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.
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.