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KUHF - Operatic terms Category: General technical and industrial > Opera and operatic terms Date & country: 04/06/2011, USA Words: 23

Aria [AH-ree-ah]
this seemingly exotic word when literally translated simply means

Bel canto [bell CAHN-toh]
literally translated as

Cavatina [cah-vah-TEE-nah]
a type of aria common to Italian operas of the bel canto era. The cavatina is a generally slow, contemplative aria, designed to show off the singer

Can belto [can BELL-toh]
a term for singers whose one-size-fits-all vocal style can best be described as

Cabaletta [cah-bah-LEH-tah]
whenever you hear a cavatina, you know there

Coloratura [COL-oh-rah-TOO-rah]
vocal music that is highly ornamented or decorated with runs, trills, and other vocal acrobatics. Coloratura is also used to describe a singer whose voice is ideally suited to roles calling for such vocal ornamentation. We

Fach [FAHK]
the type of voice a singer possesses, or the repertoire sung by a particular type of voice. The basic voice types are, highest to lowest

Fioritura [fyoh-rih-TOO-rah]
sometimes used synonymously with coloratura. This term, however, describes a decorated embellishment of the main vocal line. For instance, when a melody is repeated in bel canto and baroque arias, the second time around, the singer typically embellishes the melody with fioriture, or fioratura.

Intervallic Coloratura
Coloratura that requires the singer to leap across intervals in pitch during a vocal run, rather than simply going up or down a scale. A musical interval is the distance between two notes. Musicians describe the size of an interval numerically. For instance, the interval from C to F is a 4th. If you move up the scale from C, F is the fourth note you come to. Incorporating such intervals in rapid c...

Marking
In the early stages of rehearsing an opera, when singers are learning their blocking (who goes where at each given moment in the production), they don

Mezza voce [MET-sah VOH-cheh]
literally meaning

Operetta
think of Operetta as Light Opera (although Opera Lite is probably going a bit too far toward pejorative). It generally entails comedic subject matter, and spoken dialogue instead of recitative. What primarily distinguishes Operetta from Musical Comedy is Operetta

Opera Seria [OH-peh-rah SEH-ree-ah]
a form of opera that held sway in the 17th and early-18th century. Opera seria

Passaggio [pah-SAH-jyoh]
literally translated as

Portamento [POHR-tah-MEN-toh]
The Italian word for

Range
The lowest to highest notes an individual voice can produce, or the lowest to highest notes a particular score requires of a singer.

Register
One of several areas of a voice

Recitative [RE-chih-tah-TEEV]
often abbreviated as recits, this is the vocal music in opera that connects the arias, duets, choruses, etc

Sitzprobe [ZIHTS-proh-buh]
This is a term you

Tessitura [teh-sih-TOO-rah]
Within a role

Trill
Where a vibrato is a natural, (hopefully) slight fluctuation in tone perfectly centered around the true pitch, a trill is a vocal effect or decoration, in which the singer fluctuates or

Verismo [veh-REEZ-moh]
a style of late-19th/early-20th-century opera composition, roughly corresponding to the

Vibrato [vih-BRAH-toh]
a naturally occurring, slight pitch fluctuation around a center note. When a voice