ABSTRACT
This chapter examines in practical terms the intricate relationship of body and voice necessary for the singer’s creative engagement, and the role the body plays in the physical, cognitive, and musical aspects of operatic singing. Using an abstract model, the various layers of physical and mental engagement for embodiment in performance are laid out. The development and practice of the processes embed many of the elements that determine and enhance creative agency when bringing an operatic character to life on stage. Our understanding of the singer’s collaborative creative role in conceiving and shaping our experience of the character can be transformed through an understanding of how the body, cognition, and vocality are linked to produce a voice: what singers actually do to perform. Great opera composers, such as Verdi and Wagner, composed in ways that shape and allow particular types of “singerly” creativity. Though focusing on Verdi and Wagner here, the fundamental framework of embodied cognition outlined has the potential to be applied in a wide range of vocal contexts and to a wide range of repertoire.
