Marilyn Horne

The rendition of Habanera performed by Marilyn Horne as Carmen from Bizet’s opera is a very interesting piece. Marilyn’s vocal performance was very well done, and included many positive aspects such as, an excellent accompaniment of the orchestra, a vast dynamic range present throughout the song, and the emotion present throughout the entire song. Marilyn sang the piece solo with the accompaniment of an orchestra; which, through their synergy, Marilyn utilized the entire orchestra as an extension of her own voice. The dynamics of her voice was vast, ranging from soft and sweet through bellowing in power; which, invoked expression and set the atmosphere for the performance. The piece was written in French dialect; however, due to the expression

The aspects of Paul’s vocal performance that I noticed was that he had great diction throughout the song, his projection of voice was excellent, and the ranges of notes were limited. The entire performance contained great diction; for instance, when Paul intentionally shortened “blessed” to “bless” you could tell he did it intentionally for the purpose of expression. Paul maintained phenomenal projection of voice throughout the song; therefore, when he shifted the dynamics of his voice from soft to loud you could feel the change. Lastly, the range of notes Paul sang was limited; however, the range limit is not as noticeable, due to his vocal projection. My assumption is that Paul hit the tessitura of the song frequently throughout the performance to maintain the melancholy tone portrayed through the lyrics and guitar

Throughout the piece there were a few notable comments regarding Juan’s singing voice as follows his vibrato is constant and in some cases held for a long time, he is voice is full of expression, and his resonance is absolutely amazing. The vibrato he uses throughout the piece is a little bit excessive; however, there were some words that were held for a long time at a very high pitch that was impressive. I perceived the orchestra and Juan to work together expressively; because, his vocals and the orchestra were interweaving to produce the story of the opera. Lastly, Juan was particular about the notes he belted out through in terms of dynamics. Despite the dynamics of the piece, you could determine which notes he was placing emphasis