Nineteenth Century’s Donizettian Singers and their Contribution to the Development of the Vocal Technique

Abstract

The opera has always reflected the historical times it has been going through. Romanticism brought on stage tragic themes, inspired from history, imposing the typology of the Romantic hero. The dramatic scoring, sketched by the profile of the Romantic roles, induced the need for powerful vocal emission and for wide extension of the vocal registers. A revolution in the field of the vocal technique occurred and new resonating modalities were thereby found. The female main characters dominated the Romantic period and the roles of heroines were entrusted to sopranos, the vocal typology with the widest expressive and technical palette. All opera creators’ general tendency was to confer real identity upon the protagonists. These exigencies turned into expressive connotations with nuances of heroic exaltation, in an innovating technical-vocal manner.