Coloratura
Fast ornamental sequence in singing.
What it means
Coloratura (German Koloratur) is the German form of the Italian term coloratura and designates a fast, ornamenting sequence of notes in singing. Several notes are sung on a single syllable of text, often as a run, a sequence of leaps, or a chain of trills.
The word goes back to colouring: the melody is, as it were, coloured. From this basic meaning the present-day sense has developed, which puts technical agility in the foreground.
Coloratura differs from melisma by degree — melisma generally means several notes on one syllable, coloratura an agile, virtuoso manifestation of it. It differs from the instrumental run in that breath and vowel determine the execution.
As a voice-type designation, coloratura soprano means a voice geared to such parts.
In the notation
Coloraturas stand written out in small note values, beamed, and under a slur that indicates belonging to the syllable. The text stands under the first note of the group. In music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, parts of the ornamentation are not notated but were supplied by the singer; modern editions occasionally suggest additions in small print.
Musical use
Coloratura belongs to opera, oratorio, and cantata practice since the seventeenth century. In the Italian opera of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it reaches its greatest extent and at the same time serves expression: joy, wrath, and triumph are depicted by agile lines. It is also widespread in sacred music, there often on words that carry meaning.
Other names
Coloratura is the Italian form. It designates both the art of ornamentation and, in connection with a voice type, the coloratura soprano.
Performance practice
Practise slowly and take care that every note is audible before you increase the tempo. Plan the breath for the whole figure, not only for its beginning. Keep the vowel the same throughout the coloratura so that the line does not fall apart. And work out the goal note: a coloratura without a recognizable goal sounds like an exercise.