Vocal Technique Shaping Baroque Opera

Italian Baroque singers shaped entire operas around blooming vowels and virtuosic breath, while French singers

built theirs on consonant clarity and speech-like rhythm. Italian vowels are open and sustained,

so singers developed long cantabile lines with dynamic airflow and natural vibrato as expression.

That technique demanded da capo arias, extended melismas, and room for improvised ornamentation.

French treated vowels as quantitative, favoring steady, smaller airstreams and vibrato as

ornament, not constant color. Castrati and star sopranos dominated Italian opera because their

high tessitura and agility drove the drama. French opera cast natural voices,

dessus and haute-contre, optimized for diction and integration with chorus and ballet. Technique didn't just