What does Mr. Smith believe the microphone does for the Bel Canto Pop artist?
It allows the audience to hear “delicate refinements of melodic line and vocal inflection, minute shadings and subtleties of enunciation and phrase.” Such “preciousness” in classical singing (Miller) would seem to be the vocal miniaturism of Liederwurst. Does Mr. Smith really believe that Frank Sinatra would call himself the great bastion of Bel Canto? I imagine Frank would be too modest. I believe that Mr. Smith is confused. First and foremost, Bel Canto was/is a school of VOCALISM and agrees with Miller’s statement: “The potential for communication of the poetry and the music depends upon VOCAL SOUND, not on parodistic vocalism.” The kind of communication of the text which pop singers use is considerably less centered in vocalism. The album, “Classical Barbra”, which Streisand released, is a curiosity at best. It neither intended nor presented any serious competition to Tebaldi, Caballe, Sutherland, or De Los Angeles!! The exhaustive search for maximum vocal quality which the Bel Can
