voce, voce, voce
“I think that there will be an increased desire in the future to hear great singing again. Certain operas rise and fall on having the requisite vocal chops, and no degree of theatrical energy or physical glamor can replace this.” So says is IMG Artists Vice President and Artist Manager Matthew A. Horner (known affectionately around these parts as “Little Matthew”) in an interview just published on the arts marketing blog Life’s a Pitch.
Thank Goodness Matthew Horner understands what is going on. The agents are just as frustrated as we are.
A dear Friend works at a major agency in New York who recently auditioned an enormously talented and formidably sized soprano. They confessed after her audition they thought she had a shot to be the next “Voigt” trype soprano. However, They passed on her…the actuality is for the immediate future they would be unable to get her hired at her current weight at the houses that could help her get her experience and ascend to where she belongs. They could not invest any more time, energy, or effort, on an artist who could not be reasonably cast.
A Sad story but this is the state of the Opera world today.
We need great voices that don’t depend on weight for volume. Ponselle was thin in her early years; so was Raisa and so was Flagstad. Neither Martinelli nor Lauri-Volpi was overweight. The same is true of Ruffo and he probably had the largest baritone voice of all time. And remember that Nilsson and Sutherland were not obese. Weight has nothing to do with a voice that’s inherently great. The problem is that such voices have mysteriously disappeared.
There is no question that the voice is the goddess of opera. On the other hand, opera was created by adding music to the theater in order to enhance dramatic or comedic expression and action. The chorus in opera is a copy of the chorus from the Greek theater. Theatricality- appearance and acting- makes opera a thrilling experience. Let’s be honest you purists: a 300-pound Mimi with a formidable voice won’t do in any opera house. A new generation of singers for the best or the worst- Voigt, Netrebko, Fleming, Dessay, just to name a few- combining voice and acting- have created a new paradigm that brings opera back to its roots-theater. If we care only about voices, the opera houses would be empty, and we’d all be listening to celestial voices on CDs and old 33-vinyl records in our high-end-home-theater stereos. BTW, I have at least 50 comlete operas, in 33s, with all the golden voices that I play. My turntable works fine, and needles are easy to find.
a “new generation” the good Papas tells us, in his cute way of lecturing to the unwashed masses as if we know nothing, as if the merry group he mentions are so exemplary.
Corelli looked every inch his pirate status, Olivero WAS whatever she played, Callas, Rsyenak, Stratas, . Acting didn’t just become important and these hacks you mention are anything but real or great. In opera in every season that comes, they advertise their strengths. Right now it ain’t about vocal glamour, it is all about bells and whistles.
Voigt is thin now, and sorru folks, I was never a fan, Dessay’s best years’ are way back in the early 90’s, Fleming is always Fleming, with or without a scent, and Netty, well, we’ll always have her throwing her hair over the stage apron, now that is great acting.
Certain operas rise and fall on having the requisite vocal chops
I think he means “Certain operas succeed or fail at a particular performance based on having the requisite vocal chops” but I spin it as “Operas come and go in the repetory based on whether there’s singers around at any one time period that can do them acceptably”. It’s amazing to me, given how popular they are now, that a good portion of Handel’s works disappeared off the face of the earth for about 150 years or more. I was listening to Faure’s fabboo Penelope the other day, but who has that French style any more? etc. etc.
Voigt is thin now, and sorru folks, I was never a fan, Dessay’s best years’ are way back in the early 90’s, Fleming is always Fleming, with or without a scent, and Netty, well, we’ll always have her throwing her hair over the stage apron, now that is great acting
I read stuff like that and I sit here thinking “If they are so poor in the Top 40 opera stuff they primarily sing, could you please convince them to sing stuff *I* care about like Schreker, Korngold, Zemlinsky and the Italian verismo stuff that’s not Cav/Pag, where if those operas are done, they *never* get major voices to do them, because they’re too busy singing their umpteenth Ariadne”. I’d *love* to hear Voigt sing Els in Der Schatzgraber rather than *shudder* Gabriele Schnaut, Heppner sing Paul in Die Tote Stadt, Fleming sing Heliane in Das Wunder der Heliane etc.
If their voices are too worn to sing Verdi or whoever anymore, send them on to the Birtwistle/Reimann/Second Viennese School rep, where vocal beauty takes a back seat to being able to sing 12-tone coloratura accurately and meeting all the quirky vocal demands like leaps of minor 11ths, like Chris Merritt has done by making a specialty of Aron in Schoenberg’s opera. Oh well….
so much to look forward to…..snort
Mr. Papas blathered:
“A new generation of singers for the best or the worst- Voigt, Netrebko, Fleming, Dessay, just to name a few- combining voice and acting- have created a new paradigm that brings opera back to its roots-theater.”
I am not given to such statements, but anyone who seriously believes this knows nothing about opera or theater and is merely advancing the bromide that the opera “industry” is asking us to swallow.
Miss Voigt has damaged her voice by becoming thinner and her earnest work, even when good, has never had any relation to “theater”. Miss Fleming can play one thing- vulnerable”- which holds her in good stead in 6 or 7 roles but makes her a substandard actress at best in anything else. Miss Dessay , though a very talented comedienne, cannot play pathos without commenting somehow on how hip she in fact is. and her voice is nowhere near its zenith. Miss Netrebko is a stunning woman with a beautiful sound who when enthusiastic can be exciting in the right role but who cannot do justice to thee bel cant op roles she undertakes.
Don’t give us that “new paradigm” baloney the Gelbsters are shoveling. There were many singers in previous generations who could act- 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 60 years ago…
I read stuff like that and I sit here thinking “If they are so poor in the Top 40 opera stuff they primarily sing, could you please convince them to sing stuff *I* care about like Schreker, Korngold, Zemlinsky and the Italian verismo stuff that’s not Cav/Pag…
If only it were so easy. That stuff has the same vocal requirements as the Puccini and Strauss stuff in the Top 40 repertoire that we already lack singers for. The truth is, there aren’t enough big voices to go around; otherwise, the likes of Gabriele Schnaut wouldn’t have the career that they do.
The answer, of course, might be to emphasize repertory that flatters the good lighter-voiced singers that we do have. Then again, if you don’t like Handel or Rossini, that might be a problem.
Weight has nothing to do with a voice that’s inherently great. The problem is that such voices have mysteriously disappeared.
I think, however, that we’ve become too picky about body size in the last twenty years. In an environment in which people can pick on Kate Winslet (!) for being too fat, whatever would they make of a Birgit Nilsson?
Quite. I’m told that Marilyn Monroe was a UK size 16 at the height of her fame. Winslet has probably never been above a 12 in the ordinary course of events.
it really is a shame that korngold is so rarely done. i always thought that tote stadt would have been perfect for a pairing of heppner and mattila with a baritone such as keenlyside thrown in for measure. that would have worked but i reckon that heppners voice isnt secure enough anymore for the demands of the role, but i still think that marie in tote stadt would be right up mattilas alley. its a role that requires an actress-singer, but it is an ungrateful part!
They’re doing Tode Stadt at the Royal Opera next season, but we’re stuck with Nadja Michael. Unlike many, I felt there were some redeeming features to her Salome, but I doubt she’ll be very pleasant in the Korngold.
Korngold is done ENOUGH – more performances and recordings than he really deserves, IMHO, when we haven’t had a home-grown London staging yet of Strauss’s Daphne, Die Liebe der Danae or Feuersnot.
And now, hmmm, Nadja Michael in Tote Stadt. It’s a coreless voice, whatever her acting skills (and I didn’t find those especially notable in the little-doing Salome). I was supposed to see TS in Vienna, but the baritone (Bo Skovhus) was sick, and they replaced it with L’elisir d’amore. So off we went to see Bunbury, oder Wie wichtig ist es Ernst zu sein at the Leopoldstadt Theatre, old hack Otto Schenck as Lady Bracknell. Only lasted an act of that, in any case.
1. Cocky – Nadja Michael’s Salome had only one redeeming feature – she is thin (although even that was made a mockery of somewhat by giving her a 7 veils dance in which she added clothes rather than losing them….I rather appreciated the irony that this was at Covent Garden, who wouldn’t have hired Voigt as Salome for precisely the reason they booted her out of Ariadne….!). Unfortunately the major drawback of Michael’s Salome is that she is not a soprano…sorry if I’m being simplistic, but that rather overrules everything for me…
2) Scaramuccio – they replaced Tote Stadt with Elisir because the baritone was ill??? How thoroughly bizarre….
3) Henry Holland – Fleming would be as inaudible in a live Heliane as Racette was…
Die Tote Stadt might be done to death over your way but I’m still waiting and hoping I will see the first production down here. Besides – if it IS done a lot over you way, and the productions are good, how come we aren’t exactly blessed with DVD’s or recordings of the work? For years it was hard enough to find recorded sets – there are a few more now, but I would love to have a DVD of a really good production.
Kudry’s therapist (2) – Indeed, that was the reason given in Vienna. I’ve also had a Greek Passion pulled in Prague and replaced by a Rigoletto – which turned out to have the best jester I’ve ever seen, guy from Brno called Pavel Kamas, where is he now?
Ruxton – isn’t one DVD of Tote Stadt enough, or is it too poor/cranky for you? Remember, we don’t even have ONE DVD of Martinu’s Julietta, one of the great operas of the 20th century.
Thank you Kundry’s Therapist, I do have a mind of my own, and I found things to admire in Nadja Michael’s voice, however far-fetched that seems to you. I wouldn’t rush back to see her, and I’d rather they didn’t cast her again, but making the best of a less than ideal situation I actually found some of the sounds she made very thrilling, particularly the climax of Salome’s final scene.
Fleming came across very well in the aria from Korngold’s Heliane at the proms in 2007. Perhaps this is no indication of how she could handle the role – I don’t know the rest of the piece, but she was more than satisfying in that excerpt in that particularly unsympathetic acoustic.
That Heliane aria is the easy bit. I was about 20 feet from her at the Prom and she was just crooning…
She was not crooning, come on. She was fabulous that night.
I utterly agree with Nerva Nelli with regard to operatic acting; it’s not the ‘new’ phenomenon that many would have us believe. But it’s not just Gelbsters- plenty of people peddle the myth that operatic acting didn’t exist before Callas.
As far as odd substitutions are concerned, I once got a bonus night off when I was doing rep up in Scotland. A landslide had trapped some of the company out of town, so Ayckbourn’s ‘A Small Family Business’ was subbed at the last minute with McPherson’s ‘The Weir’.
The audience whinged like mad but my god they got the better side of that deal.
Cocky: the bit about Marilyn Monroe’s being a size 16 is at best misleading. To begin with, there is a sort of “deflation” that goes on in women’s dress sizes over the years, so that what was a 16 in 1955 became a 14 in the 1980s and is today a 12 or even smaller. Further, Monroe had anything but a typical “off the rack” figure, with a large bust, quite small ribcage and waist, and very full hips.
Like most actresses, Monroe had to diet in order to look trim onscreen. There are photos of her when she is between pictures when she is maybe 10-15 pounds heavier than her “working” weight, and in one of her most famous pictures, Some Like It Hot, she was pregnant and therefore somewhat plumper than usual onscreen. The “urban legend” website snopes.com did some research that apparently included information from studio costume records and concluded that at 5′ 5 1/2″ tall, Monroe varied in weight from about 120 to 140 lbs.
Now, since we’re talking about opera singers, I don’t think any soprano of medium height weighing 140 pounds would have much trouble getting work because of appearance. Unfortunately there are out there today some very fine young voices trapped in 300 pound bodies, and management is leery about taking them on — not (or not only) because they are hard to place, but also because a manager who takes on a client also takes on her psychology as part of the package. Morbid obesity is a sort of red flag that a singer may be difficult or needy in the relationship with the manager. (Note I say “may be,” but the manager has to try to decide based on the information he has, and a lot of them have been burned by very heavy singers.)
Sorry Cocky – we’re going to have to agree to disagree – the sound was trapped in the back of her throat. I feel so short-changed with Fleming these days – she has the power, but she won’t let us have any of it. Ditto Gheorghiu. Irrespective of Netrebko’s dodgy role choices and sometimes dodgier vocalism, you never feel short-changed with her…
Well, there it is, Kundry’s Therapist. Her performance to me was riveting and sounded full and exciting from where I sat in the stalls. I do know what you mean about feeling short-changed by her, but that concert was not one of those times from my point of view.
Interesting La Cieca, never really thought about that Monroe comment. Just passing on something I had heard, but I’m sure many are grateful to you for illuminating it.
It hadn’t occurred to me that the emotional baggage these larger singers *may* have contributes to the reluctance of managers to take them on. It certainly makes sense to me though.
Truthfully, I, a great lover of all things operatic, DON’T want to see that aforementioned 300 lbs. Mimi no matter how well she sings. On a CD? Maybe. On stage? Forget it!
Plus, I just don’t think there are that many singers out there, fat or not, that can sing all the roles perfectly as we demand them.
Nerva Nelli complained above that Voigt, Fleming, Dessay, & Netrebko aren’t great in every possible role–well, News Flash–no singer is! Suddenly getting fat isn’t going to make them perfect singers either.
When people bring up greats like Callas and Sutherland, we are comparing today’s singers to the greatest singers ever in opera, and that’s not a fair comparison.
Chaka, although you are correct that we are comparing the best available today with the greatest ever, wouldn’t you agree that a lot of the greatest ever appear to have been active around the same time? Comparing 1950 – 1970 with 1990 – 2010 makes the current era seem very much the poorer.
The group from 1950 – 1970 made many more recordings than the group from 1990 – 2010–in fact their great vocal reputations often rely on recordings more than on-stage work (In fact, how many of us have seen all the singers we praise so highly on here?)
Also, the 1950-1970 helped re-define Bel Canto (and even Verdi and Puccini, in some cases), so we all are used to hearing it like Sutherland sang it. (or Price/Milanov for Verdi and Tebaldi/Scotto for Puccini)
Netrebko probably sounds more like those in the Bel Canto era itself. Sutherland is a phenomenon–not the run-of-the-mill bel canto singer. So, we feel Netrebko isn’t good enough.
Finally, let’s reevaluate the 1990 – 2010 group in another 40 years, after their voices have peaked, their careers are completed, and our memories have faded somewhat. My bet is we’ll be talking about how the 2050 – 2080 group just doesn’t compare to the 1990 – 2010 group!
“Certain operas rise and fall on having the requisite vocal chops, and no degree of theatrical energy or physical glamor can replace this.”
Approaching this from the other side, which operas can ‘rise’ (as Mr. Horner puts it) irregardless of whether the requisite vocal ‘chops’ are present??
Seems rather a gratuitous, meaningless, and insignificant assertion to me.
This is just the sort of statement which, though it may seem valid on the surface, doesn’t at all do justice to the argument.
“Certain operas rise and fall on having the requisite vocal chops, and no degree of theatrical energy or physical glamor can replace this.â€
Seems to me that we have this quarrel every time someone brings up Norma.
Seriously, though, some operas have a knack of sticking around whether the voices singing them are per se glamorous or not (e.g. Traviata, Carmen, Boheme, Tosca)
…wouldn’t you agree that a lot of the greatest ever appear to have been active around the same time?
Well, I wouldn’t, simply because there were too many great singers before the LP era to say that. The riches of the LP era tend to make us forget that there were opera singers before 1950.
I have to agree with Mr. Horner. Just today I am watching a DVD of The Love for Three Oranges (from Toulouse). None of the singers in the cast have anything I’d call glamorous voices, yet in this opera it doesn’t seem to matter so much. The staging and the energy of the cast seem to be the what counts. Compare this to, say, Aida, which succeeds or fails almost entirely depending on how wonderfully the soloists sing.
I’m wondering why everyone makes the automatic equation between “acting” and slenderness. All too often, when you hear that an opera singers are a “good actors,” it’s just a way of saying that they don’t look like stegosauri tromping through the plain.
I think it’s entirely possible for heavy singers to be effective actors (and for thin, attractive singers to be pretty inept–viz. Mme Fleming). The difference is that we’re less prone to accept fat people as romantic heroes and heroines. Charles Laughton and Marie Dressler were good actors–but you wouldn’t have wanted to see them as Romeo and Juliet. Still,employing the term “acting” to indicate a performer’s lack of avoirdupois is just a lazy use of the language.
I notice a tendency here to centralise on the ‘big girls’ who do / or did sing the ‘heavy or difficult’ roles either Wagnerian or bell canto. A Norma, a Lucia or an Brunnhilde. That generation from the past, their popularity was helped by well receieved recordings. The power of being signed to a record company (usually on a long term contract as well) was a powerful first tool in their star promotion. To then see them ‘live’ was not to examine whether they were obese or thin, but to confirm that they could ‘produce the same goods in the flesh’. All this is gone. Now: It is numerous appearances at opera houses, a recital CD here and there if they are lucky (once in a blue moon!)without it, being ‘cross-over shit’, and perhaps a DVD appearance of some opera production. DVDs and HD transmissions are becoming the lifeblood for extra revenue for opera houses allied in deals with recording companies. If you cannot ‘light like some Hollywood bimbo or some male dreamboat’ an operatic singer has little chance. ‘Jam rollie pollie men’ and ‘horse-faced women’ – no matter even if though no fault of their own – close up on DVDs, can become the unfortunate stuff for ridicule and mirth.’Life at the top’ in the last 10 or 15 years has become indeed – short- for so many, heralded as the latest star. Think about it, mentally tabulate -how many have ’succeeded’ as against say ,the 15 years previous to that.
Think about some of your magnificent ‘past 20 stoner over -sized greats’ and consider if they were starting out today, whether they would have been considered as ‘total financiable viables’ by current managements around the opera scene? I would prefer to hear those voices than some of the present slender, all tarted up phonies with 5 minutes of fame ‘left to run’ on their ‘voice- meter’. These soul-less ’screechers’ that perhaps, desperately need outrageous regie directors to detact attention away from their shortcomings. People now do not really discuss the singing,as one would , in the past. Currently, they qualify discussion of the singing foremostly ‘within the particular context: that some stupid director wanted the singers ‘to act out’. I can hear it now “Well, within the terms of reference the regie director gave them for interpretion, they were constricted to develop the characterisation, don’t you think?” Cop out! Cop out!
quoth the maven- I don’t think there *is* any such equation being made between slimness and good acting, it’s just that, as you suggest, there is more dramatic credibility in some roles with a slimmer artist. Only a fool is against obese singers per se- it’s, for example, Herod panting with lust for a gigantic Salome, or Rodolfo calling a 300 pound Mimi ‘mia piccina’.
In other news, I see that the ‘abuse’ of ‘inverted commas’ continues ‘unabated’.
I recently saw a few hours of highlight from the Copenhagen Ring (the one with the Rheingold portrayed by a naked man swimming in a fish tank). Almost all the singers have typical opera-singer bodies (ie overweight) but the acting is among the best I’ve ever seen in an opera prodution. In fact, it is so good that they singers are able to give a lot of credence to the director’s wrong-headed ideas through the conviction of their acting.
Indiana Loiterer III (Comment 30#) “Well, I wouldn’t, simply because there were too many great singers before the LP era to say that. The riches of the LP era tend to make us forget that there were opera singers before 1950.”
Yes I agree. I have to say that some of us have record libraries that also show a great deal of examples of great singers (and benchmark standards!) dating back decades before 1950. Many are sadly long forgotten, but they are also representive of people that would have sung many of the present phonies, off the stage. How fickle some opera lovers tend to be. Galli-Curci, Dame Eva Turner, Florence Austral, and Marjorie Lawrence are just four out of some many singers, that quickly come to mind. The common thread of such singers- to have an innate vocal discipline – to REALLY KNOW the singing ‘craft’ backwards. Some of the raved about present micro-waved cooked ‘tarnished spangle’ singers push & push their voices out of their natural sphere / compass : the individual’s own comfortable point of central vocal gravity. One listens and feels a desire to be some form of
‘Beckmesser’….noting down the shortcomings and vocal faults, moment by moment. I certainly do not want to go out and purchase, watch or hear this pumped up ‘junk food for the brain’.
Armerjacquino: Perhaps you are not partial to the subtle expanionist possibilities that can be conveyed with inverted commas. Do they put you in a mental quandry?
It’s ‘quandary’, sweetheart.
Caballe comes to mind with so many people talking about 300lb Mimis & Salomes. She was vocally fabulous in both roles. What I did like about the interview is that at least a major player in the business is holding out hope that things will boomerang around again to focus on the voice.
The truth is, there aren’t enough big voices to go around; otherwise, the likes of Gabriele Schnaut wouldn’t have the career that they do
Point taken about the first bit, and if our esteemed and fab-u-lous doyenne is ever lacking in filth to post, she should rip track 3 off the first disc of Albrecht’s otherwise fab recording of Der Schatzgraber (Josef Protschka is to die for), Schnaut’s first entrance (Lass mich! Lass mich!) on A’s above the staff are sounds that I thought only animals being brutally slaughtered made.
but i still think that marie in tote stadt would be right up mattilas alley. its a role that requires an actress-singer, but it is an ungrateful part!
I’m curious why you’d say that. It’s your typical Straussian soprano role, if they could sing the Empress in FROSCH they can handle it, it’s superbly written for the voice; singing over that huge orchestra is the killer, though. Of course, the soprano has to sing her little socks off and she does have Gluck das mir verblieb with the tenor in the first act, but, in the end, it’s the tenor’s show. Is that what you meant?
They’re doing Tode Stadt at the Royal Opera next season, but we’re stuck with Nadja Michael. Unlike many, I felt there were some redeeming features to her Salome, but I doubt she’ll be very pleasant in the Korngold.
La la la la la la la la I can’t hear you la la la. Oh god, don’t say that, I’m saving up the $$$ to go to London for the premiere at the ROH, then on to Venice for their new production at La Fenice (with hopefully enough for a side trip to Germany for Palestrina in Munich and Der Konig Kandaules in Kaiserslautern). I just hope Stephen Gould’s voice is in good trim, he’s the best Paul I’ve encountered on the bootleg from Berlin with Thielemann I have.
Speaking of the La Fenice DTS, does anyone have any opinions on the tenor singing Paul there, Stefan Vinke? Thanks! Solveig Kringelborn is the Marietta.
Korngold is done ENOUGH – more performances and recordings than he really deserves, IMHO, when we haven’t had a home-grown London staging yet of Strauss’s Daphne, Die Liebe der Danae or Feuersnot
Well, I know Londoners consider the wilds of Oxfordshire to be another planet almost, but Garsington has done:
Daphne 1995
Die ägyptische Helena 1997 (British premiere)
Die Liebe der Danae 1999 (British premiere)
Die schweigsame Frau 2003
whereas DTS, which in its day was more popular than any of those operas ever were and in my not at all humble opinion is a far superior opera to them all, has had to wait 88 years for it’s British stage premiere. Is there really a group of people clamoring for a production of Feuersnot or is that just a “let’s tick another Strauss production off the list” kind of thing, because that opera sucks more than….um….erm….well, me at a bathouse in the 80’s and Schweigsame Frau isn’t very good either. Pity those poor opressed British Straussians!
3) Henry Holland – Fleming would be as inaudible in a live Heliane as Racette was…
Meow! I’m still waiting for a recording of that live Heliane to surface at the usual places, wasn’t it relayed on Auntie Beeb?
Daphne was done in concert at the Garden in the early years of this decade, too, with Alexandra von der Weth. What happened to her? She was immensely promising and got glowing press.
Henry – do you **really** want a recording of that live Heliane? I thought it was a depressing evening. I love (bits of) Die tote Stadt, but most of Heliane is a load of old tosh. The orchestra was impressive, but the only singers I enjoyed were that mezzo with the funny name – Ursula von der Vogelweide, or whatever, and – surprisingly – Willard White, whom I usually find disappointing.
I am no Renee fan, but she does make a much nicer sound than Racette, who should never even have considered Heliane. I reckon Mesdames Voigt and Brewer were either not free, too expensive, or reluctant to learn the part.
Well It’s late and one tends to slip on the typing keys, and spell wrongly.
armerjacquino screamed:
It’s ‘quandary’, sweetheart.
It’s not about weight, being heavy or thin, it’s about SOUNDING GREAT. Yet, being a great actor or actress can cover a multitude of sins. If the voice is not a great performer the singer is just singing notes. When Jane England sang Isolde she was technically perfect but cold. When she got to the Liebestod, what should have been the most moving moment of the entire opera, the notes were all there but sung with all the emotion of someone reading a grocery list. I would rather put up with a few vocal flaws an get some one who makes me believe the role.
The Decca complete recording of Korngold’s Heliane with Tomova-Sintow should satisfy anyone. The opera is virtually unsingable. All that… reaching for what is the unattainable chord…..throughout the opera, finally completed by the orchestra.
Papageno–I can’t imagine that a performer who was “just singing the notes” could possibly be considered a great actor. Isn’t the voice the chief expressive tool that a singer has at his disposal? How could the singing be inexpressive and the acting be “great”? Is operatic “acting” something discrete from “singing”? If so, I’d be interested to know just what it consists of.
Henry – do you **really** want a recording of that live Heliane? I thought it was a depressing evening. I love (bits of) Die tote Stadt, but most of Heliane is a load of old tosh.
Yeah, I’d love to hear it, simply because I’m a huge fan of Korngold’s operas. There’s the Decca recording and two pirates that circulate that sound like they were recorded with two tin cans and some string –even by the low standards of someone recording a performance on a tape recorder they sound bad– so a crisp recording of that performance would be nice. I realize the singing is probably poor based on the reviews, but apparently the conducting was incredible and I’d love to hear it.
I think Die Tote Stadt is a great opera, full stop, but I’m not making any great claims about Heliane. The plot gets a lot of stick, but really, if we’re going to go *there* about silly opera plots, it’s no more silly than a lot of 19th century Italian stuff. The problem for me is that the plot is too thin for an opera of that length. That said, there’s some really terrific music in the score and with some judicious cuts, Maria Jeritza and Jan Kiepura brought back from the dead to sing Heliane and Der Fremder like at the premiere and a sympathetic production, it could make a good festival rarity, something done at Salzburg or Bregenz, say.
I know that the standard these days when reviving works that have fallen in to neglect or never made it past a first production for whatever reason is “Unless it’s as good as Otello, Tristan and Le Nozze di Figaro x 1000, it’s not worth it, why are you wasting our time?”, I’m all for expanding the repetoire past the Top 40, even with the baroque and bel-canto stuff I can’t stand.
This discussion will never end, and one camp will never understand the point the other is making, but regarding agents’ leeriness at engaging fat singers, I am sure they feel that way, but there are many skinny singers that are impossible to deal with. I mean, they are singers after all, a little craziness comes with the package. I pity the agent that has to deal with Angela Gheorghiu. I just don’t get the constant knocking of fat singers. I think it goes back to this new way of looking at being fat as a kind of moral failing. As comment #32 said, being fat does not mean you are automatically a bad actor. If a singer is giving everything the music requires of him/her while acting convincingly, I am willing to use my imagination and see him/her as a romantic figure. Opera ain’t the movies or TV. Also, it used to be you didn’t have to deal with all this lookism if you were a baritone or bass. After all, you rarely get the girl. But no more. I think it won’t stop until we have Celine Dion on stage lip synching to a Callas recording. Wait…
Amerjacuino: well come on now, some guys like big girls, so Herod’s lust is not impossible; it’s just not in line with today’s prevailing standards of lust-apportionment. Given the choice, wouldn’t you rather hear a hefty gal who can sing it than a sylph who’s outmatched by the role? (Talk about a role made for the Trebs, though, not that one is much expecting her to sing it.)
Speaking from personal experience, the meme that a large body is necessary for a large voice is baseless. Twenty years ago, as a young spinto, I lost over 40 lbs. Mostly for myself but, being an American size 16, I was not being cast by local opera companies. That I was winning major regional competitions meant nothing. A single-digit dress size generally trumped a world-class talent. After losing the weight, my voice suffered no ill effect. In fact, as my body grew stronger and healthier, so did my voice. Almost overnight, I was the local darling, singing at least 4 productions a year.
Theatrical acumen, though, is not commensurate with a slender body. I’ve sang opposite hunky men who couldn’t express an honest emotion and teddy bears who were utterly committed to their character. Still, we do live in a visual age. Moreover, we’re far more sensitive to health. When some see a morbidly obese singer in a staged production, some simply can’t get past fear for the singer’s health.
In sum, I believe aspiring singers need to seriously and honestly consider the profession. If a singer stands to lose 20+ lbs, they should do so. If not, there’s really no excuse for not doing so, if a career hangs in the balance.
‘This discussion will never end, and one camp will never understand the point the other is making’
I think that’s a little unfair. I’d say that both camps understand the other side’s argument- they just don’t happen to agree with it.
And Maury- quite a coincidence that Narraboth should share the same taste in larger women, no? Not impossible, but coincidental.
I can never understand how overweight and obesity got to be synonymous with vocal beauty and/or power. Giovanni names several glamorously slender sopranos who had big, beautiful voices. There are scores of others. A singer’s weight, a singer’s acting ability and a singer’s voice are three very different matters.
If you want to know why we do not have so many big, beautiful voices these days, my opinion is that the way we train our singers and the voice teachers themselves are now united in a radically different process than the one that operated earlier.
Young singers today do not have the intensive exposure to proper training either in length of study or hours per week of work with their teachers that their predecessors enjoyed. It takes a long time to train a true dramatic voice and these days nobody has the time or the money.
Also, read your Rasponi and other sources on the big names from the first half of the 20th century–many, many of them said they refused to teach the upcoming generation. With that kind of expertise retired from the field and refusing to pass on its technique, it’s no wonder we’re suffering a break in the vocal tradition.
But please, don’t tell me they can’t sing because they know how to act or because they aren’t grossly heavy.
“Henry – do you **really** want a recording of that live Heliane? I thought it was a depressing evening. I love (bits of) Die tote Stadt, but most of Heliane is a load of old tosh.
Yeah, I’d love to hear it, simply because I’m a huge fan of Korngold’s operas.”
ME TOO, Henry. I love this work with a passion which must border on the psychopathological. Very disappointed when I read the less than glowing reviews of the live performance; but it wouldn’t in the least keep me from wanting to add it to my very meager Heliane collection.
A load of old tosh – sounds like the perfect description of Norma to me.
I just don’t get the constant knocking of fat singers. I think it goes back to this new way of looking at being fat as a kind of moral failing
[smug, prissy tone, ala Margaret Hamilton in My Little Chikadee] Well, if those tubs of goo would stop stuffing pints of Ben & Jerry’s and eating 18″ pizzas with all the toppings and extra cheese in their mouth and get up off the couch and exercise once in a while, they wouldn’t go through life without love and money and happiness, now would they? [/Margaret Hamilton]
As comment #32 said, being fat does not mean you are automatically a bad actor
Kathy Bates would approve of that sentiment. [looks at her IMDb profile] Good gawd, there’s six items listed for her in 2008 alone!
Amerjacuino: well come on now, some guys like big girls
Well, the singer of a certain Australian hard rock band certainly partook, though Bon Scott’s opinion on whether Netrebko is right for the role of Salome will sadly never be answered.
I don’t think an appreciation with looks is that modern – Farrar, Cavalieri, Jeritza are 3 of about the same time who seem to have relied on physical allure at least as much as their singing. And you could quite easily draw up a list of glamourous sopranos – Della Casa, Schwarzkopf and Gueden would have been quite an eyeful in some hypothetical Rosenkavalier – just as starters. It is also I think silly to compare Sutherland’s size (big woman, certainly) with the like of Eaglen or Marc, whose size does seem to disqualify them from much dramatic engaement on stage.
And is Kathy Bates playing the young romantic lead in any of those films, may I ask?
Course she isn’t, nor would she expect to.
SylvestriWoman–Doesn’t it have some effect in some instances? If a singer loses a great deal of weight, doesn’t she have to relearn how to give her voice support? I ask because I think it’s generally agreed that Voigt’s voice underwent a change when she lost all that weight. And it has been argued–not necessarily definitively–that some of Callas’s vocal problems stemmed from her precipitous weight loss.
A load of old tosh – sounds like the perfect description of Norma to me.
Careful, MKL, the can-beltoists ’round these here parts don’t hesitate to break out the torches and pitchforks when someone makes a comment like that. The only way you could have made it worse was to mention Maria Callas.
And is Kathy Bates playing the young romantic lead in any of those films, may I ask? Course she isn’t, nor would she expect to
Is Scarlett Johansson playing any role that really requires acting ability? Is Jack Black playing any role that requires him to actually be funny? etc.
Ah, opinion as fact. Always a favourite.
Kathy Bates couldn’t even get cast in the movie version of the play that made her a star – “Frankie and John In The Claire De Lune”… Michelle Pfeiffer did it. WHy? Because she wasn’t a romantic leading lady as far as Hollywood was concerned. But they thought she was perfect for Misery (which she was but she could’ve done both).
As for Callas, let me remind people she didn’t start off thin and glamorous; when she started, she was pretty heavy (comparatively speaking). Like Voigt, she lost weight after her career started, but unlike our colleague who posted earlier, her voice *was* affected. According to some contemporary reviewers, she sacrificed some warmth in the voice to achieve the glamour.
Speaking of teddy bears who can act, I watched Hoffman a few months ago (I think it was from Bilbao) with Aquiles Machado as Hoffman. Not gorgeous to look at, and I remember thinking he was over the top acting-wise, but I think that was because of the regie, not inherently in him. But what a voice!
I have to agree with SilvestriWoman that if a young singer is serious about having a career, they absolutely need to take their personal image into account. Whether we embrace it or not, we are in the visual/digital age emphasis on visual.
I believe our universities and conservatories are paritally to blame in not sufficiently preparing young singers in what it really takes to make a career. I was a voice major at a large school (Carol Vaness’ alma mater – that may be a minus for some of you out there, ahem). I went in as an older singer, having had some straight acting experience and asked which acting coach the voice faculty recommended. I got some hostile blank stares.
The department chairperson said, “We put singers into the opera workshop. We don’t want to distract young singers with thoughts of Hollywood stardom.”
I swear that’s what he said. In NY or Hollywood, when an actor goes out for an audition they EXPECT to be typed-out. Yes, in 2008 we can cast a Chinese Juliet with acting chops, but she is NOT going to weigh 240 lbs – halluh no.
This particular school (and I know plenty of other vocal schools/departments) do a diservice to youngsters by ignoring 1) the student’s fach vocally and physically and 2) not requiring the student invest some serious time in doing scene study and acting techniques.
I humbly say this out of love darlings. I was fortunate enough to grow up duing the Kurt Herbert Adler day in San Francisco during the 60’s and 70’s and I saw plenty of heftyness. Cab and Pav in Tosca was hooded-refrigeratos and all that. I love me some screaming big girls, but today is another time, no?
“The only way you could have made it worse was to mention Maria Callas.”
Ha ha……I was thinking about that, too.
Armerjacquino – Alexandra von der Weth had a vocal crisis before she was due to sing Donna Anna at Covent Garden in 2003, I think. She had been singing roles as different as Daphne, Capriccio-Countess, Lulu, Lucia and even Norma (!!!!!) at her home theatres, the Deutsche am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. I gather she returned to the company last season after a long break to sing Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare, but I didn’t read anything about. She was so promising – shame if it’s all gone pear-shaped.
Also of interest is Mignon Dunn’s interview in the recent OPERA NEWS. She complains that age discrimination is also in play in that many of the competitions are not interested in and not available to singers over 30! She continues that the “big voices” take longer to mature and are often not “ripe” before 30….and therefore, often unheard. Remember that apart from Astrid Varnay, most “big voices” from the past were in their late 30s or early 40s by the time they made it to the Met…..
Sanford: in the endless necrophagia that goes on where Callas is concerned, though, you’ll also find plenty who maintain that the problems were there to begin with and the voice wouldn’t have lasted if she’d kept the weight. (I consider the question unanswerable and not very important. I’m just pointing this out.)
Yes, I know we’ve had that tired old Korngold pro et contra already, but I had to double-check that Thackeray Gnomey in Message 42 wasn’t me (spot on: the mezzo and Willard were the only voices that really carried the day, and if Jurowski can’t make this overblown, derivative score seem real in any way, then no-one can. Note the issue is not the plot, just the second-rate music).
Re Strauss and Garsington, I know, I know (I did say ‘London stagings, didn’t I?) I adored the Garsington Liebe der Danae but felt uneasy that so few of us got to see it (the privileged and the liggers). Despite the imagination of the production and the wonderful Orla Boylan as Danae, it didn’t really restore Danae to the glory it deserves, and a Covent Garden or even an ENO (or even a Glyndebourne) airing would have done that. As for the Daphne, well, that was only two concert performances, not enough though better than nothing (we also had it at the RFH with Janice Watson). Again, a perfect Glyndebourne opera, were it not for the awkwardness of lacking a supper interval.
A few stray thoughts:
• There are always exceptions. I doubt that many will complain anytime they get to hear Stephanie Blythe. No sylph she. But I can’t wait to hear her as Orpheus, of all dramatically visually-unlikely rôles for her.
• Caballé insisted that her weight was not a positive (or negative) thing for her voice. She always claimed that it was all in the muscles used in breathing, to which her size was irrelevant. One of the best operatic performances I ever saw was her as Salomé. She even made it convincing dramatically. Don’t ask me how; I know nothing about alchemy.
• And last and off-topic: The TIMES article about Rufus’s, um, withdrawal credits our own dear Cieca’s breaking of the story. Mirabile dictu.
re: Korngold’s Heliane –
Ursula Hesse von den Steinen – crazy name, crazy gal! But you are right that she along with White (and the chorus) produced the best singing of the evening. Racette was fine but too small (as suggested, Mesdames Voigt and Brewer were indeed not free, too expensive, and reluctant to learn the part!), the tenor was adequate, the baritone (Andreas Schmidt) was hands-down the most embarrassingly awful vocal performance I have ever heard.
The orchestra under Jurowski were indeed fabulous so it is a shame there’s no recording. It wasn’t broadcast on the radio, and although the orchestra have an archive copy, I have it on very good authority that they are not letting anyone at all get their hands on it (Schmidt being one of the main reasons), so unless someone so-inclined can squirrel it out of them and do the dirty, I think it’s a lost cause.
Henry H – might you point me in the direction of where those 2 Heliane pirates you mention could be located (and indeed which singers they feature)?
Right again about poor Andreas Schmidt (at what stage in rehearsals should they have pulled the plugs)? I hesitate to say that equal worst was Linda Kitchen’s Gretel, since she’s a delightful person and ised to be a real stage animal with a sweet light voice, but something was awry that night at WNO. Next seen as what the ancient Greeks called a kophon prosopon – ie mute – in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (now there’s a newish opera that hit a certain mark – but lovely the vocal writing wasn’t).
Most embarrassing moment – Peter Mattei having to say ‘I resign my contract’ after two failed shots at Kullervo’s solo for Colin Davis. We never did hear the end of Sibelius’s third movement. He still came back for a ‘curtain call’, and the sympathetic (or stupid?) British public warmly applauded. Mind you, having just seen Mattei in that astounding Salzburg production, I’ll forgive him that and just accept that singers are not superfolk. They do pretty well just not to slip up on the whole.
That Schmidt performance was just bizarre. He once had a fine voice, but either he was just really suffering but thought he could get through it, or the voice really is shot. When watching someone singing badly we can often sit there feeling shocked, or amused, or (a little shameful to admit it) gloating, but I’ve never felt so awkward on behalf of an entire audience before – it was a really strange feeling to have…
Herr Schmidt has been drawing horrified reviews for years on the Continent.
What a scandal that a fine young British artist like Ashley Stafford wasn’t hired in the first place!
Sanford, it is by no means certain that Callas’s weight loss negatively impacted on her voice. If I think of some of her most spectacular, famous, revered recordings, I think of the 55 Trav, the 55 Lucia, the 57 Anna Bolena and the 57 (I think) Ballo – all happened after she became very slim, and all find her in remarkably secure voice. I don’t think of the 49 Nabucco or the rather overblown Aidas from the early 50s, although let me just say that I am a huge fan and do of course find much to admire in these earlier recordings.
I would speculate that the primary 3 reasons for Callas’s vocal decline were the fact that she debuted in heavy repertoire very young, the irresponsible early juxtaposition of widely different repertoire, much of which she could do amazingly but ultimately wasn’t suited to, and her own insecurities and personal hang-ups which caused some kind of crisis of confidence and aggravated the pre-existing vocal issues. I could be wrong too – it is of course all conjecture, but the answer is in any case more complex than the fact that she dropped a lot of weight.
I once read an interview with Caballe in which she said she sang the Queen of the Night to her teacher in the conservatoire. Her teacher said sure, you can do it, but it isn’t right for you. I wish somebody had said that to Callas about her attempts at very high, light coloratura repertoire, as well as the Turandot/Abigaille/Brunnhilde type things she took on. Who knows what would have been the outcome, but I reckon we’d have had more of her for longer.
On the other hand, I rather wish Dame Joan had taken on the Empress in Solti’s recording of Die Frau ohne Schatten, as was mooted at one stage, and cut short a few more years of Bolenas and Borgias…
Another shot in the foot, Vicar: ANY baritone would have been better than Andreas Schmidt on this occasion.
It lies a little high, but I think Tomlinson would have done wonderful things with Schmidt’s part
Callas lost too much weight too fast.
She sang what she could sing, to work period, at first, then after the feat of I Puritani and Walkure, she could do what she wanted, which was pretty much bel canto in the true callas scala years.
Just at the thinnest period she started running out of rep and did Ballo, Don Carlo, and rep that was not bel canto. Kindly remember that Pasta, Malibran and Patti all began singing at 14 under Garcia, famed vocal god, and lasted well into their early fifties singing. Melba well into her sixties, and Tetrazzini past that. Bel canto and prodigious amounts of performance.
Scaramuccio – too bad you don’t like Korngold and think his music is so “overblown” you have to keep saying it.
Fact is, some of will never agree with you- and that’s fine- different strokes for different folks. I’d rather sit through 20 performances of “DTS” than one Fidelio or Peter Grimmes.
Is Peter Grimmes the fairytale version (coming this Holiday season from Julie Taymor)?
I agree with Cocky Kurwenal on Callas here. Giulietta Simionato herself has said that the heavy repertory Callas sang from her earliest years (Santuzza and Tosca for two; I believe she sang Santuzza while still a conservatory student) did actual physical damage to her in the long term, resulting in the audible “wobble” heard on some high notes. . . And as for the coloratura roles, I remember thinking while watching an interview with Elvira de Hidalgo, Callas’s teacher, that Callas had a deep-seated need, I think, to overcome obstacles that seemed impossible. Look what she did with herself. In essence she transformed herself from a “pachyderm” (per Rescigno) into Audrey Hepburn . . . de Hidalgo said (among other things) that Callas would always try to sing the highest notes, and essentially to compete with other students who could sing higher and faster than she herself could. . .she was born with that huge dark voice, but became preoccupied (obsessed?) with the challenge of subjugating that voice to her will so that it would sing the coloratura repertory.
As a soprano, I really can’t listen to Callas, because her (singing) voice just sounds painful to me – even in her early recordings her voice sounds stretched; I don’t believe her weight loss had any effect on it. (And she never was what I would really call “fat” anyway.) Perhaps the weight loss was a way to reinvent herself, given the vocal problems already evident at the time.
Or better, we might even take her at her word, that she did it for theatrical reasons, as other posters have said they’ve done above.
Operalala, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I have singers I can’t listen to as well because they are doing it in a way so at odds with my own vocal studies. Although my view on Callas is that she did, after a time, use her by then damaged voice with pretty near perfect technique for a period of a few years in the 50s before the wobble got so pronounced that she ended up compromising that technique to try to conquer the problems, these things are so subjective that I absolutely respect the fact that you find her very difficult to listen to.
I also agree with you that she was never all that fat – nothing on the Caballe/Norman/Marc/Voigt scale.
And you are right – taking her at her own word, perhaps with a small pinch of salt, is the best policy. She did it to look convincing on stage, and, I suspect, to see if it made her happier in general. I’m currently working quite hard on my own body because of the current climate. As a young singer at the beginning of my career, I realise I’m going to need all the selling points I can get, which is why I’m seeking to turn my perfectly acceptable body into one that might just give me the edge at a casting call.
To La Cieca
Sorry to disagree on your assertion that fat sopranos are somehow more needy than thin sopranos, in my experience most sopranos are needy yet they hold no grip on the crown, tenors usually take the crown, sceptre, and orb in that arena.
As well, morbid obesity is often times more of bad eating and lifestyle patterns than a psychological flaw; although granted there are some that are eating themselves away from their problems. From all the current reports fat has a much more sinister role than just unsightliness. That being said, I would take any Sutherland, Nilson, Pavarotti, Caballe, Callas, Alessandra Marc, Bergonzi, et al, that any of the current crop of singers singing today. And, I never once doubted the emotional content of what they sang. Perhaps the outward expression was limited in some of these artists, but they sang with emotion and heart and that’s all I ever needed.
Alas, I am from a much older generation, not affected by ipod’s and the like. I have more LP’s than CD’s. But, new is not necessarily better. The emphasis of realistic theater TV theater I think leads to singers emoting for camera and not singing from the heart. I have yet to draw a tear at any of the HD broadcast but when I watch my video of Suor Angelica with Scotto, I cannot stop crying. Old School…from the heart.
whoa, Callas was never that fat? How do you link for photos in here? She was enormous at one time. SOme really know about Callas and others don’t. Painful to listen to? Geezus, life isn’t always pretty either, hate to think how bland La la sounds. Callas was amazing.
You cut & past the URL into your message, like anywhere else.
TenorGuy: I’ve long held that vocal performance majors be required to take classes in musical theater. Love that Juilliard’s voice majors have a master class with the great Barbara Cook, who particularly stresses the need to communicate text.
FlyingDiva: Amen!!! Agism is rampant in the opera biz – in competitions, young artist programs, and the heads of those who hire. When I made the national finals of the Met auditions, I was 33, unmanaged, shut out of young artist programs. As a spinto, I was just coming into my true voice, after years of nurturing an essentially lyric voice. Lenore Rosenberg, one of the judges, told me to my face that, at my age, I should reconsider opera as a career. Quel surprise – the average age of the finalists, 27; the average age of the winners, 25. All of them were under 30.
what a shame….you should have asked the judge if she would have told flagstad or nilsson that in their 30’s!
Gianni,
I’m of the old school, too. But some new stuff, like the 2005 Salzburg DVD of La Traviata makes me cry every time I play it.
Does anybody know if Rudolf Schock sang anything from Die tote Stadt? He’s my favourite Bacchus, and I suspect Paul would have been another great role for him.
Ah, opinion as fact. Always a favourite
I’m utterly baffled why you’d get riled up by something you consider “opinion as fact” on this site of all places, but , nah, armerjacquino, it’s more “posting at work, accidentally hit Submit Comment and then actually had to *gasp* do some work and haven’t had a chance to reply since then”.
It’s my fault, I didn’t have a chance to delete those remarks and make it clear, my bit about the number of movies she was making was just astonishment at the sheer number of them in one year, that’s a lot of work.
2) not requiring the student invest some serious time in doing scene study and acting techniques
For me, good operatic acting is a bonus, it’s not a deal breaker for me given how difficult singing opera just standing still is, but this bit in this interesting article reminded me of this discussion when I read it last night: “For most of us with no operatic experience, there’s been a lot to learn. Singing or speaking at the same time as moving and using props was quite a challenge. Simple things, such as not walking at the same pace as what you are singing, takes a bit of getting used to”.
Re Strauss and Garsington, I know, I know (I did say ‘London stagings, didn’t I?)
Yes, and I anticipated you being pedantic by using the sarcastic remark “Well, I know Londoners consider the wilds of Oxfordshire to be another planet almost” in the body of my remarks. I live in Los Angeles. Garsington is ca. 51 miles from central London, here 51 miles of travel doesn’t even get you to the other side of the city and the UK could easily fit in to California alone, hence my “poor opressed Straussians” remark.
Henry H – might you point me in the direction of where those 2 Heliane pirates you mention could be located (and indeed which singers they feature)?
Go to Yahoo! and search under their groups for OperaShare. You have to have a Yahoo login and I don’t know if it’s “visible” to non-members (it’s invite only) because it automatically signs me on at home and here at work. Also, you have to use BitTorrent, but as for the singers, the info is:
Stadttheater Bielefeld, 6 November 1988
Heliane: Ingeborg Schneider
Der Herrscher: Monte Jaffe
Der Fremder: John Pickering
Conductor: Michael Luig
Gent 2/70
Heliane: Birgit Sarata
Der Herrscher: Gilbert Dubuc
Der Fremdling: William Lewis
Conductor: Julius Mestdagh
It wasn’t broadcast on the radio, and although the orchestra have an archive copy, I have it on very good authority that they are not letting anyone at all get their hands on it (Schmidt being one of the main reasons), so unless someone so-inclined can squirrel it out of them and do the dirty, I think it’s a lost cause
I thought so. Stupid slacker bootleggers in London, not sneaking a DAT machine in.
Cocky, I volunteer to check out your body and see the progress you’ve made. Vissi D’arte, after all. Besides, I want to verify your first name.
Touchy Mr Holland, I don’t think it’s pedantic to say that a far smaller percentage of the population can afford, or get into, Garsington than they now can to Glyndebourne (where you can stand for a tenner, I think it is, if you’re so keen to see something).
I’d travel to Leeds or Edinburgh to see something vital. But I’d be lucky to get a look-in at Garsington. Not only that, but they have a ridiculously small number of performances. And the coverage is usually rather limited (though the Garsington Rake WAS constantly invoked in the press as a model of what they thought the Lepage Royal Opera/Everywhere Else production wasn’t).
Oh, and Cocky, could we assume you aim to be a Budd-ing singer (assuming you’re a baritone)? Of a more presentable kind than that Plug-on-a-Rope La Cieca so wickedly portrayed recently?
It is an intriguing nom de plume. I assume because someone once said, ‘he’s bloody cocky if he reckons he can sing Kurwenal’?
I sympathise with SilvestriWoman and these ‘young artists programs’ that seem to take precedence over considering a developing ‘late bloomer’ singer on their actual present merits. May I put forward an a couple of open questions for people to consider and comment upon.(1) “Is part of the problem the mindset for these modern matter of fact ‘university type’ singing training programs?” Everything all cut and dried, as people say. The teachers not reliant on fluctuating fees from pupils, but a guaranteed University contract. If in the past, a singer was not happy with a teacher they personally paid – they left and went to another, simple as that.(2) Have we lost out in the present era by the dying out of teachers – training in the thorough ‘Europeon technique’ long term mode,over a course of say 6 or 7 years before a singer went public, entered competitions or being put up for auditions. I have maintained that the flight of some many people from Europe because of WW2, injected a large dose of cultural expertise and ‘old world values’ into say the U.s, England and elsewhere. This generation with its musical disciplines are unfortuately know dying out. Today, we have a generation of ‘fast cooked, ill prepared pushers and belters’ streching those two elastic but fragile vocal chords they possess to the limits.
As far as Arndres Schmidt is concerned, go back yonks and listen to say recordings he made of Mahler songs. The faults in his singing technique was already waiting to burst ‘on the scene’.
Callas had an unusual Cathedral Arch in the roof of her mouth.It allowed her to produce the unique sounds she did. As far as slimming wrecking a voice,if the weight is too quick, without proper diet, sleep, life style, and physical exercise as a replacement: singers lose diaphagmatic muscle tone to correctly support their voice as they knew it.
You then have a scenario where there are contracts to fulfill in the meantime. Too many compensate with the old horrible trick…’use the throat muscles’. Before long the voice is worn, shot to pieces and on the way down.
It’s is only in the modern age (the age of the director/producer) that body image has become important in opera. That’s why, historically speaking, so many old (and yes fat) women have been cast as Isolda, Juliette, Melisan etc. No one saw the incongruity of middle aged women sing the role of a 16 year old girl.
Scaramuccio, actually I’m a bass, which is why I’m still budding rather than flowering, and definitely not Budd-ing at all.
The nom de plume was come up with rather hastily…
SilvestriWoman, I share your frustrations. The age limit of the Kathleen Ferrier award here in the UK is 28. As a bass, my chances of convincing at 28 are pretty slight. But there it is – there are other ways to a career as your story proves, so thank you for sharing it.
This is such a complex subject that it couldn’t possibly be resovled in one thread. Perhaps La Cieca would like to make this a running subject? If I can declare my hand, I am part of a family that has been involved in the professional side of opera for a long, long time. There are three main problems that I can see:
Firstly, at some point the conservatoires decided to abandon the classical Italian technique that had served singers so well for more than two hundred years. Very few singers now use such staples as the Marchese and Concone exercises, for example. I have met singers who have been through 6 years of Conservatoire who cannot tell me where their Impostso is, who do not knwo how to raise their soft pallete. The traditional Italian technique protects singers (there is less need for muscular aid to the singing process), allows them to sing for longer and allows them to take on a range of roles throughout their career, as the voice changes.
Secondly, very few administrators in the modern operatic world have a professional background in singing. Very few agents have trained to sing, so basically they might (depending on the agent) be busking it when they speak to a singer about the direction they should be taking. Both my parents trained with highly regarded professional singers (Dino Borgioli and Givanni Valdi, respectively) and sang professionally before becoming agents. This allows the agent or administrator to have an insight into the stresses and challenges that the singer faces. You don’t take a risk with a singer that you would not have taken with yourself.
Thirdly: We allow opera to be run by marketing people. A large section of opera budgets are spent on marketing. Unnuccessarily. About the same number of people still turn up. If attendances are dropping, it is more likely to be because the standard of singing is falling. The search for physically appealing singers means that careers start too early and end prematurely.
A soft pallet is easily raised with a fork-lift truck. A soft palate, now…much harder.
Not enough time and typing too fast!
Sorry – cheap shot!
There are many different ways to skin a cat, by which I mean that there are a hell of a lot of different approaches to operatic singing out there, which have differing levels of acceptance. Different technical approaches emphasise different aspects of the voice. I hope nobody would dispute this.
What needs to be acknowledged by people who think there is only one right technique which should not change for 200 or 500 years is the fact that listeners’ tastes change. Any soprano who auditioned for Mimi sounding like Dame Nellie Melba would not be well received these days. In order to produce the sound we expect now, as opposed to that made by celebrated singers from the first years of the 20th century, singers must sing in a different way. Compare Tagliavini with Corelli – they are not going about things in the same way at all, but they are both considered the leading spinto tenor of their respective eras. We’d all be pretty disappointed these days if we went to hear Trovatore at the Met and got a Manrico who sings like Tagliavini. We’d be clamouring for Marcello Alvarez, not dissing him as being a size too small.
Argh – please substitute Tamagno for Tagliavini in the above comment #101 – I got their names mixed up. Tagliavini doesn’t come into this!
Actually, there are very few efficient ways to make a tube resonate; that is the point. The most important thing is not to put stress on the chords. Too many singers sing “off the chords”. The classical techniques aim to do this. They’ve been around a long time for a reason!
There are no reliable recordings of Melba in her prime, so I don’t think she should be brought into it. Think of a singer like Pilar Lorengar – started as s soubrette, worked her way into the lyric coloratura rep and finished with the lyric rep. She sang well into her sixties, very successfully. We may not see a singer do this again. Bergonzi is another case in point. The techniques both served to protect the instrument, not to force it beyond its limits.
Re listeners’ tastes changing: too many audiences expect to hear on stage what they hear in a studio recording. These recordings are made under very different conditions; the two do not marry.
One important change is the increased size of theatres and of orchestras. You can blame Karajan for the latter.
the one major change in vocal taste that may be the limiting of vibrato. Reviews of Simms Reeves (one of the great tenors of the C19th) talk about the lack of vibrato in his vocal production. This might have had more to do with his physiognomy, rather than his technique, though.
You could substitue the name Melba in my post above for pretty much anybody recording around the first quarter of the 20th Century – Galli-Curci, Tetrazzini. Take also Bori, Schumann – none of them sang with the depth of tone or level of physical engagement that we expect from singers today. It was appropriate then, but would be rejected now. Whether it is better to sing like that or not, it isn’t what audiences want now.
The same applies to the men. Compare De Luca with Hvorostovsky or Keenlyside – the two modern singers have a much richer, fuller sound. De Luca’s singing would seem rather incongruous in today’s opera house.
I have never enjoyed Lorengar’s singing, but that doesn’t matter – point is I would strongly dispute the assertion that she sang in the same way singers from 50 years before her sang. We can’t, obviously, reliably make comparisons with people from prior to the start of recording history, but I think the changes in the 20th century alone were immense. Even from Tito Schipa to Luigi Alva is a very long way in terms of refulgence and colour.
Actually, there are very few efficient ways to make a tube resonate
According to legend, Melba knew all of them!
I think you are mistaking what you are hearing on recordings and what would be heard in theatres. If you can make a judgement call on depth of tone for singers from the first quarter of the last century, you must be a very old 28 indeed! My father (now 74) heard both Schipa and Alva in theatres, and assures me that Schipa was the bigger sound, with more projection and a warmer tone. He also heard Toti dal Monte in the flesh, when she was an old lady, well into her sixties. The voice was pure, full of resonance and perfectly acceptable to listen to. He also heard (as well as knew) Eva Turner singing in her fifties, with the voice full, mettlesome and thrilling, with no hint of strain or wobble.
What an audience expects, and what they can reasonably expect a singer to deliver, are two very different things. This industry cannot carry on sacrificing singers on the altar of amplified sound.
With regard to de Luca and Keenlyside. You cannot possibly make a clear comparison of the two from de Luca’s recordings, which in no way reflect what he sounded like in the flesh.
Francis Robinson wrote a very illuminating book, Celebration of the Metropolitan Opera, which gives details of his reaction to many of the great singers that he heard in the flesh.
I haven’t said anything about audibility or projection. I’m talking about tone colour. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Schipa, in your father’s experience, had a bigger sound than Alva – anybody who sings in such a relaxed manner with that much physical freedom will project very well.
I realise these old recordings do not give an accurate likeness of what a singer sounded like in the theatre, but they do give one a jolly good indication, taken collectively, of what was desireable in a voice to the audiences of those times.
Put terribly simply, what is evident and indisputable when comparing De Luca’s recordings with Keenlyside is that the modern singer has a far more prevalent and consistent vibrato, something which you touched on above. This applies when comparing Dal Monte, Schipa and Turner with modern singers in their respective fachs also.
I believe that Browser has hit the nail on the head. Especially when mentioning the consideration of a singer’s actual physiognomy,in judging a voice’s potential possibitiies . Mention of soft palette and vocal positioning etc. : one knows that discussion is finally getting down to the real business of singing and not just fickle attitudes about fans’ dislikes and likes.
The old recordings do allow you to at least hear their actual technique and their ‘art of positioning’ their voice. How many times do we hear today that cheap trick : that ‘ah -ah -he’ sound (a couple of vocal steps and a hopeful hop jump!) out of some half baked tenor too small for the vocal breeches he is trying to fill! Either incapable of it, or ill prepared and lazy, for the task. The thought of slightly ‘hooking over’ and coming down onto some high pitch note seems to be not into their vocal vocabulary. It is all ‘a stuggling push-push upwards’ and it becomes quickly boring.
Cocky Kurwenal Comment #107:I realise these old recordings do not give an accurate likeness of what a singer sounded like in the theatre, but they do give one a jolly good indication, taken collectively, of what was desireable in a voice to the audiences of those times.
Comment105. La Cieca shouted:
“Actually, there are very few efficient ways to make a tube resonate
According to legend, Melba knew all of them”
La Cieca, from what I heard from two different sources researching her life, she was especially well known for that ‘attribute’. Belief is: she died though post operative complications brought on by that said ‘past-time’, following her face lift operation (around 1930 a time of no antibiotics, let alone penicillin!)
As a kid, I heard old people tell me (who had heard her live) that her voice sounded like ‘a pure crystal bell’. Family legend has it, I was nearly related – only stopped by her father not allowing her sister to marry into the family!
Touchy Mr Holland
I’m not being touchy, I’m mocking your changing of the rhetorical goalposts, to be pedantic about it.
I don’t think it’s pedantic to say that a far smaller percentage of the population can afford, or get into, Garsington than they now can to Glyndebourne (where you can stand for a tenner, I think it is, if you’re so keen to see something)
This is getting silly. I was merely mocking the idea that one of the very last operas written in the 20th century that was a box office hit took 89 years (!!) to make it to a British stage while some inferior (in my view) Strauss operas had and for British Straussians to complain about where or how easy it was to get tickets or their price was silly. Even the stodgy Met did Die Tote Stadt 12 times from 1921-23.
Surely ‘changing of the rhetorical goalposts’ is what m/bs are all about. We can none of us stick to our points when others choose to introduce new ideas or lead them onwards/sideways. It’s not a good place for control freaks.
Anyway, I SHALL be glad to see Tote stadt staged in London at last – even with Nadja Michael! – and there’s an end of it.
One of the most shameful losses in all of this is that the classical technique allows the voice to move freely, generally upward, as the singer enters maturity, if that is where it wants to go. So Bastianini started as a bass, the voice rose as it matured and the technique supported its evolution. There is very little effort in his singing as the technique is flawless, the voice is so beautifully placed in the mask, producing that glorious ring and the back of the head and the back kick in with that wonderfully melifluous warmth.
Bergonzi started as a bass-baritone, then sang as a baritone and matured into a tenor. Again, a wonderful, effortless technique. His recording of Ballo shows a voice that moves with ease through the passaggio. I know of very few tenors who can do that today. Perhaps the closest to being able to produce that kind of thrilling noise is Misha Didyk.
We have no decent Verdi baritones – the last, Zancanaro, sings rarely. And very few really good tenors. And what happened to all of the tenore di grazie?!
Browser – interesting about the lack of tenori di grazia. Florez, for instance, completely lacks ‘grazia’ to my ears. Lots of efficiency and inflexible tone, but very little charm and love.
The closest among the major names has to be Calleja. His tone is a bit nasal and his style is in danger of mannerism, but he does have grace and charm in his singing. And the fact that he looks like a rugby player adds to the charm in a funny way!
Calleja has what seems to be a strange (perhaps imposed?) vibrato that I find difficult to listen to. The whole point of grazia singing is that it is lead by the head voice (with the head voice is mixed in quite a long way below the passaggio). The diamphragm only supports, it doesn’t create extra volume, so there should be less vibrato, not more.
A singer sings only while exhaling. During inhaling, the diaphragm moves downward and the lower it goes the more volume of air is stored in the lungs. Then the diaphragm contacts, pushes the air upwards into the larynx and vibrates the vocal cords, as it passes through, thus producing the singing sound. The diaphragm enhances not only volume but also the length of a vocal line.
Anatomy 101 vs. Singing:
There should be no “pushing” of air during singing. When singing, the diaphragm and ribcage do pretty much the opposite and work to *regulate* the air flow. If you’re singing properly, you phrases will be limited not by lung capacity, but by how long before your urge-to-breath occurs. *Then* your diaphragm pushes out all the remaining air, before you inhale.
Re: quiently anonymous: The best way to get a sense of this is to listen to John McCormack sing Il mio tesoro.
No pushing from the diaphragm, onlu support.
Browser, with respect, Bergonzi is not a very strong example of a singer moving upwards during their career, since he said himself in an extensive interview that the reason he sang as a baritone was because he was not singing properly. He stated, quite candidly, that he was singing in an unhealthy way as a baritone. It wasn’t that his voice naturally progressed upwards, it was that he took a short time out to sort himself out, and then relaunched as a tenor – the rest is history.