# Opera has so much gorgeous music. But the singers sound like shit. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 7, 2016, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182 "2016-03-07T05:23:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/61 "2016-03-08T03:38:09Z")
It’s not my favorite type of music, but I can appreciate the skill, and not even understanding the lyrics, I’ve enjoyed a few. I’ve never watched it live and in person though. I will say that I’d much rather have to sit through an Opera than a Ballet. That just looks ridiculous to me, no matter how graceful or skillfully executed. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/62 "2016-03-08T03:42:18Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > Behrens was not a small woman. There were just a lot of very tall people on stage with her (James Morris is 6’5". Behrens was about half a head shorter.) She looks tiny. And Siegmund had a beer belly. I was really looking forward to this, darn it. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/63 "2016-03-08T03:52:56Z")
Lots of Scandinavians and Finns in that cast. What’s a poor German woman to do? And yes, Gary Lakes is a bit portly. Happens with Heldentenors. (I’m a Heldentenor. That’s my excuse.) ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/64 "2016-03-08T04:10:15Z")
I will say though, that if you’re focusing on physical type, you’re kind of missing the point of opera. The question is how well they sing the roles. Especially with Wagner. There aren’t a lot of people who can do that stuff. You kinda gotta take what you can get. (Second time I saw the Ring at the Met, the Siegfried looked like Jiminy Glick. Except fatter. Which was a massive step up from the first time, where the guy looked the part but couldn’t sing a note.) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/65 "2016-03-08T04:56:56Z")
> [@K364](#): > > Opera has so much gorgeous music. But the singers sound like shit. > Why is that? You say the singers sound like shit. Why is that? > [@panache45](#): > > And I’ve heard opera singers performing in a more intimate setting, and they still don’t sound like pop singers. Who knew? > [@](#): > > Have you ever heard them actually singing pop songs? It’s truly awful; I really don’t understand why some of them insist on doing it . . . especially sopranos. Because your tastes aren’t universal and those performances aren’t done for you. > [@TV\_time](#): > > Opera doesn’t record well. Thus explaining the millions of CDs sold (and before that, LPs and 78s). > [@](#): > > I think there is a tactile aspect to opera that cannot be reproduced. When I was in junior high school, I used to think it was a lot of fat people screaming…but from almost the first note of a good opera sung by professionals in a theater built for it, I was a fan. But it took that live performance to reach me. Good for you. But listening to an opera recording is like listening to an audio recording of a play (or just reading it) vs. actually seeing it. But lots of people enjoy the sound on its own. > [@Evin](#): > > The jocund Gioachino Rossini once said: “How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.” He was probably referring to how demanding and temperamental the stars could be, and how difficult it could be to get them to produce the musical effect he wanted rather than how they wanted to sing. The same thing can occur with actors vs. directors and writers. Having said all that, my appreciation of opera is limited to a few favorites and favorite arias from others. Mostly I listen to instrumentals: symphonies, concertos, etc. Vocal music of any kind engages areas of your brain that instrumentals don’t. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/66 "2016-03-08T16:36:16Z")
> [@Evin](#): > > The jocund Gioachino Rossini once said: “How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.” Rossini would have enjoyed “Opera Without Words” recordings. I used to listen to them, decades ago, before I appreciated the singing. And I’ve seen Hildegarde Behrens live. She was not small. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/67 "2016-03-08T16:40:00Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > The style refers to the singing, not the lyrics. This is what I’m saying. Did you not get that I intended “lyrics sung in an operatic style?” I think everyone else did. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/68 "2016-03-08T19:03:01Z")
Sure, once you clarified. Do you not get that “it has operatic lyrics” is a very unclear way of saying “it has operatic singing”? You still haven’t explained why it’s interesting that people don’t know this, or what it has to do with this thread. ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/69 "2016-03-08T19:36:15Z")
Opera singers, especially women, definitely sound different from contemporary singers, but not “like shit” unless you have a synaesthetic perception of shittiness in their vocal timbre. 😉 It takes years of training to develop that operatic sound, and there are other skills that develop with it in the process, such as better pitch control, higher and lower extremes of range, more vocal power, better resonance, etc. Could an operatic soprano sing Piece of My Heart? Sure, but she’d more than likely sing it in an operatic style. Could Janis Joplin sing Wagner? No, without a lot of training it’d break her voice. One of the things they expressly teach women in operatic singing is to stay in “head voice” (the register you might coo in) as opposed to “chest voice” (the register you normally speak in). This, combined with opening the pharynx and mouth more, creates a larger (not necessarily louder!) sound than, say, a pop singer’s cute, often waiflike chest voice. In classical singing, it was all about being heard and avoiding vocal damage, but in contemporary styles you have to have image and sex appeal, so you have to try to sound pretty (or handsome, as the case may be. The differences in male singers between these classical vs contemporary styles are similar but not as pronounced.) Perhaps the OP is accustomed to this contemporary habit of singers using chest voice for everything, now that amplification makes vocal damage less likely for non-classically-trained singers. But there are good reasons to use classical singing techniques, irrespective of opinions about the resulting sound. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/70 "2016-03-08T19:39:03Z")
> [@umop\_ap\_sdn](#): > > Perhaps the OP is accustomed to this contemporary habit of singers using chest voice for everything, now that amplification makes vocal damage less likely for non-classically-trained singers. But there are good reasons to use classical singing techniques, irrespective of opinions about the resulting sound. Although there are plenty of singers these days damaging their voices. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/71 "2016-03-09T01:02:10Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > The style refers to the singing, not the lyrics. This is what I’m saying. Actually it doesn’t even refer to that. Opera is not a type of music, it’s a type of theater. There’s a world of difference between the operas of Puccini, Wagner, Gilbert & Sullivan, and Townshend. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/72 "2016-03-09T01:32:06Z")
We could argue for days about where the line is–or if there even is a line–between opera, operetta, musical theater, rock opera and whatever, but I’m fairly confident that a linguistic survey would reveal that people use the term “operatic singing” to refer to the particular type of vocal production associated with what you might call “traditional” opera. Certainly that’s how it would be used within the opera and classical community (although most would probably prefer to use the word “classical singing” to refer to that manner of vocal production when not applied to an actual opera, as in Beethoven’s 9th). ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/73 "2016-03-09T02:16:36Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > …These are usually sung in German or Hungarian, neither of which I speak…I’m usually only vaguely aware of the plot, so I usually have no idea what’s being sung… Hang on. Are you saying that the theaters and concert halls in Cleveland (I see you’re in NE Ohio, so I’m surmising) don’t have _supertitles_? They’ve been standard issue at the Met and the City Opera in NYC for over twenty years now. Hell, I went to a performance of _Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg_ in Berlin a couple years ago, and had the option to read the electronic libretto off the back of the seat in front of me in either German or English. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/74 "2016-03-09T02:53:43Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Actually it doesn’t even refer to that. Opera is not a type of music, it’s a type of theater. There’s a world of difference between the operas of Puccini, Wagner, Gilbert & Sullivan, and Townshend. Wagner developed the Reisenwerk,(sp) a combination of music, art and acting. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/75 "2016-03-09T03:09:26Z")
I think you’re thinking of Gesamtkunstwerke. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/76 "2016-03-09T05:45:46Z")
A girl I went to high school with, who was the soprano in the formal choir, had a professional singing career for a few years after she finished school. According to her mother, she once appeared at Magic Mountain in Newhall, CA, and sang the National Anthem, only she gave it an operatic touch. I guess this is something only a soprano can get away with. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/77 "2016-03-09T06:34:20Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > The problem with this theory is that operatic singing isn’t just \*loud. \*It’s an entirely different sound. And I’ve heard opera singers performing in a more intimate setting, and they still don’t sound like pop singers. Have you ever heard them actually singing pop songs? It’s truly awful; I really don’t understand why some of them insist on doing it . . . especially sopranos. > > And it’s not like there wasn’t popular music before amplification was invented. There was always pop music, long before opera. My uncle’s specialty was baroque music; when my mother found him a previously-untrained tenor he was actually bouncing despite being the kind of person for whom the word “sedate” was invented. The paragraph below is paraphrased from memory from his explanations (he died a few years back, and I’m going to miss his explanations til the day I die). When people are trained as “classical singers” they are trained as operatic ones, never for the older styles. When it comes to either the older styles or the later ones, those people are actually mistrained; they need to retrain. Those who don’t accept that the style in which they’ve been trained only fits a very specific type of music are sadly a majority - those who do accept it often end up having careers in pop or rock in which sometimes they go and demonstrate that “oh btw, I used to do opera before I did this,” but it’s still in context. I once watched a TV program in which three famous Spanish tenors sang Christmas carols, in theory inviting the viewers to join. Plácido Domingo and José Carreras were impossible to follow, you could barely recognize the songs; Alfredo Kraus was the only one who sang with his family and in a normal voice - yes, they sounded better than your average family, but he wasn’t going anywhere normal people couldn’t reach. His Christmas carols were well-sung Christmas carols, not voice exhibitions. Kraus’ daughter Patricia… she does the “Iiiiiiiiiiiiii’m an ooooopera siiiiiingrrrrrrr” when singing pop. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/78 "2016-03-09T09:26:47Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Hang on. Are you saying that the theaters and concert halls in Cleveland (I see you’re in NE Ohio, so I’m surmising) don’t have _supertitles_? > > They’ve been standard issue at the Met and the City Opera in NYC for over twenty years now. Hell, I went to a performance of _Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg_ in Berlin a couple years ago, and had the option to read the electronic libretto off the back of the seat in front of me in either German or English. Sure, but for German/Viennese or Hungarian operettas, you have to schlep to the Ohio Light Opera in Wooster . . . who perform everything in English. It’s not the same. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/79 "2016-03-09T15:28:45Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > […] > Kraus’ daughter Patricia… she does the “Iiiiiiiiiiiiii’m an ooooopera siiiiiingrrrrrrr” when singing pop. That’s wrong. She should know better. Singers aren’t supposed to draw consonants out, just vowels. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/80 "2016-03-09T15:44:56Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I once watched a TV program in which three famous Spanish tenors sang Christmas carols, in theory inviting the viewers to join. Plácido Domingo and José Carreras were impossible to follow, you could barely recognize the songs; Alfredo Kraus was the only one who sang with his family and in a normal voice - yes, they sounded better than your average family, but he wasn’t going anywhere normal people couldn’t reach. His Christmas carols were well-sung Christmas carols, not voice exhibitions. Kraus’ daughter Patricia… she does the “Iiiiiiiiiiiiii’m an ooooopera siiiiiingrrrrrrr” when singing pop. Patricia Kraus has never been, nor (as far as I know) ever marketed herself as an opera singer. She’s a soul/jazz/blues singer. There is nothing operatic about her singing. If you think [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TlANRhyO38) sounds operatic, I humbly suggest you don’t know what “operatic” sounds like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182.md?page=5)