Opera Coaching

Alan Montgomery is the Assistant Director of the Oberlin Opera Theater, and has been a member of the vocal faculty of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music since 1980. He has served as an Opera Coach at the Hamburg (Germany) State Theater, the Whitewater Opera, and other companies, as well as at vocal institutes at the University of Indianapolis and other U.S. colleges. He has authored two operettas and translated many opera texts for performance.

Table of Contents: Acknowledgements and dedication 3 Preface 4 Part One: Techniques Chapter One: Knowing the Score 10 Chapter Two: Recitatives - Practical methods for teaching them 33 Interlude One: Decorum 44 Chapter Three: Planning Coaching Sessions, Playing Staging Rehearsals and Following a Conductor 47 Chapter Four: The Stage Director's Perspective 57 (This Chapter was written by Dr. Victoria Vaughan for this volume and covers the work of the coach and of others from a different perspective.) Chapter Five: The Art of Auditioning 70 Interlude Two: Dealing with the Diva/Divo 90 Part two: Considerations Interlude Three: Comparing Composer Styles 95 Chapter Six: Baroque Operas and Mozart 98 Interlude Four: Straight tones 117 Chapter Seven: The Bel Canto Movement 121 Interlude Five: "Park and Bark" 131 Chapter Eight: Verdi 133 Interlude Six: TheVanishing of Large Voices 147 Chapter Nine: French Opera 151 Chapter Ten: Mussorgsky and the Russians 161 Chapter Eleven: Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss 166 Chapter Twelve: Puccini and the Verismo School 180 Chapter Thirteen: Operettas 185 Chapter Fourteen: Benjamin Britten and Other Modern Composers 190 Interlude Seven: Opera in Translation 201 Chapter Fifteen: Conclusions 205 Appendices 207 Bibliography 235