Re-imagining Brazilian Portuguese IPA: A practical guide utilizing Paulo Maron’s new opera Lampião
Abstract
How often have North American singers considered singing art songs or opera arias in Brazilian Portuguese? How many Brazilian Opera composers do voice students and faculty outside of Brazil know? The lack of language familiarity of Brazilian Portuguese is a barrier to Brazilian vocal music’s accessibility and performance. And the challenging learning curve may contribute to the lack of interest non-native speakers may have toward Brazilian classical music. To help address this problem, the author decided to promote the accessibility of the Brazilian Portuguese repertoire of vocal music by re-imagining/simplifying sections of the Brazilian Portuguese IPA table. This simplified table coalesces phonemes from the Italian, French, and North American English IPA tables and diction concomitantly to a significant reduction of symbols compared to the Brazilian Portuguese IPA established in 2005.
This reflective guide will apply practically the concepts and rules from this simplified Brazilian Portuguese IPA table through the transcription of the one act opera Lampião written by Brazilian composer Paulo Maron. In order to contextualize Brazilian Portuguese vocal music and Maron’s opera, a brief overview of Brazilian music, language and culture will contextualize elements that introduce North American anglophone singers to elements that are important to the performance of Brazilian vocal music and the Brazilian Portuguese texts they employ.
This guide is universally applicable and directed to anyone working with music students or to the students themselves for private study. It is the author’s hope that this re-imagined/simplified Brazilian Portuguese IPA table will facilitate the engagement and performance of Brazilian Art Song and hopefully the production of Brazilian operas outside of Brazil.