Klarinet Archive - Posting 000710.txt from 2003/02
From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net> Subj: [kl] Live Auditions on our local "Public Library" Channel 17 Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 08:11:29 -0500
AnneLenoir wrote,
>It aggravates me to see "emotioinless, expressionless"
>clarinetists. I don't know why. It's just downright
>aggravating.
I'm not sure when that video was made, and I don't know whether that
performance was typical of Sharon Kam onstage (then or now). She may have
been playing the role of a student fantasizing during an audition, when in
reality she was already a professional performer by then. I thought that
the maker of the video did a fine job of presenting the idea that what goes
on in a performer's head may be very different from what the audience sees.
I have mixed feelings about visibly emoting during a performance, because I
keep thinking of violinist Jascha Heifetz, aka "The Great Stone Face."
Although his face was no fun to watch, his playing packed plenty of
emotional power. He put everything into the music instead of the stage
appearance. I heard an interview with him in which he said that putting on
a show would distract him from the music. (I don't think my violin-playing
husband ever watches a violinist's face, anyway. He's watching the bowing
arm and the left fingers.)
OTOH, I prefer the modern trend in opera, to require singers to learn how
to act their roles. In that case, the drama is *part* of the music and the
music is incomplete without the play. I have some videos of historic
performances in the old style, from the first half of the 20th century,
when typically singers would approach a big aria by moving forward, facing
the audience squarely, planting their feet wide, spreading their arms and
belting it out, regardless of the dramatic circumstances. That works fine
for a diva-bitch character like the Queen of the Night, but it's ludicrous
for Mimi!
Lelia Loban
lelialoban@-----.net
Please note new address!
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