Abstract
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) is widely considered one of history’s most important theatre practitioners. His principal fame comes from his development of actor training principles that aimed for a more psycho-physical approach to performance. The ‘System’ Stanislavski developed is focused on the ‘art of experiencing’ - asking the performer to utilise their conscious thought and action in order to indirectly access psychological processes otherwise out of their control (i.e. emotional and subconscious behaviours). The desired outcome of Stanislavski’s System is to create a believable, emotionally expressive and authentic performance. While Stanislavski’s work has left a prominent legacy in the theatrical world, little formal research has been done in investigating how the System may be used in the context of an art song recital. This project has attempted to do a small part in remedying this scarcity of research by laying out a practical framework which the classical singer may use to apply Stanislavskian principles to the preparation of song cycles. This brief dissertation begins with a short explanation of the song cycle genre and Stanislavski’s work before going on to establish a song cycle preparation framework based on the four phases of working on a role laid out by Stanislavski himself: “getting to know it, experiencing it, embodying it, making it effective.” There is also some discussion of how these ideas for song cycle preparation may also be applied to song collections that do not specifically fall into the song cycle genre. The framework has been utilised in the performance preparation of four song cycles and has undergone adaptations based on this. While the framework presents a step-by-step guide for song cycle preparation from beginning to end, it is noted that individual elements of the framework are also effective performance preparation tools in isolation, empowering singers to apply the tools and ideas that they believe will be most successful for them in creating truthful song cycle performances.