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.
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!