Between Speech and Song: Aspects of Hybrid Voice in Twentieth-Century German Opera

At the turn of the twentieth century, operatic singing in the German-speaking world remained deeply influenced by the Italian tradition, which implied a lyrical vocal style that prioritised technical precision, tonal beauty, and expressive clarity. From the 1910s onward, composers increasingly and systematically explored vocal techniques that blurred the boundary between speech and song, referred to here as the 'hybrid voice'. These approaches emerged from a complex interplay of symbolic, a...