The verismo opera style featured music that showed signs of more declamatory singing, in contrast to the traditional tenets of elegant, 19th-century bel canto singing that had preceded the movement, which were purely based on markings in the written music of authors preceding this "era". Opera singers adapted to the demands of the "new" style. The most extreme exponents of verismo vocalism sang habitually in a vociferous fashion, were focusing on the passionate aspect of music. They would 'beef up' the timbre of their voices, use greater amounts of vocal fold mass on their top notes, and often employ a conspicuous vibrato in order to accentuate the emotionalism of their ardent interpretations (this kind of proper "chiaroscuro" technique singing, which promised a great longevity of the voice, that a lot of preceding singers used up to this point in time ).
