The Fach-system: a blessing or a curse?

Academic summary

This is a collaboration project with several international players, among other the soprano and Professor Susanne Schimmack at Haute École de Musique Genève and Marcin Habela, dean at Opera Academy at The Haute école de musique de Genève. The project explore what is called the fach-system in German, which is a method of classifying opera singers according to the range, weight and color of their voices. The system is used all over the world, some places more rigid and dogmatic than others.

In Norway, you also find clear elements of this thinking. A singer is quickly defined as this or that, a phenomenon that many singers find this very limiting.

In this project, this system is analyzed and challenged. Fachs in different countries is compared and discussed. Not many have done this kind of research beforem, the Fach-system is rarely questioned or analyzed in a critical light. Perhaps this project can contribute to creating a movement in a very rigid and schematically system.