‘Beautiful’ Singing in Vienna Symposium and Workshop

We are delighted to announce the ‘Beautiful’ Singing in Vienna Symposium and Workshop, a four-day event exploring bel canto singing practices from 1750 to 1900, as part of the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project The Shock of the Old: Rediscovering the Sounds of Bel Canto 1700–1900.  

The title’s inspiration draws upon the long nineteenth-century concept of beautiful performance (schöner Vortrag) as elucidated in pedagogical texts such as by Louis Spohr, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and Carl Reinecke. The Discovery Project investigates the sounds and practices of bel canto by engaging with early recordings alongside historical treatises, working with singers worldwide. In 2023, the project ran a very successful module on early recording emulation. This was followed in July 2024 with two modules exploring 19th-century bel canto through the teachings of two significant vocal pedagogues: i) Sonifying García: Sounding performing practices elucidated by Manuel García (1805–1906); and, ii) Sonifying Corri: Re-imagining the sounds of bel canto through the singing advice of Domenico Corri (1746–1825). 

The research team and presenters consists of world leaders in bel canto, historically informed performance, practice-led methods, and music science from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney (Australia), Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University (Australia), Western University (Ontario, Canada), and the University of Music and Performing Arts (Vienna, Austria). This event continues the project’s goal to establish an international singing community that will foster and influence change in classical singing. 

Event Highlights

The Songs of Auld Lang Syne: Domenico Corri’s vocal teaching in 18th century Scotland

Domenico Corri was one of the many Italian musicians who worked in Britain in the late 18th Century. As Nicola Porpora’s last student, he brought with him, to the singers of Edinburgh in 1771, knowledge of the vocal pedagogy of the Neapolitan school of singing which produced artists such as the great castrato Farinelli. 

Corri’s publications, A select collection of the most admired Songs, Duetts Etc (1782) and The Singers Preceptor (1810) provide musicians with detailed information about classical era performance styles and my current Ph.D. research project is designed to illustrate how Corri’s ideas can be used by singers today, and to show how these ideas influence my own practice.

Indeed, either an air, or recitative, sung exactly as it is commonly notated, would be be a very inexpressive, nay, a very uncouth performance; (Corri, 1782)

I will present a choice of repertoire from Corri’s publications in an open-rehearsal format which includes discussion with the keyboard player and observers on significant musical and vocal directions in the editions, including the use of messa di voce, leaping appoggiatura, the turn grace, cadenzas, observation of Corri’s breathing indicators and implied tempo modification. We will also examine the problems of using the materials in their current available formats.

Mhairi Lawson

Mhairi Lawson has been singing professionally since the early 1990s and has performed worldwide with Period Instrument Ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, The Orchestra of the 18th Century, The Academy of Ancient Music, The Dunedin Consort and The Early Opera Company. Mhairi’s discography includes Haydn’s Canzonettas and Scottish Songs (First Recording on period instruments, with Olga Tverskaya and Rachel Podger), The Creation (with the Oxford Philomusica and New College Choir), Schubert Lieder (with Eugene Asti) and Purcell’s Fairy Queen and King Arthur (with The Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh). Mhairi teaches Vocal Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Historical Performance Practice and Voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she is also a PhD Candidate, researching Domenico Corri’s works, supervised by Professor Cormac Newark, Professor John Butt (University of Glasgow) and Dr Brianna Robertson-Kirkland (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

Elizabeth McCormack

Scottish mezzo, Elizabeth McCormack studied at the National Opera Studio, London. She is a past winner of several competitions and bursaries including the Scottish Opera John Noble Bursary, the Decca-Kathleen Ferrier Prize and was Scotland’s representative in Cardiff Singer of the World 1993.  She performed Flora in La Traviata with Antonio Pappano and Karolka in Jenufa with Sir Simon Rattle at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris and La Cenerentola for Castleward Opera. For the Opera Bastille, Paris, she performed Parsifal playing the part of the Second Flowermaiden and in La Clemenza di Tito she played Annio to Ann-Sophie von Otter’s Sesto. Elizabeth sang regularly with Scottish Opera, creating the role of the Daughter in The Vanishing Bridegroom (also at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), and also with English National Opera, Opera North, La Cenerentola in Ireland and Britten’s Lucretia & Nancy in Canada. More recently, Elizabeth has played the role of Ruby in Nigel Osborne’s one-woman opera The Queen of Govan for Scottish Opera and performed in Osborne’s Differences in Demolition in Bosnia and Vienna. Elizabeth joined the RCS as Lecturer in Vocal Performance in 2015. She is passionate about teaching and developing young singers to become well-rounded performers.
The Songs and Sounds of The Songs of Auld Lang Syne: Domenico Corri’s vocal teaching in 18th century Scotland presented on 16th December 2024 at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria.

Corri’s performance instructions in Purcell’s Bess of Bedlam: how historically informed harmonic cello accompaniment alters our understanding. 

Much research over the past twenty-five years (Walden, 1998; Bacciagaluppi, 2006; Whittaker, 2012; Toft, 2013; Suckling, 2015; Metzger, 2024) has shown that in earlier times cellists were expected to harmonize and improvise accompaniments in secco recitative performances just as their keyboard colleagues did. In fact, by the early 19th century, when keyboard instruments were often absent from the opera pit, the cello + double bass duo was one of the most common recitative accompaniment options in Europe.

In this workshop I will collaborate with Anna Fraser and Mhairi Lawson to present different versions of Purcell’s Bess of Bedlam with the performance indications given by Domenico Corri in his second volume of his Airs and Duets. We seek to discover how a historically informed approach to declamatory recitative delivery can influence the choices made by recitative accompaniment improvisations on the cello. Inversely, we will explore how a historically informed recitative accompaniment by a cellist might encourage the singer to gain new insights into her understanding and execution of these instructions on declamatory vocal execution

Hilary Metzger

Hilary Metzger is principal cellist of Teatro Nuovo (Will Crutchfield and Jakob Lehmann), rotating principal cellist of Anima Eterna Brugge and Opéra Fuoco (David Stern), a regular member of l’Orchestre des Champs Elysées (Philippe Herreweghe), and a frequent chamber music collaborator with members of these and other period instrument ensembles. She teaches historically informed performance at the Pôle Aliénor in Poitiers and at the Jeune Orchestra Atlantique Masters degree program in Saintes. In 2020, she received a residency research grant from the Orpheus Institute to study secco recitative realization by cellists in the 19th and the 21st centuries. Her articles on historically informed performance practice in the 19th century have been published by Brepols, Microsillon éditions, the American Rossini Society and Performance Practice Review.
Corri’s performance instructions in Purcell’s Bess of Bedlam: how historically informed harmonic cello accompaniment alters our understanding presented on 18th December 2024 at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria.