A Tentative Probe into Vitas’s Art
Written by Modigliani & Translated by Susan
There is no denying that Vitas now enjoys overwhelming popularity in China.
The style of Vitas’s music falls somewhere between “high art” and “pop art”. On the one hand, he demonstrates a virtuosic command of vocal techniques no inferior to that required for classical operas and he has an extraordinary vocal range that spans nearly five octaves. On the other, the lyrics feature fairly catchy rhymes that make his songs amicable and endearing. In the field of pop music today, which is almost dominated by the young, Vitas is only one of them, a singer in his twenties. However, he managed to rise to fame pretty early, that is, over seven years back and during this time, his style, apparently, has undergone tremendous, even fundamental, changes, judging from all the albums released and major live concerts he has given. The writer herein approaches the analysis of Vitas’s art in the light of the music videos of the title tracks of his albums released in chronological order, including “Opera #1″, “Opera #2″ from Philosophy of Miracle (2001), “Smile!” and “The Blissful Guru” from Smile! (2002), “Star” and “Mama” from Mama (2003), “The Bird of Happiness” from The Songs of My Mother, “A Kiss as Long as Eternity” from the album bearing the same name, “Lucia Di Lamermoor” and “Shores of Russia” from Return Home I (2006), and “Crane’s Crying” from the latest album Return Home II (2007).
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