Spanish Identity and the Development of International Operatic Culture

This paper will examine the ways in which Spanish opera singers contributed to the homogenous international vocal style that developed in the 1950s and 1960s.  This new vocal style was a reflection of the growing middle-class affluence and political power in post-World War II Western Europe and the United States.  Opera has traditionally been associated with social and political power; attendance of opera performances, the consumption of operatic recordings, and a popularization of opera in general were part of the expansion of the post-war middle classes, and Spanish singers played a key role this middle-class adoption of opera as a marker of social standing.  Spain had not developed a nationalist operatic culture during the nineteenth century; due to this fact, Spanish singers and were therefore able to engage in roles that singers trained in the nationalist styles of Italy, France, or Germany could not.  Victoria de los Angeles, Montserrat Caballé and Plácido Domingo were at the forefront of a new vocal style that eschewed proper diction in favor of a neutral style that could accommodate several nationalist styles of opera—a vocal style necessary in an era where the expansion of airplane travel meant that singers had truly international careers for the first time.  Spanish singers were key players in the development of the full-length opera recordings that first became feasible during the 1940s and 1950s due to technological innovations such as long-playing records and stereo recording, which helped to popularize opera music among the middle classes.  The failure of Spain to develop a nationalist musical identity during the age of nationalism in the late nineteenth century was directly responsible for the rise of the less aristocratic postwar operatic culture that still dominates stages today.