Corona & Chiaroscuro

This glorious 18th century dome in the 12th century church of S. Michele Arcangelo is located in Bevagna, Italy, where I had the pleasure of singing with Umbrian Serenades this summer.

The Romanesque S. Michele Arcangelo was made over in high Baroque style in the 18th century and subsequently restored to its original appearance in the 1950's, the domed chapel surviving, perhaps, because of its virtuosic craftsmanship. When I first saw it after walking through the unadorned nave, I thought: "This is the essence of chiaroscuro." Light illuminating darkness, the term applies to the art of painting as much as it does singing. In the latter, it has everything to do with the perception of tone.

Narrow windows in our concert space let in just enough light to give the impression that, in a darker age, the room was womb-like and full of mystery.

Domes, arches, vertical architecture and high ceilings with strategically placed windows in all these these spaces impel one to look—no—think and feel upwards. It is the same with beautiful singing in an earlier age. Old world pedagogues often talked about the dome at the back of the mouth while making a circle with a hand above the head—telling students to sing into the corona and spin, spin, spin the tone.

In terms of the corona of the sound, Margaret Harshaw taught students that the “mask” of the singer started at the upper lip and extended to the crown and occipital lobe of the head.

Your mask starts here!

She would say, pointing to her upper lip.

"It ends here!"

Pointing the the back of the head.

Need I say that this is a matter of listening and feeling?