Conference Presentations by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Musical theatre is an idiosyncratic offspring of two performing arts giants: Music and Theatre. W... more Musical theatre is an idiosyncratic offspring of two performing arts giants: Music and Theatre. When musicals become academic case studies, an array of theoretical frameworks, research methods and critical approaches is employed. As a result, an impressive medley of terms conceived initially to serve other academic disciplines and performance genres is utilised to articulate, explore, and highlight complexities and peculiarities in musical theatre productions.
Although terms such as triple threat, chorine, belting/belter, eleven o’clock number, and showstopper have proclaimed their unique connection with the performance of musicals and are embraced by academia as bona-fide musical theatre terms, others articulated directly by people working in the industry are often deemed as a “lesser lingo”. Their use (always in quotation marks) asks for justification and further explanation. During my interviews with professionals, I have often encountered terms such as: “high wattage", "bleed", "option-up", "cheat", "push-and-force-and-grip", "jawbratto" and "mangenue" (all connected to voice delivery), "fancer" (concerning movement) and “resi" (regarding musicological structure). The rationale for their use usually describes their distinctive inevitability within the musical theatre genre.
Furthermore, new important neologisms and terms are proposed by scholars. Ben Macpherson’s ‘simuloquism’, a term that helps to articulate complex relations in biomusicals (2020), and Jean-Marie Lecomte’s identification of the disenchanted musical (2008) in Mamoulian’s Applause are two examples that illustrate the necessity of more customised concepts when researching musicals.
Inspired by Frayling’s (1993) ‘research into, for and through art ’ (p.5), I put emphasis on the missing from and, by opening up the ‘for’ to a broader audience, I propose the development of a musical theatre-dedicated vocabulary that articulates the idiosyncratic nature of this genre effectively to scholarly and non-scholarly readers. This provocation will draw from interviews, archival research and literature review to discuss idiomatic definitions, denotations and their efficacy in communicating musical theatre’s hybridity in performance and audience experience.
In 2016, Dawn Bush, a British professional actress and trained classical singer, wrote in her onl... more In 2016, Dawn Bush, a British professional actress and trained classical singer, wrote in her online post: ‘Where are the roles for older people in musical theatre? [...] Talent, I might be able to compete with, but I can’t turn the hands of time’ (mtasonline.com), setting forth a poignant and bitter observation: older female actors struggle to work in musical theatre.
“To be old and female is to be of no interest’ Harriet Wallet states in 2004 and again in 2009.
The female ageing 21st century musical theatre performer consists of a multiple voice self:
- the inward resonating-in-the head voice which forms the fundamental ageless vocal inner-self equipped with acoustic persistence and disparate from one’s external identifying attributes (Connor, 2000).
- the outward produced voice, the offering from the voicer actress to the voicer character and then to the audience; a voice that is and is not at the same time.
- the ‘automated’ voice (Baker 2016), the rectified, ‘beautified’ voice; the product of a digital vocal calibration which is applied as a standard procedure to recordings and live performances and aims to ‘mend’ ageing (along with every other vocal ‘imperfection’).
What is the wonted ‘consistency’ of the characterisation of a ‘beautiful’ voice in musical theatre? Does the sociocultural notion that advanced age in women communicates ugliness and degeneracy (Stoddard, 1983), (Perry, 1999) affect the way female voices are experienced in musical theatre? Should we recede to the acquiescence that by antagonising with an implied preference to the youth the ageing female musical theatre vocality is stripped from its original identity and shaped by stereotyped preconceptions of how an ageing voice should sound?
This provocation will trace implicated influences on aural perceptions and will argue for a critical listening ‘sieving’ by teasing some of the components that synthesise listening attributes, with the intention to re-position the vocal re-presentation of the ageing female musical theatre performer towards intergenerational creative contribution and reinvention.
The successful female ageing in a neo-liberal, western socio-cultural and political hegemonic nar... more The successful female ageing in a neo-liberal, western socio-cultural and political hegemonic narrative is dictated by an incessant struggle against ageing. The ageing female singing voice (which yet needs to be re-coded, re-defined and re-positioned) has been described as a ‘broken voice’ (Baker, 2016) and a ‘failing voice’ (Yarnall, 2017) arising from an ageing body with ‘symptoms’ (Woodward, 2006), and is struggling to claim its rightful presence in the 21st century youth-exalted popular musical performances. Ageing female singing voice faces the risk of becoming a disengaged insinuated vocalic body, stripped from its original identity and shaped by stereotyped preconceptions of how an ageing voice should sound.
In this paper I trace implicated influences on aural perceptions and I argue for a critical listening ‘sieving’ by teasing some of the components that synthesise listening attributes, with the intention to re-position the vocal re-presentation of the ageing female performer towards intergenerational creative contribution and reinvention.
When faced with an established social agreement, ‘the resistance to change would be determined by... more When faced with an established social agreement, ‘the resistance to change would be determined by the difficulty of finding persons to support the new cognition’ (Festinger, 1957, p.27). How can we critically investigate assumptions and biases? How can we support a new cognition in musical theatre against the dissonant neglect of female ageing voices and towards reinvention?
Taking into account the revival of Follies (Sondheim, Goldman) (2017, 2019, National Theatre), the 2018 - 2019 UK tour of the Calendar Girls (Barlow and Firth), and the Broadway Bounty Hunter, (Iconis) a new musical which follows a 60 years old ‘down-on-her luck actor’(mr.joeiconis.com), this provocation will question and challenge intergenerational perspectives on musical theatre performance.
Publications by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Journal of interdisciplinary voice studies, Dec 1, 2022
Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies
Review of: Ageing and Contemporary Female Musicians, Abigail Gardner (2020)London and New York: R... more Review of: Ageing and Contemporary Female Musicians, Abigail Gardner (2020)London and New York: Routledge, 154 pp.,ISBN 978-1-31517-041-1, e-book, £36.99
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Blog, 2019
Book Reviews by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
December 2021Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies 6(2):225-228 , 2021
Papers by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Studies in musical theatre, Jul 31, 2023
IASPM@journal, Mar 18, 2024
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Conference Presentations by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Although terms such as triple threat, chorine, belting/belter, eleven o’clock number, and showstopper have proclaimed their unique connection with the performance of musicals and are embraced by academia as bona-fide musical theatre terms, others articulated directly by people working in the industry are often deemed as a “lesser lingo”. Their use (always in quotation marks) asks for justification and further explanation. During my interviews with professionals, I have often encountered terms such as: “high wattage", "bleed", "option-up", "cheat", "push-and-force-and-grip", "jawbratto" and "mangenue" (all connected to voice delivery), "fancer" (concerning movement) and “resi" (regarding musicological structure). The rationale for their use usually describes their distinctive inevitability within the musical theatre genre.
Furthermore, new important neologisms and terms are proposed by scholars. Ben Macpherson’s ‘simuloquism’, a term that helps to articulate complex relations in biomusicals (2020), and Jean-Marie Lecomte’s identification of the disenchanted musical (2008) in Mamoulian’s Applause are two examples that illustrate the necessity of more customised concepts when researching musicals.
Inspired by Frayling’s (1993) ‘research into, for and through art ’ (p.5), I put emphasis on the missing from and, by opening up the ‘for’ to a broader audience, I propose the development of a musical theatre-dedicated vocabulary that articulates the idiosyncratic nature of this genre effectively to scholarly and non-scholarly readers. This provocation will draw from interviews, archival research and literature review to discuss idiomatic definitions, denotations and their efficacy in communicating musical theatre’s hybridity in performance and audience experience.
“To be old and female is to be of no interest’ Harriet Wallet states in 2004 and again in 2009.
The female ageing 21st century musical theatre performer consists of a multiple voice self:
- the inward resonating-in-the head voice which forms the fundamental ageless vocal inner-self equipped with acoustic persistence and disparate from one’s external identifying attributes (Connor, 2000).
- the outward produced voice, the offering from the voicer actress to the voicer character and then to the audience; a voice that is and is not at the same time.
- the ‘automated’ voice (Baker 2016), the rectified, ‘beautified’ voice; the product of a digital vocal calibration which is applied as a standard procedure to recordings and live performances and aims to ‘mend’ ageing (along with every other vocal ‘imperfection’).
What is the wonted ‘consistency’ of the characterisation of a ‘beautiful’ voice in musical theatre? Does the sociocultural notion that advanced age in women communicates ugliness and degeneracy (Stoddard, 1983), (Perry, 1999) affect the way female voices are experienced in musical theatre? Should we recede to the acquiescence that by antagonising with an implied preference to the youth the ageing female musical theatre vocality is stripped from its original identity and shaped by stereotyped preconceptions of how an ageing voice should sound?
This provocation will trace implicated influences on aural perceptions and will argue for a critical listening ‘sieving’ by teasing some of the components that synthesise listening attributes, with the intention to re-position the vocal re-presentation of the ageing female musical theatre performer towards intergenerational creative contribution and reinvention.
In this paper I trace implicated influences on aural perceptions and I argue for a critical listening ‘sieving’ by teasing some of the components that synthesise listening attributes, with the intention to re-position the vocal re-presentation of the ageing female performer towards intergenerational creative contribution and reinvention.
Taking into account the revival of Follies (Sondheim, Goldman) (2017, 2019, National Theatre), the 2018 - 2019 UK tour of the Calendar Girls (Barlow and Firth), and the Broadway Bounty Hunter, (Iconis) a new musical which follows a 60 years old ‘down-on-her luck actor’(mr.joeiconis.com), this provocation will question and challenge intergenerational perspectives on musical theatre performance.
Publications by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Book Reviews by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Papers by Dr Faye Rigopoulou
Although terms such as triple threat, chorine, belting/belter, eleven o’clock number, and showstopper have proclaimed their unique connection with the performance of musicals and are embraced by academia as bona-fide musical theatre terms, others articulated directly by people working in the industry are often deemed as a “lesser lingo”. Their use (always in quotation marks) asks for justification and further explanation. During my interviews with professionals, I have often encountered terms such as: “high wattage", "bleed", "option-up", "cheat", "push-and-force-and-grip", "jawbratto" and "mangenue" (all connected to voice delivery), "fancer" (concerning movement) and “resi" (regarding musicological structure). The rationale for their use usually describes their distinctive inevitability within the musical theatre genre.
Furthermore, new important neologisms and terms are proposed by scholars. Ben Macpherson’s ‘simuloquism’, a term that helps to articulate complex relations in biomusicals (2020), and Jean-Marie Lecomte’s identification of the disenchanted musical (2008) in Mamoulian’s Applause are two examples that illustrate the necessity of more customised concepts when researching musicals.
Inspired by Frayling’s (1993) ‘research into, for and through art ’ (p.5), I put emphasis on the missing from and, by opening up the ‘for’ to a broader audience, I propose the development of a musical theatre-dedicated vocabulary that articulates the idiosyncratic nature of this genre effectively to scholarly and non-scholarly readers. This provocation will draw from interviews, archival research and literature review to discuss idiomatic definitions, denotations and their efficacy in communicating musical theatre’s hybridity in performance and audience experience.
“To be old and female is to be of no interest’ Harriet Wallet states in 2004 and again in 2009.
The female ageing 21st century musical theatre performer consists of a multiple voice self:
- the inward resonating-in-the head voice which forms the fundamental ageless vocal inner-self equipped with acoustic persistence and disparate from one’s external identifying attributes (Connor, 2000).
- the outward produced voice, the offering from the voicer actress to the voicer character and then to the audience; a voice that is and is not at the same time.
- the ‘automated’ voice (Baker 2016), the rectified, ‘beautified’ voice; the product of a digital vocal calibration which is applied as a standard procedure to recordings and live performances and aims to ‘mend’ ageing (along with every other vocal ‘imperfection’).
What is the wonted ‘consistency’ of the characterisation of a ‘beautiful’ voice in musical theatre? Does the sociocultural notion that advanced age in women communicates ugliness and degeneracy (Stoddard, 1983), (Perry, 1999) affect the way female voices are experienced in musical theatre? Should we recede to the acquiescence that by antagonising with an implied preference to the youth the ageing female musical theatre vocality is stripped from its original identity and shaped by stereotyped preconceptions of how an ageing voice should sound?
This provocation will trace implicated influences on aural perceptions and will argue for a critical listening ‘sieving’ by teasing some of the components that synthesise listening attributes, with the intention to re-position the vocal re-presentation of the ageing female musical theatre performer towards intergenerational creative contribution and reinvention.
In this paper I trace implicated influences on aural perceptions and I argue for a critical listening ‘sieving’ by teasing some of the components that synthesise listening attributes, with the intention to re-position the vocal re-presentation of the ageing female performer towards intergenerational creative contribution and reinvention.
Taking into account the revival of Follies (Sondheim, Goldman) (2017, 2019, National Theatre), the 2018 - 2019 UK tour of the Calendar Girls (Barlow and Firth), and the Broadway Bounty Hunter, (Iconis) a new musical which follows a 60 years old ‘down-on-her luck actor’(mr.joeiconis.com), this provocation will question and challenge intergenerational perspectives on musical theatre performance.