Getting in on the act

Old operatic conventions will no longer do, says Igor Toronyi-Lalic: no more parking and barking

Caricatures are often instructive. Those that acquire legs will offer a crystallised version of the truth. The hoary send-up of opera, for example — the lardy singers, the stilted poses, the outstretched arms — is representative of a historic reality. Opera singers did once park and bark. Character was once illustrated through stock gesture and semaphore. The presumed impossibility of mastering both the singing and the acting meant consigning half the art form to the dustbin.

‘How can you act if you have to hold a sustained note for six measures in the middle of an emotional climax, with your eyes glued on the conductor?’ asked Florence Easton, the English soprano, who was the Metropolitan Opera’s darling during the interwar years. Even Verdi recommended that singers didn’t consume themselves too much in characterisation, stating that ‘a single lung is rarely strong enough for acting and singing’.