Singing Course: Bel Canto, Caccini to Puccini

Sarah Leonard (soprano), Gavin Roberts (piano)

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Although the term bel canto (beautiful song), has long been associated with the works of such Romantic masters as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, the term was only invented in the later nineteenth-century. The tradition of beautiful Italian singing, the rhetorical delivery of text combined with uttermost flexibility of expression and decorative cantabile, is, however, at once much older and much newer, extending from the experimental monodies of the Florentine Camerata and such seminal figures as Caccini, the operas of Monteverdi and Cavalli, the works of Handel and his illustrious contemporaries to the verismo outpourings of Puccini, Mascagni and Leoncavallo. This course will explore the great bel canto tradition technically and interpretatively drawing on Sarah Leonard’s many years of experience as a singer and teacher. 

Participants should bring three pieces to work on.