Perfect Italian Diction for Singers

Book excerpt: Perfect Italian Diction for Singers: An Authoritative Guide provides the steps and tools for singing beautifully and expressively in this language. Timothy Cheek and Anna Toccafondi systematically home in on the essential features of the most beautiful Italian, pitfalls of non-native singers, and how to overcome those issues. In addition to delving to the heart of Italian sounds and inflection, they present controversies, misconceptions, and various approaches—often conflicting—that have arisen throughout the last century. Chapters also address: Italian style and legato Best use of supplemental resources and dictionaries Recitative with suggested, short Mozart excerpts Working with text Singing diphthongs, triphthongs, and hiatus Also included are a plethora of audio and video examples and exercises (over seventy QR codes), exercises for group or self-study, and self-assessment summaries. This book will help singers and students lay a solid foundation in beautiful, lyric Italian.