This chapter explores the voice as a complex, expressive instrument. It begins by outlining voice types, techniques, and styles – ranging from opera to musical theatre and popular music –  before looking at the relationship between language and music, and finally exploring the nature of idiomatic vocal writing and so-called extended techniques. The chapter finishes with a nod to the future of vocal music by briefly thinking about the voice in conjunction with electronics.

Debussy’s operatic aesthetic is defined as much in relation to the traditional genres of French opera as in relation to Wagner or naturalism. His style is built by both assimilation and opposition – the two processes can be simultaneous. The assimilation process, considered as a more or less visible and conscious form of appropriation, is the most commented on in the case of Pelléas et Mélisande: what Wagnerian processes does Debussy retain in his score? How does he integrate earlier styles into his writing? What elements of Russian music may have influenced him? And so on. The opposition process is less often analysed, for it is not confined to the rejection of a work, but hinges on this work by responding negatively to its musical concepts. With Debussy, negation becomes a powerful creative operation. One of the peculiarities of his personality is radicalism, amplified by the search for an ideal and uniqueness. To write is to gradually eliminate the easy solutions, the surplus, the conventions.

Unless one had a personal fortune like Ernest Chausson, it was difficult for composers at the end of the nineteenth century to live solely from their profession. Most of the time they supplemented their income through a position at the Paris Conservatoire or in a musical institution, such as the Paris Opéra, or by making a living as a performer. However, Debussy throughout his life did not fall into any of these categories. The comparison with composers who won the Prix de Rome in Debussy’s lifetime is very enlightening in this respect. Reading Debussy’s correspondence might suggest that he was a poorly paid composer who was always short of money. If in the first years of his career he had a difficult time of it, he became, thanks to Pelléas et Mélisande, a famous musician enjoying a comfortable income. A change in lifestyle linked to his remarriage and a difficult divorce, plus the absence of other operas in his catalogue, explain the spiral of indebtedness that kept increasing right up to the end of his life.

Wagner’s influence was enormous in the period up to the start of the First World War, and even then it did not disappear altogether. His musical impact on Debussy has been widely explored and discussed, but this chapter surveys the broader context for Wagner in France. His presence is felt in the development of psychoanalysis, the French novel, painting, and, of course, in music. Wagnerism paradoxically challenged France’s sense of identity and yet was used to reinforce the emergence of a distinctly French voice. It is often said that the Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire (1890) – difficult music for both listeners and performers – marked the high water of Wagnerian influence on Debussy’s style, but this chapter shows that it is more compelling to speak of creative manipulation than of imitation.

Now referred to nostalgically as the Belle Époque, late-nineteenth-century Paris was a paradise for all those who loved a night out on the town. As contemporary tourist guidebooks promised, one could enjoy the city’s bustling street life and lively cafés, revel in its raucous balls and unruly dance halls, be dazzled by the latest music-hall acts and dreamy romantic comedies, and delight in any number of spectacular theatrical extravaganzas. Debussy was a night owl, well acquainted with Parisian nightlife. His favourite haunts included café-concerts and cabarets, operetta theatres and music halls, band concerts and the circus. Like many of his contemporaries, he not only sought amusing diversions in these eclectic and adrenaline-charged establishments but was also inspired by the whimsical fantasies and sensual delights they offered. This chapter offers a glimpse into the popular venues and novelties that Debussy discovered on his nighttime perambulations through Paris, providing a window into the world of popular entertainment that coloured many of his works.

Bernstein mentioned Kurt Weill on only a few occasions, and yet his career as a composer for the stage followed a similar path. In particular, he created works that transcend the boundaries between opera and commercial theatre, tackling socio-political topics while writing melodies that reached the mainstream. This chapter traces the influence of Weill on Bernstein, who encountered Die Dreigroschenoper as a college student and would go on to conduct the premiere of Marc Blitzstein’s English adaptation, The Threepenny Opera, in 1952. The specific aesthetic traits which Bernstein absorbed from Weill’s scores are illustrated through comparative analyses of numbers from Trouble in Tahiti, Candide and West Side Story with, respectively, Lady in the Dark, Die Dreigroschenoper and Street Scene. Motivic, harmonic and structural elements of intertextuality reveal that Weill’s formal experimentation tilled the soil for works of music theatre that could be both indigenous and worldly, sophisticated and accessible.