Category Archives: Uncategorized

Terror

One of the most difficult obstacles for any singer is the problem of nerves, no?  A couple days ago I showed a group of voice students the film of Janet Baker’s last year as an opera singer.  Called “Full Circle,” … Continue reading

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Auditions

What is an audition? Literally, a hearing. But since those who are doing the hearing hear from their own experience and viewpoint, what percentage of what we put out there as a singer is reflected in the audience reception of our art? Like the proverbial tree in the woods, our singing can be thought to exist only if it has been heard. But how differently everyone hears a singer! And that includes the ways we hear ourselves. Because we do also hear ourselves, often to our disadvantage as artists. Our best singing comes from connecting with our inmost feelings while we are in the act of singing, something I often call operating from an alpha state (as opposed to the mental energy of a beta state).

This reflection, among many others, is prompted by having see the PBS Great Performances presentation about the Metropolitan Opera Auditions the night before last. Besides the beautiful, highly focussed, and highly committed talents on display in the competitors, several things about the show continue to haunt me. 1) The way almost all of the singers continued to talk about staying focussed as the most important thing about participating in the competition. 2) One of the judges judged one of the finalists as having “a European voice,” and what was meant by that, and what ramifications it had for the outcome. And 3) the striking difference in physical appearance between the three female finalists who one, and the three males (the women being all three even more than saftig, and the three males being perfectly trim — the possible exception being the lyrico spinto tenor Ryan Smith (sadly now deceased: the presentation of the film was dedicated to him). The gender sizing was striking for what it might say about the judges’ and possibly all of our gender stereotyping as it intersects with singing opera.

1) As the competition moved on, the ways in which the singers who were interviewed brought up the subject of focus was striking (one longed to hear the thoughts also of those singers who were not interviewed). Mostly I wanted to hear more specifically what the singers were focussing on, both offstage and on. The most extensive, and most articulate talks were with the exciting young tenor Michael Fabiano, who came off to some people as impossibly self-involved, yet everyone I’ve talked to who felt this way has admitted to forgiving any sense of this the moment they heard his committed, heartfelt singing. He conveyed the greatest sense of how much work it takes to stay focussed on the job at hand: in this case, a ten minute postage stamp delivered before a group of opera experts of a life of study and examination of one’s thoughts and feelings (namely each contestant’s). Each singer’s repertoire choices had to be chosen to show off their personal strong points. At the same time, their arias had to be sufficiently competitive to beat out other people’s strong points. At one point, one of the backstage “handlers” announced with incredulity (I paraphrase), “He’s got a high C and isn’t going to show it off?”

Singers are in every respect at the mercy of their handlers. How is it Madame Galupe Borshk put it? “A singer’s life has four stages: bel canto, can belto, can’t belto, can’t canto; and a conductor will get to stage four as quickly as possible!” Something very much on display in the PBS special was how much influence the many “handlers” at the Met had on crafting not only the presentations, but the actual selections of the singers. (I was particularly impressed with the generous help Maestro Armiliato gave in this regard, with an obvious sense of concern for each singer.) The amount of trust a singer has to have in all the people who influence and also have dominion over his ability to do his job is scarey. The singer can only accurately feel what they do from the inside. How difficult this can be if they are being told what to feel and what to do by many people, some of which they are not familiar with, but are obliged to enter into a relationship of trust with by the circumstances of their being hired to sing on the same stage, or under their baton or direction.

Those of us who provide feedback to singers, to artists young or old, are beholden to make sure our own agendas are put to the side, especially if we are being paid to do so. How difficult this can be when we all have artistic agendas of our own. We must make it clear when our agenda is our own (as in, articulating our own aesthetic viewpoint, which may be somewhat distinct from our student’s.) Meanwhile, the committed singer must focus all of his attention on his inner sense of what is right or wrong for himself and filter all the invading information through that lens. This is the greatest work and the greatest responsibility of all the singer must accomplish — listening to that inner voice — and I believe it is the cause that people perceive a singer to be arrogant when what they really be is simply smart. I have yet to encounter a true artist that is not smart.

2) “A European voice” This was said about one of the smaller-voiced singers, a soprano whose offerings were Handel’s “Tornami a vagheggiar” and Verdi’s “Caro nome.” What does it mean to have a European voice, considering that a majority of the opera artists we traditionally most admire are Europeans? (That is changing, of course). In this particular case, I wondered if it might imply something about the taste of the singer, but I believe what was meant was size of voice. Yet: Did I ever hear a louder singer than Leonie Rysanek or Birgit Nilsson (both Europeans)? Are we talking about the loudness with which one must sing to fill the Met? Or are we talking about the loudness that is EXPECTED to fill the Met? Has anyone sung more pianissimi than Renee Fleming in Der Rosenkavalier? Yet she has risen to the very top of her art. Is she also a European voice?

It’s not saying anything new to assert that the encouragement of loud, louder, loudest is the ruination of so many beautiful young artists. I wish we could silence this voice, yet it has been there since the beginnings of information we have on vocal formation. I sometimes say to my own students who are in their early years, “Art begins with audibility.” Yet, who has not listened with dismay to some of the singing on the Metropolitan broadcasts. Faulty intonation and articulation, an ugly wobbling tone are heard, and unshaped musical lines are regular features when these singers are heard over the microphones. I remember unbelievable disappointment the first time I heard Mirella Freni in live recording this way, having heard her sing so ravishingly time and again in the opera house itself. The voice coming through a digital microphone is not the friend of the larger voices, and when the focus they achieve is also driven by the need to be loud (which a microphone needs not at all), is doubly disastrous. We should be careful to criticize voices in one way on recordings — the musicality, the shape, the color of course — and then report differently when we listen to these same qualities in the context of a performance. Of course, the live performance brings up the aspect of visual presentation as well.

Which brings us back to topic 3). What’s up with the size standard in opera singers? The fact of three large ladies winning and three perfectly fit men winning has something to do with size of voice as well as physical size. Because of the noisier, less focussed tone opera singers generally sing with now, the expectation of the full-throttle, throbbing high notes is just that: an expectation. To get an idea of what I mean by this, and how our expectations of what a high note sounds like has changed, all one has to do is listen to recordings of the most famous singers from one hundred years ago. The female voice is singing primarily in a mechanism (the head voice) lighter than that used primarily by our male voices (I speak of tenors and basses — countertenors are left out of this discussion, but would be included in the primarily head voice mechanism voices). The use of the head voice has diminished in the operatically trained male voices. Meanwhile, as the male voices have pushed more chest up (Tamagno is often accounted the cause of all this, but I imagine Caruso to have pushed things more in this direction), women have been pushing their head voices down, of all things. Again, listen to old recordings. What would be accounted dangerous levels of chest voice are regularly employed by females before 1940. To my way of thinking, the divide between male and female voices has increased, just as have our audience’s acceptance (and indeed enjoyment) of the blending of gender roles onstage. Just think of the 17th and 18th centuries, when woman played the primo uomo and men (castrati) played the prima donna with frequency.

Then, let’s look at what’s going on physically, because I believe this has a physical counterpart. Women can “get away with” being heavy onstage, while men are considered only for buffo characters if they are extremely portly. Physical gender roles are evidenced as more divided than previously, just as vocal gender roles are more divided. This says unfortunate things about what we think of men and women in general. Generally speaking, I find that men who are obese are more apt to be judged as lazy losers than heavy women, who may often even be considered more powerful. Despite the whole outrage and gran scena caused by Debby Voigt’s little black dress, and the talk that you have to look svelte to be cast, what I see evidences is what’s not mentioned, at least as far as I can tell. Women are always brought into the discussion about weight in opera these days. Men are sometimes brought up only if they have gone to the gym a lot in order to bare their chests and look studly on a stage (and they are unabashedly praised for this, while women are not praised in a similar way, I think because it would mean silently censuring the heavyweights). This gender inequity seemed much on display to me on PBS Wednesday night. Continue reading

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Pure Vowels

What are pure vowels and why talk about it? I’m always drawn back to things I have read in singing treatises of centuries past, and one of the most frequently encountered is the admonishment to clarity of pronunciation.  I find … Continue reading

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Monophony

Christmas has always been a strain on my singing body.  Growing up in a boys’ choir at the National Cathedral meant untold hours of singing and few hours of sleep.  Deep down in my cells is embedded a memory that … Continue reading

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Group effort

Last Sunday afternoon (December 20th) I had the enormous pleasure of being a ringer for the superb vocal ensemble Pomerium at their Christmas concert in New York City at All Soul’s Unitarian Church.  I’m not exactly a newcomer to group.  … Continue reading

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Greetings, Fellow Singers and Vocalists!

And that means:  Everyone reading this!  If you can speak, you can sing.  If you can write, you have a voice.  The “voice” I hope to explore with this blog, however, is the organ in our throats, and all its … Continue reading

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