened auditorium, and with a very solid stage-edge right in front of our eyes. How weird is that???

[Written after being mesmerised by B'ham Royal Ballet's Elite Syncopations last Saturday. To the ballet lover I'd guess opera presents few if any problems]

[Flay]

Please will somebody also explain to me why so many people, both male but especially female, veer towards (and often beyond) the obese.

I wish I knew. My waistline has remained at 30-31 inches for the last 40 years.

I see very many obese people and they mostly claim "it's not for what I eat," or "it's my glands."

The only glands to blame are their salivary glands! Observe what the're buying, and what they eat in restaurants, cafés and fast food outlets, and especially what they are drinking. You'll see there is no magic to it. There are rows upon rows of shelves in the supermarkets for confectionery, chocolate-covered biscuits, sugary drinks etc: vastly sweet products all around. And people buy them and scoff them.

Consume an ounce more than you need each day and you will have taken in over 1½ stone excess in a year.

Simples!

[Sir Velo]

Please will somebody also explain to me why so many people, both male but especially female, veer towards (and often beyond) the obese.

It's definitely a growing problem in our society isn't it? We've become so auto-centric that people will not walk anywhere, partly because motorists have been allowed to take over our villages, towns and cities to such an extent that people prefer to jump in their cars for even the shortest of journeys. And, so the problem expands (along with waistlines).

[Flay]

No, Sir V, it is more to do with intake than metabolism. 1 x 330 ml can of Coke = 139 Calories = 22 minutes aerobics or 30 minutes walking according to their own website

But many people buy it in 3 litre bottles, and consume them!

"Low fat" (supposedly healthy) yoghurts are packed with sugar etc etc etc.

[Mary Chambers]

[Written after being mesmerised by B'ham Royal Ballet's Elite Syncopations last Saturday. To the ballet lover I'd guess opera presents few if any problems]

It didn't work that way for me. I was a ballet lover well before I was an opera lover, and I think it caused problems rather than prevented them. In ballet, everyone looks right - that is, as expected. You don't have fat Swan Queens or dumpy Princes. It's totally unrealistic, of course. Everybody is beautiful, or gives the impression of being so. The first opera I saw was quite a shock, because I think I expected it to be much the same, only with singing instead of dancing.

I did once see a Swan Lake with a black Prince Siegfried, and after initial surprise it didn't concern me at all. He was suitably beautiful. (Things could get very complicated with similar casting for Odette and Odile, though.) Oddly, and rather to my shame, I'm still a bit bothered by a Japanese Sugar Plum Fairy or Aurora.

[Black Swan]

Some really interesting comments. This is not a new issue for opera. Debra Voight being dropped due to her weight. I remember many years ago that similar comments were made by the New York Times critics reviewing I believe Manon Lescaut and making some very negative comments about Montserrat Caballe. I don't really feel the sexuality or the gender of the critics is the driver here. I also remember that when Waltraud Meier performed as Kundry at the MET in Parsifal one critic remarked is was the first time he'd seen a singer perform the role who actually looked as if she could seduce someone.

The reviews are over the top but those who can perform, those who can't criticize.

[Beef Oven!]

I once attended a performance of La Boheme at the Royal Opera House, where the 'consumptive' Mimi could've knocked the snot out of Mick McManus if she'd wanted. Just didn't seem right.

[Richard Tarleton]

There is a programme on Sky Arts about the fat opera singer issue which gets repeated from time to time - some interesting interviews inc. with D Voigt and the generously proportioned Sharon Sweet. The contraption on which the latter was wheeled round the ROH stage in Turandot was nicknamed the Sweet Trolley by the stage hands. She was actually very funny talking about what directors tried to tell her to do in the movement department, and how she replied that she didn't do movement.

[Nick Armstrong]

And lest we forget what the law has to say on similar issues, may I remind Honourable Members of the judgment of the Court of Appeal, rejecting Jessye Norman's appeal from a judgment dismissing her libel action against Classic CD magazine, in Norman v Future Publishing Ltd [1998] EWCA Civ 161

You can read the judgment here (you have to enter the 4 digits indicated, into the 'Verification Code' box):

http://policy.mofcom.gov.cn/PDFView?...&libcode=fcase

[teamsaint]

I once attended a performance of La Boheme at the Royal Opera House, where the 'consumptive' Mimi could've knocked the snot out of Mick McManus if she'd wanted. Just didn't seem right.

Are you suggesting that the director in this case just had to wrestle with his/her conscience?


Which rather begs another question about casting.....

[Nick Armstrong]

Are you suggesting that the director in this case just had to wrestle with his/her conscience?

Just had to box clever...

[teamsaint]

Just had to box clever...

Well quite.
Or master the art of Marshalling their resources.

I wonder if they subsequently tackled "the Ring ".
Perhaps they roped in some help.
Might have helped if the had canvassed some opinions first.

Or got their coats......

[Beef Oven!]

Are you suggesting that the director in this case just had to wrestle with his/her conscience?


Which rather begs another question about casting.....