Perfect Italian Diction for Singers is an authoritative guide for singing the most beautiful and expressive Italian. This book is the culmination of decades of experience and insights by two noted Italian and American pedagogues and vocal coaches as they systematically home in on essential features of the most beautiful Italian, the main issues and pitfalls of non-Italian singers, and steps and tools to overcome them. Timothy Cheek and Anna Toccafondi provide a step-by-step guide for singing flawlessly in this language, and, in addition to delving to the heart of Italian sounds and inflection, they present controversies, misconceptions, and various approaches-often conflicting-that have arisen throughout the last century for approaching Italian diction. Chapters also address: Italian style and legato Best use of supplemental resources and dictionaries Recitative with suggested, short Mozart excerpts Working with text Singing diphthongs, triphthongs, and hiatus Also included are a plethora of audio and video examples and exercises (over seventy QR codes), written exercises for group or self-study, and self-assessment summaries at the ends of chapters. Careful study of this book will help to lay a solid foundation for communicating in beautiful lyric Italian.
Timothy Cheek has taught Italian lyric diction at the University of Michigan since 1993. As collaborative pianist, he has performed throughout Italy, and worked for nine years in Tuscan summer vocal programs, both at Cincinnati Conservatory's Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca program and at the University of Michigan's spring term program in Sesto Fiorentino. Cheek has written books on Czech lyric diction and opera, and he is the series editor of Rowman & Littlefield's Lyric Diction series. His long association with Italian pianist/coach Anna Toccafondi extends to over three decades of collaboration and consultation. Anna Toccafondi performs regularly in major festivals and theaters in Italy, Europe, and Japan. She recently began a cooperation with the Municipality and the Teatro Garibaldi of Modica (Sicily) for the project Cantare in Perfetto Italiano, Singing in Perfect Italian, a series of masterclasses devoted to foreign singers and collaborative pianists. Committed to unpublished or lesser known compositions of the Italian vocal repertoire, Toccafondi has done research, transcriptions, revisions, and recordings of important composers.
Recorded Examples and Exercises Preface 1. The Basis for the Most Beautiful and Correct Lyric Italian Diction 2. The Seven Italian Vowel Sounds 3. The Essentials of Stress and Length 4. The Pronunciation of e and o 5. The Italian Consonants 6. Double Consonants and Phrasal Doublings 7. Legato 8. Mastering Glides, Hiatus, Diphthongs, and Triphthongs 9. Italian Style 10. Working with Text 11. Best Use of Supplemental Resources 12. Recitative Appendix A. Verb Endings Appendix B. Essential Grammar Selected References Index About the Authors
