BWW Blog: Jakob Creighton - 17th Century Pronunciation

My apologies for not publishing this week's blog sooner!

To roll or not to roll. That is the question.

When singing English Baroque works, the biggest conflict is whether to roll the "r". 30 years ago, the general consensus was "Yes", but today there is much more debate surrounding this topic. The hard part is when you can't actually roll your "r" like you're supposed to... (This information courtesy of the Vocal Director, Monette Gould).

The other dilemma is... how to pronounce the words. Now, this is something many people struggle with... Particularly when an opera score separates the words, like "pi-e-ty". Of course, without the dashes, it is "piety". But it can be misleading.

Another example is "Phoebe". During rehearsal, I kept thinking "There's no Phoebe in Greek or Roman Mythology, so why is there mention of her in the lyrics? Could it be Phebes?". Afterwards, I went home to figure out this dilemma... it turns out there is, in fact, a "Phoebe" in Roman mythology, however it is not pronounced like Phoebe on Friends. The "b" is pronounced like a "v", so it sounds like "Pheevee". It's the Greek pronunciation of the name. For information's sake, Phoebe is known in Greek mythology as the Titan goddess of prophecy and oracular intellect due to her association with the Delphic Oracle. I have to admit the oddest thing about the mention of Phoebe is that she doesn't seem to exist is Roman mythology... She's only present in Greek mythology. The inclusion of Phoebe shows that the base material is either clouded by Greek mythology (which is the reason why there's little knowledge of origin stories in Roman mythology) or the writer clearly wasn't aware that Phoebe isn't present in Roman mythology. I believe it is neither. I believe that the writer purposely included Phoebe in the Sorceress and Witches' scene for a reason, knowing full well that Phoebe is not present in the mythology used in the remainder of the opera.

I also realized that there is no "Phebes", it's Thebes.

I hope to have my next installment later this week!! (There may even be a rehearsal clip included, so stay tuned!!)