POINTAGE
THIS, as I have said, is the technical term given to the modification or rearrangement of the notes of a phrase, so as to bring it within the natural capabilities of the artist singing the rôle. A few illustrations will make the nature of pointage clear.
In Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, although it is written in a different style from his former works, whence less necessity for interpolations and modifications, occurs the following terrible passage for the principal baritone:
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Every vocalist knows the difficulty experienced in singing very high tones to different syllables, each requiring a different conformation of the buccal cavity. The passage quoted—expressing Tell’s bitterness at the recollection of his past sufferings in prison, “Well I know the weight of galling chain”—has to be declaimed with great energy. So far as the relative value of the notes is concerned, it is entirely ad libitum, the rhythmical figure in the orchestra having ceased one half-bar before. It is said that Dabadie, a basso cantante rather than baritone, to whom was entrusted the rôle of Tell on the first production of the work at the Opéra, Paris, on August 3, 1829, finding it impossible to sing the phrase as written, had recourse to a professor. He advised the pointage given later. This change became traditional, and has since been followed, except, it is said, in the case of Massol, who succeeded Dabadie. He, being possessed of a very sonorous voice of exceptional compass, was able to give the phrase as written. This change, or pointage, must have been heard by Rossini, and so must have been tacitly approved by him. This is the change made by Dabadie:
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In Italian lyric theatres, pointage becomes necessary in many French operas, owing to the prevalent custom of allotting to contraltos certain rôles written for soprano and known as “dugazon rôles” (from Madame Dugazon, who created the type). The parts of Siebel in Faust (Gounod), Urbain in Les Huguenots, Stéphane in Roméo et Juliette (Gounod), are all written for soprano, and when sung in Italian require not only transposition of the principal airs, but the use of pointage in passages where transposition is impossible owing, for instance, to the participation of other characters in the scene. Thus the air sung by the page Urbain (Les Huguenots) on his entrance is sung in the French theatres as written by Meyerbeer, i.e., in B flat. In theatres where the Italian version is given, this air is transposed a third lower into G, necessitating later numerous pointages, for the reason already given.
I said that many deviations from the printed text are the work of the author, or are authorized by him. A moment’s reflection will convince one of the truth of this statement. The singer chosen—usually by the composer himself—to “create” a rôle, i.e., to interpret for the first time some part in a new opera, generally studies it with the composer, or under his direct supervision, and thus learns, directly or indirectly, his ideas as to the meaning, style of execution, tempi, etc., of the music. Very often during rehearsals, when the composer begins really to hear his own work, he makes modifications in certain passages, alterations of the words or suppressions of the notes that are either ineffective, or lie awkwardly for the voice. But the opera has already been printed for the convenience of the singers and choristers studying the rôles and choruses; consequently, such modifications, rearrangements, and “cuts” (as excisions are termed), do not find their way into the published scores.