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| THE TENOR BOOK6 GUIDANCE: Inquiring Minds | |
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Teachers and mentors. Coaches and conductors. All are guides in one way or another at the opera: here's a behind-the-scenes look at what they do and how they see it. Most teachers and conductors are plain-speaking and very direct. Part of it is, neither they nor the singer generally has a lot of time. The other part is that they're not truly helping a singer by sugar-coating what needs to be said. Unconditional praise comes from your family and friends; from your teacher or mentor you need to be pushed and driven - encouraged to be sure, but here is the real work of becoming a singer. There are many who have been interviewed for the book, all of whom have a wealth of knowledge to share: here are comments on a variety of topics from six master conductors and coaches.
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| Conductor Edoardo Müller - on working with the musicians: | |
| mlh: I’ve
watched you in the pit and you really watch your singers. I mean, you are always looking
at them. EM: Even when I’m not looking, I am breathing with them. mlh: You breathe with them? EM: I am with them. And I love so much opera that I couldn’t do something different. |
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| I don’t watch
in particular some detail but someone, someone I look in the eyes and I see when they
breathe, how they breathe. Or I try to see when that particular action ends and he is
ready for the next phrase. mlh: Do you breathe with the orchestra, too? EM: I hope the orchestra breathes with me [laughs]. I hope I can breathe with one soloist of the orchestra when he is doing a solo... But it should be the opposite. |
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Maestro Müller spends nearly all of his
days off, break time and lunch or dinner hours in coaching sessions. American lyric tenor
Bruce Fowler spends much of his time in the world of Rossini, which means he works
primarily in Europe. Here though, he gets a chance to sing Verdi, as Fenton in Falstaff. Bruce Fowler: "Working with Maestro Müller was so amazing. He changed the way I was singing one vowel, and it opened up the rest of the aria for me - just one vowel changed everything, made it so much easier." |
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| John Beeson - chief of Music Staff and Vocal Coach at New York City Opera - on Enrico Caruso: | |
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JB: If you go back in the
era of Adelina Patti, Jenny Lind, back, way back before we have recordings, most of the
stars belonged to the extreme vocal categories. Sometimes the basses were the big stars.
But when they began to discover that the tenor voice could use a much more powerful
approach to the top notes, all of a sudden the public interest centered on that. And
it’s pretty much stayed there all these years, all the way from Caruso up through
Björling, Tucker, Corelli in particular… With Caruso, there was the factor of recordings, which brought him to a much wider audience than any other tenor previously. The tenor who was the star at the Met just before him, the Polish tenor Jean de Reszke, was probably an equivalent star. |
| But Caruso had a voice of
extraordinary quality, and this mysterious factor of individual vocal timbre, it just
seemed to strike people as extraordinarily beautiful. And he didn’t sing at the kind
of gently approached reinforced top notes, but he really sort of opened his mouth and let
fly. Which was a whole new approach to opera singing, not these elegant sorts of things
based on old-time myths, but much more opera of the people. He didn’t try to act like
a god or the older gentleman. So he immediately had an appeal to a broader-based public
than the upper-crust people who went during the Edwardian era to Covent Garden. I mean,
his timing was perfect. And his willingness to sing a lot of music that had nothing to do with classical music whatsoever helped. If you look at his recordings, well over half of them are just pop songs, which people like de Reszke never even considered singing. Caruso was perfectly willing to sing anything that would appeal to anybody, and his recording of the World War I song, “Over There” – in wildly hysterical English! – you know, he was perfectly willing to accept himself as the voice of the people, rather than the voice of a certain kind of elitist artiste.
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| Martin Wright - conductor, chorus master, coach, singer - on tenors: | |
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mlh: What did you like the least
about performing as a singer? MW: A singer who’s technically secure in his voice and financially secure can say I’m having a bad night and I’ll get over it. A singer who’s struggling on the way up, every performance, you’re under so much pressure and you think if I crash and burn, how am I gonna pay the rent this month... Will I bounce back in time... I think the biggest thing I didn’t like was feeling that I had to come through with the goods whether I felt on top of my form or not. And you look at the fees that these singers, the top singers, get for their performances in an opera house. They earn every penny. Because the fee is not just for that night. That fee is for clear back to when they first auditioned for this person and what they’ve done in their career in the meantime that’s led up to this point. |
| That fee includes the five weeks or three weeks or two weeks of rehearsal, which
is heavy, culminating in this acrobatic act that they’re doing that night. And
yeah, if you drop a high note, you worry that you’re gonna lose the
audience. Will they come back to you when you sing the next aria? Will the casting
director say Oh, gee, I can’t put the money on that... These people, these
tenors, they're coming through with the goods - they’re earning it.
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| Donald Runnicles - Music Director, San Francisco Opera, opera and symphonic conductor everywhere: | |
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He's described as a "singer's conductor" and highly praised by the artists he works with. During our interview, we talked about singers and a lot more, getting into the nature of the collaborative working process of opera in some detail. Here, he shares his very definite views on authority. |
| DR: I would
never be able to base my authority on fear… because things that go around, come
around. Frankly, that’s one of the hard things to figure out, looking back on the big
maestri, the big divas, who scared the whatever-you-like-to-call-it out of orchestras
– these orchestras sat in fear for their life, their lives being their livelihood. I
honestly believe you could hear that paranoia... I think a couple of conductors who were
absolute icons, someone like Toscanini - it’s almost blasphemous, what I’m about
to say - but there’s some performances of his that I don’t want to listen to
because they sound dreadful. They sound as if there's this obsessive driving - there will
be no personal interpretation there – it’s just exactly the letter of the law.
And you hear, I really believe you feel this tension. You may not be able to hear
the fear – but you feel this tension. You know how they say an animal carries that,
when it’s slaughtered, and it actually… mlh: Oh! Oh my god, oh yes! DR: … in that moment... that what happens in their blood is just the sheer... and that’s why some people are vegetarians, because they feel that that blood in there is like this [clenching both fists together] – you feel the tension, you feel the fear. I hope that day is not coming back... I think times have changed.
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| Conductor and teacher for 60 years, co-founder of Tri-Cities Opera - Peyton Hibbitt, on young singers: |
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"It's more than the voice. It all is in the brain. What do they mean when they sing? And if you can convince 'em that the meaning is what it's all about, the voice grows, they don't even know it's growing, their body supports it better, they look better... "It's what do I mean? not how do I sound? If they go by 'How do I sound,' they're always in trouble. It's like walking a tightrope and always looking down at your feet. If they try to be impressive, they trip themselves."
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| AUTHOR'S JOURNAL Discoveries | ||
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One of the questions I asked all the singers was to describe a moment when they first knew they wanted to sing, and to sing professionally. While the ages were always different - from childhood to mid-twenties - they were very often guided into voice training because a teacher or a mentor recognized the talent and suggested further study. We all make discoveries like this. As a writer, my path is filled with twists and turns, blind corners shrouded in fog - and the way becomes clear bit by bit. I start out with a broad outline, a plan, an approach that seems comprehensive, and appears sensible. With every interview, every photograph, each bit of information gained along the way, things shift. The perspective changes. Figuratively, I come around a bend and see new things - sometimes in a clear way, sometimes it gets more complicated. |
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What this means is that the only way to know how to write the book - how to select, how to arrange all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle - is to write the book. The part of me that manages all the details and schedules, who dots the i's and makes sure the t's are crossed - all entirely necessary in a project of this scope - is the same part of me that is often frustrated by the vagueness and the to-be-resolved-later aspect of the rest of it. Trust is a big factor, here. Trusting that by going through the process, the questions will be answered, clarity will come. The other factor is doing the work. Proverbs, quotes, and stories can help: Just do it. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... and is achieved by taking that single step every single day. And since I'm often stepping into darkness, as it were, I have to believe one of two things: either there will be solid ground when my foot lands... or I will learn to fly. |
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| THE INTERVIEWS - in conversation with NICO CASTEL | ||
| Nico Castel: multi-lingual, multi-cultural, character tenor in his performing days, diction specialist and coach, author of a series of definitive translations of opera libretti... an almost larger-than-life personality overflowing with passion about his work and his art. Anyone who's had the privilege of encountering him will recognize his always-on style. It was almost impossible to select just one section of our conversation! | ||
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mlh: Do you… obviously there’s a problem with young singers not knowing the history, not knowing who came before… not having done their work, basically. Which is true in, it may be in any business, certainly in any art form. NC: It’s not as if we say that… be as the ones that came before but more. But… may I say something about, you’ve touched on a point that is very sore with me. Some singers say [exaggerated Italian accent] “Oh, I never listen to other singers. My teacher doesn’t want me to…” And of course then I go into my diatribe. Would you conceive of Picasso ever in his young years, dreaming of becoming a painter, and not studying daVinci or Raphael? Would you conceive of Frank Lloyd Wright in his apprenticeship years, not studying the pyramids of Egypt or the ziggurats of Mesopotamia? or the Gothic arches of the Middle Ages? WHY ARE WE, OPERA SINGERS, EXEMPT FROM THAT PROCESS OF DIGGING BACK INTO THE HISTORY OF OUR ART FORM? IT’S INCONCEIVABLE!! that Rodin did not study Michelangelo’s sculptures. He did! Everybody goes through that process. |
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NC: I mean, some kids I work with had never heard Caruso. You know, I play them a tape I have, a recording of Caruso singing the Rossini Dardella [sings a few bars]… They say "My God! who was that?" "That was Enrico Caruso." "My God, what a voice!" mlh: [but of course] Yes. NC: Vacuum. Vacuum. It’s… I never can understand it. So I really, really make them listen. mlh: Do you think some of those kids are misinterpreting the instruction not to imitate other singers and maybe using it as an excuse? NC: Well you see, I am sure that what happens with voice teachers – of course, you’re right. Oh you must not imitate other singers! mlh: Of course. NC: Of course. You don’t listen to singers to imitate. We listen to singers to grasp the sense of style, to grasp – God forbid you should imitate Renata Tebaldi and learn how to do a beautiful diminuendo on a high A like she does in Sì mi chiamano Mimì in the recording. God forbid you should sound like her! Ahh? Ahh… mlh: What a fate! NC: What a terrible fate! [laughs] Ohhh… But it’s fascinating. It’s what makes our business so fascinating. Because everybody’s different. mlh: You know, I wonder, it seems to me that tenors, it seems more than other singers, the voices are so unique that if you listen to ten tenors singing the same aria, you can usually identify the singer within a few notes. NC: Oh sure. The timbre. |
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NAVIGATION
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OperaBasics
- An Introduction The Art of Making Opera - Inside the Book Explore More: Top 10 Ways to Fall in Love With Opera Principal Singers
& Singing |
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WORDS & MUSIC SHOP recommended recordings by tenors & Artist Profiles of many favorites ENRICO CARUSO
Profile coming soon: 19th CENTURY TENORS |
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| "This is
the ideal book for everyone who loves opera."
"... a distinguished book with heart." |
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original content © copyright
1999-2006 ML Hart and images/graphics © copyright 1999 ML Hart photograph of Enrico Caruso by the great Herman Mishkin exclusive excerpts from ML Hart's
interviews with: no part of this page, site, or any
components may be borrowed, downloaded, acquired, or otherwise used by any person(s)
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