Another factor that helps is the nature of the sound produced by an opera singer. Opera singers traditionally use much more vibrato—a slow, cyclic variation or "wobble" in pitch—compared to orchestral musicians. This helps the signal processing within our auditory system to distinguish the voice of a singer as something quite different from the surrounding instrumentation of the orchestra. Furthermore, it is quite likely that there has been considerable selection pressure to pay attention to very loud sounds produced by people in any context, as such sounds can be a warning of impending danger.
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Add CommentThis answer seems like it must be incomplete. Besides frequency sensitivity, I think probably we need also to invoke the human capacity of selective attention--as in attending to one conversation out of many at a party. Otherwise, some piece of a singer's voice spectrum seemingly would have to become faint or disappear behind the greater power of the orchestra in that frequency range, and so the quality of the voice would vary as the orchestra became loud or silent, and as the differently pitched instruments joined and left. Possibly though we are "imagining" rather than attending some of vocal spectrum we hear above the orchestra, because of an established psychophysical effect, by which subjects hear a "virtual" fundamental within the acoustic spectrum of a plucked string, for example, even when removed electronically or when lower in frequency than they show sensitivity to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are correct. Marcelo Alvarez for instance has a sizeable voice but never the less disappears behind the orchestra very often--which is probably why he isn't the superstar most people thought he would be. His sound is too "yawny" and therefore doesn't have the overtones a great tenor would have. Pavarotti on the other hand utilized all his upper harmonics (the bright sounds in his voice) to always be heard while maintaining the darker/warm qualities in his voice by keeping the air flowing freely. This kept his voice in that "beautiful", yet powerful spot at the same time it was bright and ringing. The article is very informative overall and I believe speaks correctly in all matters of why opera singers (at least the good ones) can always be heard over the orchestras. He not only gives scientific explanations but also psychological.
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