UGHHHHH….Pathos….You feel it in your bones when they relay their pain to you on stage.  How can you be someone who does that?  The conveyor of depth and raw emotion.  How can you make it real for your audience?  Maria Callas is my Idol for this.  She moves me theatrically more then anyone I have ever heard.

Take a moment and watch her perform this aria Vissi D’arte from Verdi’s Tosca.  The first moment you see her, before she has even opened her mouth to sing, you know that she is consumed with the emotion of the character.  You can’t even imagine that she is a character and not just unlocking her true self in front of the audience.  She is so vulnerable in her expression.  She is the ultimate conveyor of Pathos.

How can you learn from her?  Well what she was Raw.  Raw in her emotion, no matter what your genre of singing that is something you should try and tap into.  Whether you are singing about love, bliss, or heart ache.

Maria Callas was a Genius performer and could make anyone feel her Pathos within seconds of seeing her face.  Please enjoy Callas and learn from from her:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXwz0gj5fY

Pathos is a term from Greek mythology.  As quoted from wikipedia “Pathos is often associated with emotional appeal. But a better equivalent might be appeal to the audience’s sympathies and imagination. An appeal to pathos causes an audience not just to respond emotionally but to identify with the writer’s point of view – to feel what the writer feels. In this sense, pathos evokes a meaning implicit in the verb ‘to suffer’ – to feel pain imaginatively. Perhaps the most common way of conveying a pathetic appeal is through narrative or story, which can turn the abstractions of logic into something palpable and present. The values, beliefs, and understandings of the writer are implicit in the story and conveyed imaginatively to the reader. Pathos thus refers to both the emotional and the imaginative impact of the message on an audience, the power with which the writer’s message moves the audience to decision or action.”

For more in depth study of the term Pathos please check out:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathos

written by Ariella Vaccarino creator of Voice Lessons To Go (singing lessons on CD) and author of Vocalize!

Want a professional opinion of how you sound?  Sign up for my Vocal Assessment. Then send me a link or mp3 of you singing (audio/or audio visual) with your questions and I will get back to you with my feedback right away.

Friend me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Voice-Lessons-To-Go/113328198690496

Follow me on twitter:http://www.twitter.com/singingvltg