Singing Beautifully: The Roots and Fruits of Bel Canto Style by Various, Du (2022/2022)

Guild Hall and Bel Canto Boot Camp’s new Resident Artist Series kicks off with tenor Jack Swanson and soprano Katherine Henly, and BCBC’s Rachelle Jonck and Derrick Goff at the piano in a program of opera, film, musical theater, and song. The recital features a solid dose of bel canto classics, including excerpts from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and Don Pasquale, as well as songs by Rossini and Bellini. Gilbert and Sullivan afford us a stroll through bel canto in English with excerpts from their much beloved Pirates of Penzance. We explore the use of the classically trained voice in music from the 40s and 50s – we visit American opera (Kurt Weill’s Street Scene), music theater (Kiss Me, Kate and My Fair Lady) and cinema (The Toast of New Orleans). With a wide range of repertoire, this program is sure to please lovers of coloratura and crooning alike, while emphasizing the application of the bel canto style of singing in various genres – encouraging us all to tune our ears to the finesse and power of the unamplified voice which the Italians aptly call “beautiful singing.”