Bel canto (Italian for “beautiful singing”, pronounced [ˌbɛl ˈkanto]) is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition. It is used to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830

History of the term and its various definitions

Bel canto refers to the Italian-originated vocal style that prevailed throughout most of Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Quotations

There are no registers in the human singing voice, when it is accurately produced. According to natural laws, the voice is made up of one register, which constitutes its entire range.

Further reading

Brown, M. Augusta (1894), University of Pennsylvania “Extracts From Vocal Art” in The Congress of Women, Mary Kavanaugh Oldham (ed.), Chicago: Monarch Book Company, p. 477

Bel Canto: Historically Informed, Re-Creative Singing in the Age of Rhetorical Persuasion

Revival

In the 1950s, the phrase “bel canto revival” was coined to refer to a renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini

18th and early 19th centuries

Two famous 18th-century teachers of the style were Antonio Bernacchi (1685-1756) and Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), but many others existed.

Teaching legacy

Mathilde Marchesi (1821-1913), a leading Paris-based teacher of bel canto sopranos

Notes

Sources

19th-century Italy and France

The term bel canto is sometimes attached to Italian operas written by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) and Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848).

Detractors

Critics considered bel canto outmoded and condemned it as vocalization devoid of content.

Source

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