I love this rant!!! As a side note to TS: I do agree that there is a lot of bad teaching of big voices going on, and I also quite agree that it's just as bad to recommend rep that's too light for a big voice as it is to give anyone rep that's too big. I do. But I do think that the lighter voices are more common, and I see so very many young, small-voiced singers trying so very hard to be huge voices. I come from a particularly small-voiced favouring part of Canada, where the choices are: coloratura, light lyric/soubrette, VERY BIG VOICE. It's like they can't distinguish between sizes of voice beyond Zerlina or Zerbinetta; it's all just BIG. Or better still, if you're a soprano or tenor with a big voice, then they'll try to make you a mezzo or baritone!
I absolutely agree with all of the bad, imitational singing done by young singers and the over-arching desire to have the biggest voice EVER. People seem to confuse "large" with "good", and also volume with the actual size of the voice. People don't get that just because a voice produces lots of ringing, vibrant sound does not mean that the voice itself is enormous. Some of the loudest voices I've heard were shrill coloraturas whose voices could have taken the paint off the walls and certainly shattered your champagne flute, but still weren't "big voices" per se.
I like this rant.
