Lieber Jonas

Mein lieber Jonas,
Ich hoere jetzt deine Dichterliebe von Carnegie Hall an.  Ich habe nur eine Frage:  warum singst du dass so tief?  Du bist eigentlich tenor, nicht?  Verzeihung.  Ich habe meine Deutsch am Theater gelernt, und dort sagten wir immer du zu einander.  Ich finde dass du es oft tust (meine Deutsch ist ganz erfunden) and can nur fragen.  Es ist erlaubt Lieder so hoch oder so tief wie man will singen. Man muss nicht der Klavierspieler anhoeren.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen.

Following the Conductor

People are always talking about following the conductor in the performance.  This is something I always find puzzling.  In my first professional season--remember my professional experience is not particularly significant--I performed without contact lenses which basically means I couldn't have seen the conductor even if I'd wanted to.  The next season I had contacts, all paid for by the German health system.  The most important reason I needed contacts was because my face had a kind of blank expression due to the fact that I couldn't see anything.  Everyone said that with contacts I looked like I was actually seeing something.  From my point of view it kept me from falling over things.

I recently discussed the talking prompter we used, but I can honestly say I never heard her either.  I have no sense of any of this being a problem.  In the rehearsals you need to see the conductor to find out what he's doing.  In the performance you sing with the music, not the conductor.  Whatever the music is doing, you do that too.  Occasionally cues are required.

If you are not adequately rehearsed, that's another story.  I remember Angela Gheorghiu's concert in Zellerbach where she kept turning to see the conductor.  She didn't trust him.  That's the only explanation I could think of.  The repertoire was all things with which she is very familiar.  They needed to rehearse more.  It felt like they had rehearsed only enough to give a sense of anxiety.  He was a young man.  She should have been stern with him and told him to follow her.

If you don't know the music well enough to tell whether you are with it or not, you shouldn't be there in the first place.

Intermission Interviews

Young ladies, I'm not at all sure that you should allow yourselves to be interviewed with your head shaved, as was the case with Elza van den Heever in the intermission today of Les Troyens.  She sings Queen Elizabeth to Joyce DiDonato's Mary Queen of Scots on the simulcast in two weeks of Maria Stuarda.

Messa di Voce

[This is an edited chapter from my mysterious never to be seen again book, the one that explains the purposes and methods for practicing the messa di voce. The person to whom it refers shall remain mysterious. It could be anyone.]

We still haven't sung any repertoire and will not again today. My biggest concern about you is for the general care and maintenance of your voice. My goal is not to give you a standard technique, but to find ways to keep your voice balanced and healthy, the diverse parts connected, and to find unity in the variety of your work.

Today I will teach you the messa di voce, the most classical of all vocal exercises. In its almost absurd simplicity is an enormous variety of benefits, and I wish to give them to you. I'm a big believer in the messa di voce (placing of the voice). Garcia and a lot of other famous teachers recommended it, and I recommend it to you. I used to practice it when all was going to hell in the middle, and sometimes when it wasn't.

Garcia is Manuel Garcia the younger, the brother of the famous mezzo-sopranos.... "Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot," you interrupt. Yes. And the most famous voice teacher of the nineteenth century. His father, also Manuel Garcia, was the tenor for whom Rossini wrote the role of Otello, which means he must have been a pretty damned amazing tenor.

Singing is an athletic activity performed by a tiny muscle in the throat. All of the respiratory mechanism is used to control and shape the sound, but this tiny muscle is crucial. I am reminded of stories about decathletes--the people who compete in the decathlon. They always explain that in order to be good in a big variety of events, their performance in individual events usually suffers. Bulking up for the shot put interferes with developing the right fitness for sprints. Sprinting develops the legs in a slightly different way than long distance running, which in turn is different from the broad jump.

Some uses of the voice interfere with others. Too much emphasis in one area can prevent others from developing. For example, too much emphasis on chest tones can make high notes more difficult. The messa di voce tries to even out the extremes of use, to balance and unify the parts. It is useful to counteract your tendency to prefer certain "hot" zones in your voice, pitches or colors which sound particularly nice and you would like to sell to the listener. In performance you may sell your voice to your heart's content, but not in the messa di voce. Here we place the same value on every pitch and every degree of loudness. It can also tell you what is working well and what is not.

The messa di voce consists of a long crescendo (pp to ff) followed by a long diminuendo (ff to pp) on a single note. It's pretty boring, but worth it. An experienced singer like you should be able to crescendo for a moderate 8 count and diminuendo for another 8. You can do it faster if that seems too slow. If you have a very high tolerance for boredom, you can do this for a few minutes (4 or 5) at a time, covering your whole voice. Don't overdo it.

My suggested tempo is very slow. Many writers on singing recommend it, but I don't remember anyone suggesting such a slow tempo for the messa di voce. I think doing it slowly helps focus awareness on the transitions and off of the extremes.

I want to make sure you learn the messa di voce properly, and remind you that throughout the exercise, you must keep your head still. A little tilting may be allowed, but no backward or forward movement. This is very important. It would counteract the benefit of the exercise to perform it improperly. I would watch carefully to see that you did it right. I would ask you to observe yourself in the mirror, both now and when you are practicing it later.

We will begin in the middle of the voice on a G or A. Extend the pitch gradually down and up, though it is less important to practice the messa di voce at the extremes of range. On high notes you would be doing it to practice controlling the diminuendo and to bring more weight into your high notes. Any vowel is OK. It is more important where you position the vowel than which vowel you pick. Place it forward but not too far forward so you can expand and open it as you crescendo. Begin the vowel in a closed position and move to an open position on the ff, going back to closed position.

"What does it mean, 'open position' and 'closed position?'" you ask. "I don't understand this."

Closed position in a vowel means a narrow, highly focused sound, while open position is wider and less focused. Notice I do not say unfocused. Unfocused is not good. When I am talking about different sounds, I will talk about them in relationship to vowels. A very tight "ee" is closed and a looser "ih" is very open. These are two extremes of the same basic sound. If I am going through the material too quickly, please stop me.

On pitches near the break, you begin in head and crescendo smoothly into chest and back into head. Between the two is mixed registration. Some people mix naturally, but the rest of us have to practice it.

After listening to you and listening to myself when I was about your age, I notice that our two very different voices share certain qualities. We both use a lot of mixing in the middle, and our most beautiful sounds come from this mixed tone. This beautiful mixed sound is delicate and fragile and hard to make loud. When you're doing it right, you show a lot of skill in controlling the mixing. Other times you don't even try to mix and just skip directly from head to chest and back again, usually to achieve a technical effect. At your best, you are more successful at blending your registers than I was.

You must take care to keep your head and neck still during this exercise. The jaw can move. To get the desired benefit, the main activity must be in the larynx and pharynx. Your head must not go forward when you shift into chest or back when you go into head.

The diminuendo must be executed without allowing the tone to become breathy. Intensify the vowel and concentrate on moving it to the closed position. This is especially important on the "ah" vowel which you must be sure to practice. You may limit the crescendo to forte if you want, especially at first. In any event never crescendo louder than feels comfortable or can be fully supported. If you keep doing it, you should be able to extend the dynamic range gradually.

The messa di voce has a number of uses. In addition to helping to smooth the transition from chest to head, it is also an exercise to control the transition from light to heavy singing. Both transitions must be executed smoothly, with no apparent shift. Some pitches will be much more difficult than others, but those are the ones we will emphasize. We will tune the vowels to make it easier, allowing them to move slightly with the crescendo. If you become tense while practicing this, stop and try again tomorrow.

The messa di voce is very boring and requires concentration on technique alone to be effective. It has no musical content and must be practiced this way. Its purpose is to develop coordination of the vocal cords themselves, to develop and facilitate exactly those things, which are hardest for a heavy voice. The instructions should be followed exactly.

The messa di voce connects the extremes together and trains the voice to be familiar not merely with the extremes of loud and soft, chest and head, light and heavy, but with all the levels in between. You use crescendo and diminuendo in performance to bring variety and contrast, but in the messa di voce the objective is sameness and evenness, which means that it must be performed methodically in as boring a manner as possible. Think of it as a meditation, the messa di voce meditation.

The messa di voce is intended only for experienced singers, and beginners should stay away from it. It's not a drill. Repetitions aren't the point. The benefit lies in discovering how to do it correctly, and once mastery is achieved, it can be done less often for review. Practice it occasionally during your warm-up to make sure it's still working properly. If there are problems, return to systematic study.

[This has to be the longest and most boring explanation of how to do a vocal exercise ever written, the obvious result of extreme fanaticism.

For a short demonstration of how to perform the messa di voce chick here. You are not required to repeat it three times or add the huge flourish of fast notes at the end. Fiendish grin is also not necessary, but if it works for you, why not?]

Here is something in an interview with Vesselina Kasarova where she discusses the messa di voce, though she doesn't call it that.  Her description is similar to this.  I also advise her to sing Octavian as though it were Mozart.

Merola Finale

One of the purposes of Merola training at the San Francisco Opera Center seems to be acquainting the young people with the nooks and crannies of operatic repertoire.  Thus at last night's Merola Grand Finale 2010 we were treated to...

A Handel Aria (Kevin Ray, tenor)

A substantial amount of Romantic French, including

·         an aria from Mignon (Robin Flynn, mezzo)

·         an aria from Thais (Rebecca Davis, soprano)

·         a duet from Hamlet (Abigail Santos Villalobos, soprano & Dan Kempson, baritone) and

·         a duet from Romeo et Juliette (Nadine Sierra, soprano & Daniel Montenegro, tenor).

An even richer selection from the bel canto, including

·         an aria from I Puritani (Ao Li, baritone)

·         a duet from La Fille du Regiment (Abigail Santos Villalobos, soprano & Eleazar Rodriguez, tenor)

·         a duet from Lucia di Lammermoor (Valentina Fleer, soprano & Sidney Outlaw, baritone)

·         an aria from Norma (Renee Rapier, mezzo) and

·         a duet from Don Pasquale (Janai Brugger-Orman, soprano & Benjamin Covey, baritone).

 “O du mein holder Abendstern” from Tannhauser (Ryan Kuster, baritone).

Two bits from R. Strauss that included

·         bit from Die schweigsame Frau, something I’ve never seen but now am curious (Kevin Thompson, bass)

·         duet from Ariadne auf Naxos (Hye Jung Lee, soprano & Colleen Brooks, mezzo).

Scene from The Rake’s Progress (Janai Brugger-Orman, soprano, Alexander Lewis, tenor, Kevin Thompson, bass).

Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hye Jung Lee, soprano, Thomas Florio, baritone and others).

The Finale from Nozze di Figaro.

Not one thing from Verdi or any verismo composer.

Now I know that opera singing is hard.  The lesson of my own extensive education was that it was far easier to learn music as music instead of as rows of notes with words attached.  In other words, learn the notes and the phrasing together.  Never fall prey to the idea that I'll save the phrasing for later.  I'll learn how to phrase music when I'm getting gray hair.  No.  If necessary, learn the phrasing first and save the notes for later.  I'd 100 times prefer a few mistakes in phrased music than endless robotic performances with absolutely no musical clue.

Who knew, e.g., that the finale to Figaro was so repetitious and monotonous?

Giving credit where it is due:  the duet from Romeo et Juliette was charming and very moving.  This opera is growing on me.  The duet from Don Pasquale wasn't too bad.  That's about it.  Even the obscure corners of opera have something musical to say.  The scene between Zerbinetta and the Composer, for instance, is utterly charming.  Normally.  Not here.  You won't fool me with acting.  In other words, the presence of acting will not distract me into not noticing the absence of phrasing.

Post Script:  Obviously if they are all doing it, it isn't the singers who are at fault.

PPS:  When I pointed out that the Merola final concert included no Verdi or verismo, I meant this as no criticism. And "O du mein holder Abendstern" cannot be considered killer Wagner. In a comment about the Santa Fe opera I said I did not think Merola tried to push young singers into heavy repertoire or vocal production, something that might be happening in Santa Fe. Selection of lighter repertoire is a factor in this process. The aim is to work very hard, learn a lot about repertoire, languages, acting, etc., but leave the technique pretty much in tact. They should be praised for this.  

Advice

I remember distinctly saying I would never give advice to JD whom I saw in recital the other night. Well, I lied.

This is sort of weird advice. It's sort of recital as theater rather than recital as singing. I liked very much the musical interpretations of the songs, and I definitely don't think--deeply as I love her--that everyone has to turn into Cecilia every time they perform, as one reviewer declared.

It is, however, important to communicate, both to yourself and to the audience....
here is the start of the song....
here is a transition to the second section....
now I am at the emotional climax...
and this, ahem, THIS is the end.

I told you it would be weird. Way too many songs got over without anyone being able to tell. Give us a signal. Relax something.

This reminds me of the conducting class exercise where we were to get everyone to come in together without actually moving. This turned out to be easy. One changes the expression on ones face.

Tell us every second of the way what we are expected to do without actually doing anything. Tell us that the song has finished, but we are not to clap. Tell us exactly when to start clapping. Remember, you are in charge.

What the Fach?

I found a book called What the Fach by Philip Shepard while browsing around the internet.

What the Fach is an book with advice about auditioning in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Lots of subjects are explored in a very up to date way. It was over 30 years ago I did this, and it doesn't look like a lot has changed. This material is only 2 years old. A cursory review tells me that it is not BS.

If you think you would like and might have the goods to have a career in opera singing, this is one path to that goal. I probably violated every recommendation. I was too old, was a contralto, picked the wrong arias, spoke only the smallest amount of German, etc. "Geht dieser Zug nach Grossen Linden?" "Ein Zimmer fuer drei Naechte, bitte." That was it.

These days there are training opportunities all over America. One way to go about it if you are American might be:

1 Find a good voice teacher and take their advice.
2 While you are still young, try to get into the various apprentice programs that exist around the United States. San Francisco, Santa Fe, etc.
3 During steps 1 and 2, study German. Meet people who speak it and practice speaking with them. Get German translations for all your arias and learn these versions.
4 Take the leap and go to Europe. (Notice absence of academia in this list. Janis Martin didn't finish college.)

Glückwunsch.

Villazon

The blogger gossip says that Rolando Villazon's career is in the toilet. I think he's young enough to pull out of it, but he has to start taking himself more seriously. He has to start thinking he's someone in particular and not Domingo light. I have been giving this advice for years to apparently no avail.

Advice: Sondra Radvanovsky

In this month’s Opera News is an article about Sondra Radvanovsky that asks the question, “So why isn’t her star shining brighter?” She has a wonderful voice, excellent technique, good visual presence—I thought she was pretty and winsome, as a proper Roxane should be in Cyrano de Bergerac—and more than adequate power for Verdi. Why isn’t she a superstar?

Perhaps this question could be addressed by comparing her to Leontyne Price. Price transformed Verdi into a brother. (Is this best called a bro?) Who knew that Verdi had soul until Leontyne showed us? She was fearless and daring, and her Verdi made goose bumps stand up on your neck.

To be truly great you must transform the music into your own. The first phrase of any piece should tell us who is singing. Genius is idiosyncratic. People talk about the singer’s voice, as though that was all there was. Sondra has a terrific voice, but a substantial percentage of the time the phrases just lay there. To acquire a proper perspective consider that none of the notes are ever allowed to just lay there. Technique is not only not everything, it is just the foundation. It is still left to make music,

It is curious to me to read that Natalie Dessay never thinks about the music. Her singing is very musical, but the musical expression comes to her through thinking about the action. For her this is a valid path. Her emotional insights play out into musical as well as theatrical expression.

I’ll take whatever path works for you.

Kathleen Battle uses coaches. Renée Fleming uses coaches. Cecilia seems to be adequately idiosyncratic on her own. This remarkable film of a young Angela Gheorghiu shows that she comes out of the box with her musical personality fully formed.

Dig deeper. Find your own voice. Find out who Sondra Radvanovsky really is, and tell it to us.

Tenor Advice

A few months ago I received an email asking me to give advice about the career of an Italian tenor. This left me a bit speechless. Now I have a small amount to say.

If you are acquainted with a not too young tenor in Italy whom you like but who is not being particularly successful, then this is probably because his voice or technique does not approach the imagined Italian ideal for a tenor. Perhaps it is a lyric tenor voice that does not successfully push to dramatic. I was not told any of these things.

In this case I would advise to try elsewhere. Audition in Germany and Austria. The French like a lighter sound. Know thyself and match ones efforts to ones talents.

It is difficult to impossible to give generic advice of this kind. Perhaps there is a reason for the difficulty the individual is having.

Stolen from someone

I was interested in these comments from an interview of Vesselina Kasarova:

WP: What is your secret in keeping your voice so fit and flexible even after two decades?
VK: The most important thing to me is the piano - crescendo and decrescendo, the dynamic juggling with the voice. If I cannot do that anymore, then I know I must have done something wrong. I want to have total control of my voice. I don’t want my voice to dictate to me what it can give. I want my voice to do what I want it to do. I am a very intuitive person. Intuition, as I understand it, is always also intelligence. Accordingly one learns from one’s own mistakes and one thinks it over. Rest time is also important for me.

WP: You also took some risks nevertheless. For example; in a single season at the Zurich Opera you sang Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini and the Oktavian in Der Rosenkavalier . Would such a wide range of role wreck a voice?
VK: I sang my first Oktavian when I was 39 years old. Those who risk wrecking the voice on that role are ones who starts singing him at only 25. Besides I am very careful with this part. I have only sung Oktavian in Zurich and in a Japan tour of the Zurich Opera so far. And I don’t know at all whether I will sing him again. All the Richard Strauss repertoire - I never sang The Composer in 'Ariadne auf Naxos', much less the Dyer’s Wife in 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' ... that'll never happen. As far as the vocal style of speech-singing goes, I don't like it anymore.

Dr.B: Wow. I don't think I would have suggested Dyer's Wife for her in any event, but her Octavian is wonderful. It would be a shame if she never sang it again. At the end she seems to be rejecting the whole Strauss style. Try singing it like it's Mozart. That might work.

Wide range of role does not wreck a voice. Pushing, especially pushing with leaking air. Over singing. Extending into repertoire that is too high and heavy. These are the usual reasons. Wide range of role should help, I would think. She jumps immediately to discussing Strauss and ignores the other three composers as obviously not a problem. One could ask more questions here.

If one is coming to Strauss from Mozart and Rossini, perhaps he seems heavy and ruinous. I am always reminded of Gwyneth Jones who came to Strauss from Bruhnnhilde and Lady Macbeth. For her voice Strauss was a balm. I think Kasarova's voice could do a little heavy singing as long as she doesn't overdo it. My take on her is obviously quite different from her own.

Here is the link to the original interview in German.

Bitter, disappointed old women

On the back page of the March Opera News is an essay titled “The Jury is Out” in which the author, Brian Kellow, explains why he no longer wants to serve as a judge for singing competitions. He cites in particular an unnamed fellow judge who once criticized Renée Fleming’s Italian R. Renée is now referred to as “Your Miss Fleming” by the other judges.

I am taking this personally. It seems an essay about bitter, disappointed old women, something I sometimes wonder I might be. I definitely think it is what Cecilia decided I was. When I criticized Bryn, his partisans quickly leaped to that conclusion. [I was criticizing his career plans, not his voice or performance standards.] There can be no disputing the old part or the woman part.

It's true I criticize people and suggest they should do various things. My intentions are that they should improve and do better. If Renée Fleming's Italian R stank, I would probably suggest she acquire one, exactly like the bitter old woman in the essay. The intent would be that she then acquired a proper Italian R and was the better for it (I note on YouTube that Renée's Italian R is fine now). The intention would not be that she should then feel humiliated and cry. If you feel intensely humiliated any time anyone criticizes you--as I myself often did--you are probably not cut out for the tough world of the opera. My first bit of advice would be to get tougher.

After a great deal of miserable, hateful, deeply loathed auditioning, I came to resent the fact that no one told me the truth. A lot of time was wasted trying to do something for which I was not suited. No one told me this. If your Italian R stinks, why isn't it better to know? If your voice is too light for opera, why isn't it better to know?

I am probably much more guilty of the things he criticizes than the woman he is attacking. After all, I wrote an entire 300 page book criticizing the worshiped and adored Italian singer. When I look back at my technique book, I don't see bitterness or even arrogance. I was genuinely surprised by how much I knew about singing. The pages just flowed out. My intentions were honorable, though in certain respects misguided. Or possibly insane. Humiliation was not the goal. In fact it was the very real possibility of humiliation that made me return it to its box in the closet. In the end I didn't publish it, and she didn't read it. It was pointless.

As one grows older, possibilities begin to close. Choices that were made earlier are called into question. If one regrets ones choices, bitterness can be the result. I blog because there is a lot of information in my head about music, information I would like to put to use. Music is what I was trained to do. I had virtually no training at all for systems analysis.

I always look back to see how much I might have been helped by honesty. If people love you, they don't hesitate to tell you. If they think you lack certain essential gifts, they gossip about it amongst themselves while smiling woodenly at you. Yes, I probably would have cried.

I advised Yvonne Kenny to pitch her pop songs higher. I advised Thomas Glenn to work on his coloratura technique. I advised Cecilia Bartoli to practice the messa di voce. I advised Measha Brueggergosman to look for the passion in French as she so easily found it in English. I advised Tracie Luck to "Reach into my heart and give it a little squeeze." I advised Rolando Villazon that he was a lyric tenor. I hope I didn't send any of them into a crying jag. I worry that I might advise someone to do something they actually shouldn't do.

I honestly don't know if I am a bitter, disappointed old woman. I hope not.

News

So much for my opinion. Apparently the understudy in Chicago was hot. According to Playbill: "Another Star Is Born: Elaine Alvarez, Gheorghiu's Understudy, Triumphs in Chicago Bohème" Here is her MySpace page with singing.

Now that would actually be a good reason to fire Angela. What if the person who actually shows up for the rehearsals turns out to be fabulous? Perhaps I should add Elaine Alvarez to my list of people I follow. One does love a fairy tale ending.

If she is serious about her career, she needs to go immediately and have herself photographed. Find a photographer who specializes in sexy photos, and get him to shoot you. This advice applies to everyone. Only the biggest stars have enough sexy pictures to go around, and often even they don't. The usual "I am a serious opera singer" shot that looks like it came from your high school annual simply will not do any more.

Advice

From a comment on YouTube attached to Victoria's performance of "Mi chiamano Mimi":

"Elisabeth Schwarzkopf wrote, when she saw [Victoria] de los Angeles debut at Covent Garden as Mimi in 1950, that she cried, because of de los Angeles perfection in the part and because she realised she would never reach such levels in the role and withdrew it from her repertoire."

Elisabeth achieved immortality by carefully selecting the roles she portrayed. She focused on those roles in which she achieved perfection, those roles in which she was the greatest of her era, and it was not many.

I think this is a useful model only for those who aspire to greatness, as she certainly did. Know thyself.

Question

Having just found this....

"Ladies, Step Away From the Stripper Pole. It's just never a good idea. Sincerely, Your friends at EW."

in Entertainment Weekly, would we want to consider making the same recommendation here? This is Anna Netrebko in Manon.

Just asking. Everyone gets his own opinion.

Advice

I was listening to the radio, Terry Gross I think, and some guy, gee I wish I could remember who, said you should swim under water and stay under water as long as you can in order to improve your breath control. He said that Frank Sinatra advised the same thing. It sounds like a good idea.

Question

It occurs to me that the Art of Practicing may be wasted on a lot of classical singers. It is possible to be an opera singer and never practice by yourself. Ever. Coaches and accompanists can be relied on to pound it into us even if we come totally unprepared. Perhaps this is the problem. Why is it that the most expressive of all musical media, the human voice, is often the most monotonous in performance?

I couldn't play the piano worth shit, but I still worked out my performances alone at the keyboard. I sat alone with myself trying to figure out what made this piece tick. It is rather pathetic thinking about it. This included hours spent fracturing Das Lied von der Erde, among other things, a piece that I loved and wanted to feel in my fingers, to make my own, even though I never performed it. "O sieh wie ...." I wanted to feel those arching phrases in my own body.

If you are never alone with the music, how can you possibly find where it intersects your own soul?

The Art of Practicing

The Art of Practicing by Madeline Bruser: the copyright date for this book is 1997 so I won’t claim it is new. It’s new to me. Subtitle: “A Guide to Making Music from the Heart.” It is written by a pianist and focuses primarily on pianists and other instrumental musicians. I am reading it to see how much applies to singers.

We continue to promote the idea that the difference between good and great singing (or good and great piano playing) lies in expression. Music cannot be great without great emotion. This is my advice to singers: try to find the expressive heights in your singing. I would have advised increasing coaching opportunities, but Madeline wants us to find expression in our practice hours, to find emotion while working alone. Perhaps this book will give us some clues.

It occurs to me that this may be wasted on a lot of opera singers. It is possible to be an opera singer and never practice by yourself. Ever. Coaches and accompanists can be relied on to pound it into us even if we come totally unprepared. Perhaps this is the problem. Why is it that the most expressive of all musical media, the human voice, is often the most monotonous in performance?

“This book is about how to free ourselves from physical and emotional tension as we practice so that we can unleash our innate musical talent.” Singers are always advised to get involved with the text, to learn all the nuances of the original language to increase meaning and expression. I insist that this is good, but it isn’t enough. There are in all types of music purely musical meanings which must also be sought out. Don’t leave it to the pianist or conductor.

Her first piece of advice is meditation. This is seen as an approach to conquering stage fright and to increase awareness of the here and now. The goal is to increase relaxation and awareness. I see no reason why this doesn’t apply to singers, too. She found that this made her more aware of both her body and the sound she was producing and allowed for greater attention to detail.

She begins with “The Starting Point,” and right at the start she is speaking to me. In the crime novel I started with the first-lesson, but she begins earlier with the student's relationship to the teacher. The student must achieve a mystical balance between vulnerability and respect. That is the student must feel vulnerable to the teacher (or no learning will take place) while continuing to feel that the teacher respects him. The student must feel that the teacher respects him. This was always a sore spot for me. In the crime novel I discussed at length my relationships with teachers, none of which was ideal. I like it that she talks about this. "Passion, confidence and vulnerability are evidence of musical talent." If a teacher criticizes and attacks your confidence, dump them. I see now how I was broken down by criticism.

In her chapter on Struggle and Freedom she advises us to try to take in the music we are producing, to hear ourselves performing, instead of constantly comparing ourselves to the ideal in our minds. This is hard for a singer because we cannot actually hear ourselves as we really are. We hear our voices minus some of the resonators, I think, but the advice can still apply if we assume it is the performance, the expression we are listening to and not the tone.

I want to discuss everything, if I can, and will cover the chapters as I read them.
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Ben Heppner

From Playbill: If you think it takes hard work to be an opera singer, Ben Heppner says think again. The star tenor insists that the key to his success is his "laziness." Tongue planted firmly in cheek, the man considered one of today's greatest Wagnerians tells the Paris newspaper Le Figaro that "it requires too much work to sing with power." He continues: "I am convinced that it is easier to sing well than to sing badly." Heppner — who was in the French capital early this month to perform chunks from Lohengrin, Tristan and Parsifal at the Salle Pleyel — goes on to explain that he tries to sing in his voice's most natural lyrical range rather than attempt to force out a big, stereotypical Heldentenor sound. It seems to be working: Heppner has shown no signs lately of the vocal difficulties that forced him to stop singing completely for six months back in 2002. Incidentally, Heppner is one of the few opera singers who talks openly about his vocal difficulties (Karita Mattila is another). The subject is still taboo among many opera singers. Right after the New Year, Heppner returns to Canada to perform a series of recitals around British Columbia. Then he's off to Philadelphia at the end of January to sing with Deborah Voigt at the 150th anniversary gala for Philadelphia's Academy of Music, the oldest opera house in the United States. [What did I say? Sing like James Morris. I assure you, he never breaks into a sweat.]

Advice

Advice to Deutsche Grammophon: release track 2 in the US as a pop single ahead of the album and see what happens.

I think Anna would be well advised to start a vogue for the vocal music of Rachmaninov, known for the All Night Vigil and piano concertos. He was a wonderful composer for singers, too. But then, maybe Russian will become the new Italian. Anything is possible.