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University of California develops anti-Covid-19 mask for opera singers

2021-03-18T14:37:34.707Z


The fruit of a collaboration lasting several months between the costumers of the San Francisco Opera and the establishment's medical department, this “lyric mask” allows singing without constraints.


We are creating a new trend!

», Laughs Anne-Marie MacIntosh.

No matter how funny they look: for the Canadian soprano interviewed by the Californian media outlet KQED, the new special masks developed by the San Francisco Opera and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) are as daring as practice.

They are above all essential.

Because if putting on a mask does not pose a problem for violinists, harpists or percussionists, deciding whether or not to wear one is a question still posed by the voices of opera, caught between the inconvenient qualities of its use and the real desire for protection.

Read also: The battle of European operas against the Covid

More accustomed to handling dashing vests and careful drapes intended for the stage, the costumers of the San Francisco Opera have been working since last June to develop masks specially designed for the singers' rehearsals, to allow them to sing, normally. or at the top of your lungs, while remaining protected.

A long-term work set in motion by Sanziana Roman, professor of medicine at UCSF.

A former soprano converted into medicine, it was out of the question for her to stand idly by in the face of the health aporia the opera world has experienced.

"

I realized that we needed a mask that allowed people to come together in groups, to rehearse and to be in the same room,

" she told NBC.

Free the voice

The result of several months of studies, tests and adjustments, a first prototype has just been presented last week to the singers of the San Francisco Opera.

With a curious horn-like appearance, halfway between a strapped manger and a fabric beard, the lyrical mask was made from materials usually used in corsets.

The clothes, however, do not make the monk, and behind the somewhat wrinkled appearance of the device is indeed a sanitary mask, as reliable as it is practical.

"

They can sing loudly and rehearse like they're not wearing a mask,

" said Galen Till, head costume designer of the San Francisco Opera, during a demonstration.

They have a very good structure which prevents them from touching your nose or mouth when you sing.

Christopher Ogelsby, tenor at the San Francisco Opera

Anne-Marie MacIntosh, who was able to test the prototype, confirms the advantages of its design.

You can squeeze it under the chin to prevent aerosols from escaping through the bottom of the mask

,” says the soprano in her interview with KQED.

It also has a roll-up section at the bottom, which can be opened to drink water, to avoid having to remove and put the mask back on during repetitions and put yourself and others in danger.

The observation is shared by his colleague Christopher Ogelsby.

"

They have a very good structure which prevents them from touching your nose or your mouth when you sing

", appreciates the tenor.

This ingenious system, first tested with musicians from Sacramento, could ignore bulky conventional surgical masks.

"

It's a technical problem

," Guillaume Fauchère, choir director of the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy, observed in December.

When we sing, there is the constraint of the mask which follows the chin, blocks it, and which blocks the sound.

"

Read also: Vienna, Munich and Chicago orchestras support the Met Opera

Equipped with several layers of protection such as surgical masks, the lyrical prototype designed by Sanziana Roman and her teams does not fall short of health: with a similar effectiveness to that of FFP2 masks, the mask has already been patented and could even be produced in sufficient quantity, to be, perhaps, adopted by other institutions.

A perspective that interests Sanziana Roman.

I would like to make it accessible not only to operas, but also to other choirs, those of churches or schools,

” she explains.

Other models, developed in New York and Japan, could already compete with it, if ever a market for this kind of specialist mask were to develop.

While waiting for the reopening, the backstage of the San Francisco Opera comes to life and slowly comes back to life, while preparations for the reopening show -

Rossini's

The Barber of Seville

, directed by Roderick Cox - are progressing well.

Soon free to shout in due form, the chorus-singers of the orchestra should receive their lyrical mask within a handful of weeks, ahead of the inaugural show scheduled for April 23.

Until then, you don't have to figure out how to protect musicians playing a blast instrument.

Source: lefigaro

All life articles on 2021-03-18

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