So I was at the opera the other night (in and of itself a brief and interesting excursion into the high life), and realized that it appeared the cliche is true - the ladies were sizeable. A couple of questions came to mind immediately:
Is there some sort of physical / mechanical reason that fat ladies make better Opera singers? If not, is this some sort of enduring construction of beauty still hanging around from the hey day of Opera? Generally, what’s up with the fat ladies?
I would dearly love any insights that anyonecan provide.
You’ll notice that male opera singers tend to be sizable, also. Larger people tend to have larger lungs, and more importantly, larger diaphragms (the muscle that inflates and deflates the lungs. Ergo, they can sing louder, and more importantly, a trained opera singer can sing better and louder. Back in the days before microphones, this was obviously essential. These days, it’s mostly a matter of having the “proper” tone of voice for opera, with the standard being that of the pre-microphone generation.
So yes, most women (and men) who perform opera outside of their shower tend to be on the larger side. It’s not a fluke.