Anita's Singing In The Singing

My favorite part of the opera would have to be the duet present in Act I, shared between the two main characters, Rodolfo and Mimi. To hear these two characters singing in unison was "music to my ears". Mimi, the soprano, hit all her notes beautifully and seemed to run smoothly through her parts. Rodolfo, who represented a tenor, expressed emotion and great character. This piece was where I seemed to become engulfed in their early blossoming relationship. I became entranced in their vocals and at times I would replace my self with Mimi's character. The orchestra and the singers flowed together in a way indescribable creating a level of great intimacy. I have always been extremely impressed with the human voice. I value it as one of the most treasured instruments.

“On Broadway, although some female roles are narrow, demeaning, passive, or long-suffering and convey weakness, the performer sings with incredible strength. Listening to the female singing voice is a more complicated phenomenon. Visually, the character singing is the passive object of our gaze. But aurally, she is resonant; her musical speech drowns out everything in range. A singer, more than any other musical performer, stands before us having wrested the composing voice away from the lyricist and composer who wrote the score.” Said Musicologist Carolyn Abbate (Wolf, p.31)

Two women from two different backgrounds have so much in common yet they are so different. One grew up in Houston, Texas while the other grew up in Saint Michael, Barbados. Even though these two women have had very different up bringing the one thing they have in common is their great voices. These two women’s background, musical style, and other career ventures make them both two of the best female artist in their field.

Each of the following excerpts, Act 2, Scene 2 from Siegfried by Richard Wagner, “Habanera” from Carmen (Act I, Scene 5) by Georges Bizet, and “Non So Piu Cosa Son” from The Marriage of Figaro (Act I, scene 4) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, present many different reflections of gender and gender stereotypes. In this short essay, I will address how each piece uniquely reflects gender, by discussing elements such as character dress, orchestral accompaniment, timbre, and body language.

Women’s music came from radical, grassroots origins in the 1970s thanks to contributions by brave women, mostly lesbians (Mosbacher, 2002). These women used non-violent, peaceful force to forge their own way into the music industry. It was a peaceful yet political revolution of togetherness and liberation. It brought together women of different backgrounds who produced easy-listening, mellow harmonies played with lyrics filled with tumultuous

2. "… there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour." (p. 11)

Over history many people have risked their life for the greater good of other people. In the novel Audacity by Melanie Crowder, Clara a Russian Jewish girl coming to America is going to do just that. It is the year 1903, and many people are fleeing their homelands to come to America looking for a better place to live and succeed. Clara wants to be an independent woman who can study and become a doctor. When coming to America she is timid but, still has dreams of making great of herself and go to college. These dreams are difficult to keep when she is forced to work. She goes to the sweatshops and finds all the horrible things going on in the shops, which causes Clara to become disillusioned. This creates a determination to change the rights of the working woman.

The theme of gender is presented to the audience as dramatic irony as well, since this play was written in 1912, the play shows how women were in that certain period of time, they didn’t have as many rights, they weren’t treated equally with men, in fact they were seen to be lower than men. However in the time that this play was written which is 1945 women had a lot more rights due to the fact that when men left the country for war, which according to Mr.Birling wasn’t supposed to happen, all the women were the people who looked after the country and kept it going, women became more interdependent and the society just grew and became a lot more open minded with their thoughts. JB Priestly has tried to show the importance of women in the play as well in the play as well at some places but very indirectly, like in that part where the inspector says, “There are a lot of young women living that sort of existence in every city and big towns in this

Pauline Kael’s review in her use of quotes is in contradistinction to the narrative of the film Yentl.Barbra Streisand’s singing voice can take an audience farther into the character of Yentl,and the expression of her feelings.For instance,the original motion picture soundtrack,Yentl include songs,sung by Streisand,but was written by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman.These songs are I quote “The Way He Makes Me Feel” and “No Matter What Happens,”played on contemporary electronic instruments.These two songs were in the narrative accountability in the film Yentl .On its own comes across as a group of isolated musical plot highlights rather than it being played as a coherent song playlist in the form of a chronicle.Altogether these two songs previously stated in this paragraph was provocative in my own paradigm.Due to the fact that,it sets a nice arrangement of scenery in the film Yentl as I was viewing it on YouTube as a clip during my own spare time.Not only that,these two songs affected me in a way that made me want to study the behaviors of women in the near

Maria couldn´t go home by herself because she is a women and things can happen to her. Many of the men feel like they have to be cautious around Maria. Maria wanted to stay and dance with the Sharks and Jets but had to go home because it's too dangerous for her to stay. Therefore, the men didn’t listen to what Maria wanted to do because the men expected maria to listen, because men knew better. The women weren’t asked to leave , but instead ordered and forced to leave. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet's father told her she has to marry Paris, because she is a women and she has to listen to him. The story in Romeo and Juliet said women are the weaker vessel, therefore if men do not act brave or strong they are considered feminine. Back then, women were not allowed to go fight in wars, and act like a man. Instead they had to do womanly things like clean houses and cook for their spouse. That is a stereotype on what women should do. Rosie the riveter is an image for women to look up to. Rosie supported the women who worked in factories, showing them to never back down, she represented the strong women, who get stereotyped for doing manly jobs. There, are many strong females that are as strong or strong than men. Gender can play a big role in

Women in the movie do not have their own character. A male image of women,”O's women are representative, pictorial, existing as images in the male characters' consciousnesses. ”(Phares). Women in the movie are exactly what they are perceived as, while in the play they have a voice and can do their own things, In “O” women are just background characters until they are needed.

The tone is yet another area that should be examined when trying to fully understand a song. In the olden days, the tone is the attitude towards the lyrics. One tone is assertive because when Demi Lovato singings “Cause this is my ground/and I am dangerous/and they can get out/But it is all about me tonight” (Lovato 23-26), she wants people to feel assertive of the skin they are in and the life they have. Another tone is candid because people have to be able to be candid about them. The lyrics have a candid tone when Demi Lovato sings, “So you say I am complicated/that I must be outta my mind/but they have had me underrated/rated, rated” (Lovato 14-16). The International Encyclopedia of Depression states, “Depression in childhood, compared

Katherine Bergeron’s book, Voice Lessons: French Mélodie in the Belle Epoque, approaches French art song in a new and unique way, making it an invaluable resource for art song scholars and performers alike. Bergeron’s goals for this book are primarily abstract in nature; she aims to tell a story “about that French sound, both what it was and how it got that way” (viii). To achieve her vision, Bergeron examines the mélodie through a variety of different lenses, including musical, vocal, aural, linguistic, literary, scientific, philosophical, and cultural angles.

The Song ov Elmallahz Kumming is a narrative poem in 6 books. In this, the first book, Elmallah, a divine messenger, is sent to Ertha to awaken her. Although she dwells as a shadow in a shadowy wilderness, Elmallah is instructed to liberate her latent beauty, power, and desire. In the process, attracted by her beauty, Elmallah loses his way in her world.

Shakespearean plays are often sprinkled by dramatic speeches consisting of soliloquies, asides, and monologues mostly performed by the characters needing to directly express their intense emotions. There is a clear domination of the male voice within Othello whose accusations and thoughts tyrannize over the truthful, innocent women. The male characters are given a privilege of authorial speech and can engage with a directness and openness unchecked by society. It is an entitlement or advantage female characters are often stripped of, which unfortunately gives them fewer avenues of true, open expression. In a scene absent of the more dominant male characters, Desdemona chooses a form of lyrical expression, instead of that of a dramatic speech, even within an environment of female intimacy. Using lyrics is a form a form of disguised expression for Desdemona, who may be limited any other