From Opera to Musical Theatre

I tend to specialise in coaching singers who want to sing in more than one musical genre. There are often some major adjustments to be made, and the first thing to change is line. This is the sense of always connecting each note to the previous one at a similar dynamic and tone quality. Opera singing has a few fundamentals - line, gradient, matching tone quality, and projection above a large orchestra. The background to operatic writing as far as I am concerned is music and "instrumental" phrasing. This is particularly obvious when it is sung in whatever the original language is, as many opera audiences do not necessarily understand every word of what is going on. Musical theatre differs in that its background is text and story. There is usually a great deal of spoken text (Les Miserables is an exception), and most musicals use microphones, so the delivery is more colloquial and projection is not as vital.