# Singing an aria hurts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 29, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240 "2007-11-29T22:51:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/1 "2007-11-29T22:51:56Z")
KQED is running (yet another) fundraiser, and right now they’re featuring _The Three Tenors_. Now, I’m anything but an opera fan, but I do like to hear most solos. I was walking by and Jose Carreras singing an aria caught my attention so I stopped and watched the end. When he finished, he honest to god looked like he was in real pain. Not simply pooped, which I’d certainly understand. But his face was screwed up in agony, as though he was suffering a serious migraine. Was he acting (unlikely imo), or could he have actually done something that hurt? It is possible that his expression had something to do with the song. Pavorotti followed. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/2 "2007-11-29T23:21:38Z")
I didn’t see it, so I don’t know which aria. Everything in opera is larger-than-life, and maybe the anguish of the moment was too much to switch off in an instant. Top-notch tenors are perfectionists, and he may have been horrified that his last high C was a dime off pitch. Or, maybe, like Studebaker Hoch, he was muttering, “Oh, fuck, I’m gonna need a truss!” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/3 "2007-11-29T23:23:37Z")
I believe that performance was shortly after his late-1980’s treatments for leukemia, (lots of bone marrow transplants were involved, and those are known to be wickedly painful) so it is quite possible that he was in pain from that, rather than anything brought on by singing. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/4 "2007-11-30T00:29:23Z")
Opera singing is very physically athletic. If you do it right. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/5 "2007-11-30T00:51:42Z")
**Gotpasswords** probably has the explanation. Any performance is exhausting, any job is exhausting, combine them with the pain of cancer and its consequential treatments, and bloody hell it’s amazing what people can cope with. In response to **lissener** : Yes, opera singing is a very physical act, but I think to describe it as ‘athletic’ is possibly pushing it too far. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/6 "2007-11-30T01:17:54Z")
I tried to find the video. Carreras was on stage alone, with the orchestra of course, until he finished. Then Pavorotti came on right behind him. These guys play with other, but there really is competition, isn’t there? Clapton alluded to that in an interview about the “Crossroads” concert. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/7 "2007-11-30T01:31:44Z")
I did several years of classical voice training and gigged a few times in a semi-pro opera company chorus, and AFAICT, if singing opera is painful then you’re not doing it right. (No cracks about what it means when listening to opera is painful, if you please. ;)) Yes, it’s hard work in the more demanding passages, and you can work up a sweat with the effort. But if you’re actually straining something hard enough to feel pain (or even if you’re straining to a non-painful extent), then you’ve almost certainly got a problem with your technique, which could have very unpleasant consequences ([vocal fold nodules](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_fold_nodule), for example, can ruin a singer’s career and/or require surgery and significant recuperation time). Good opera singing, as with most other physically energetic activities, should involve effort but not strain. If it hurts, something’s wrong. (And if a trained opera singer in front of an audience actually **shows** that it hurts, in a way which clearly doesn’t have anything to do with the emotional mood of the aria, then something’s very wrong.) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-an-aria-hurts/428240/8 "2007-11-30T01:41:10Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] But if you’re actually straining something hard enough to feel pain (or even if you’re straining to a non-painful extent), then you’ve almost certainly got a problem with your technique, which could have very unpleasant consequences [/QUOTE] Absolutely!!! In much simpler words and reasoning, that’s pretty much what I tell 7-year-olds about their bow holds.