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Emily Olin, Singing in Russian: A Guide to Language and Performance. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2012. Cloth, xix, 233 pp., $70.00; ebook $69.99. ISBN 978-81088116-7 www.scarecrowpress.com
For decades, vocal music was routinely performed in translation. Schubert lieder were performed in French in the salons of Paris, and recitalists in New York regularly sang mélodies in English. Russian music was no exception. The Revolution of 1917, and the resultant cultural barrier between the East and the West, discouraged the presentation of Russian vocal music in its original language until the end of the Cold War-long after audiences had grown accustomed to hearing a multitude of languages from the performance platform. Today, however, classical singers are expected to be proficient in Russian lyric diction, and Olin, a Russian native, offers a comprehensive guide to the subject.
Singing in Russian is based upon the premise that spoken language is different than sung language. For instance, language textbooks often emphasize vowel lengths. For singers, this is unnecessary, because the length of the sound is determined by the note value. On the other hand, singers must familiarize themselves with vowel reductions-such as neutralizing unstressed vowels-which is not a critical consideration in spoken language. Olin, who has taught Russian for Singers at the Yale School of Music for nearly twenty years, offers guidance to singing beautifully and accurately in a language that often intimidates vocalists and...