MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus
Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) K 492
“Hai già vinta la causa… Vedrò, mentr’io sospiro”
Joyce DiDonato, guest professor
Unai de la Rosa Hernández, student
Laïla Barnat, accompanist
After the student sings the well-known recitative and aria of Count Almaviva from The Marriage of Figaro, Professor DiDonato congratulates him on his stage presence and character portrayal. She suggests that they can work on singing the vowels more, because this type of aria can sometimes become excessively declaimed, losing the beauty of the voice and the elegance that needs to be conveyed. To achieve this, they review the text phrase by phrase, focusing on a much more legato delivery and paying attention to vocal placement on the vowels. They seek a rounded sound, interpreting the words freely without strict adherence to the melodic line or tempo, simply allowing a beautiful sound to flow.
For such famous arias, the professor advises against singing them by imitating recordings. For her, the more elegant, beautiful, and spacious the voice, the more comedic and appropriate to the character it will actually be. There is no need to portray the typical angry Count. Since he already has the character integrated, if he practices it this other way for a few months, when he returns to the score, his voice will be more relaxed and have a much broader spectrum in all directions to convey the aria more deeply.
Language: English
