#13 facial expressions in singing

Cecilia Bartoli. Kathleen Battle. Some times, Diana Damrau.

What do these three ladies have in common, besides being examples of perfection of vocal art in their respective fachs?

(SO-CALLED) EXCESSIVE FACIAL CONTORTIONS!

In fact, they at Parterre Box coined Bartolitis for such an occasion where a singer (usually a lady singer, but sometimes Tom Hampson falls to the axe also; weirdly, countertenors are never alleged of this crime - you'd thought with all that falsetto going around their faces would be a war zone) struggles with her cheeks and brows to emit a tone.

I was watching the divine Mag Kožená singing Più non si trovano at Youtube, when I scroll down and detected diatribes against her facial expressions. I don't know why, but these comments incurred a passion in me that I had to stop drawing Microbiology slides - which I have to send in tomorrow! Talk about conflict of interest.

FYI, I like Magda but not too much. Her voice has a kind of unstability that makes one always think it wants to veer everywhere but on pitch. Maybe it's the quick vibrato. Magda is like Debbie Voigt - mezzo version. But I acknowledge her artistry, her industrious talent and her musical scholarship. In the clip she displayed a certain amount of facility in her facial muscles, but not unpleasantly so. This incurred one comment that Her facial expressions ruin it... they're wayyy too distracting. 

The point here is not how the tone is produced. It is easy to forget that the main purpose of everything - technique, training, concentration etc - in Classical singing is to produce a legitimate tone. Beautiful or not, that is another matter altogether - Callas vs Tebaldi, anyone? - but the main purpose of every shit that they do is to produce a tone which responds to every whim of the singer, every beck and call of the score, and maybe a few extrapolated notes here and there. In other words, babeh, the end justifies all means possible.

According to the proper ideals of bel canto - I remember reading a book by an lady Italian pedagogist, who had direct links with the son of Manuel Garcia, Maria Malibran's daddy - the proper position of the lips in singing anything is in a smile. A smile! Tell me, is it proper for a Lucia to be smiling while she's singing the mad scene? She is supposed to be crazy, yes, but should you smile when you're singing Il fantasma, il fantasma? Tell me, is it proper for a Maria Stuarda to smile when she's screaming Meretrice, indegna oscena?

Maybe we should blame TVs and videos of live performance, where cameras and other paraphernalia of visual recording are practically shoved down the throats of singers. Long time ago, the only medium to experience this art was via the theater, where over a long distance any contortions of the face became blurred and the overall effect on the performance as a whole was thus minimal. Over TV, HD performances and DVDs however, even a flick of the jugular is magnified thousandfold, leaving one somewhat exhausted after 2 hours of staring at blowed-up cheeks, wrinkled forehead and oh Lord, beads of sweat, before one lauches into a cavatina.

What I want to say is, if a singer requires that his/her face be contorted in order to achieve a sonorous projection / a big acuti / perfect legato, why not? After all, Classical singing is the art of singing with one's all, from the crotch all the way to the scalp. And if a pursed up lips can help the soprano  a little to reach the high Eb, so what? And finally, who are we to question the artist, who are vessels of the sublime?