Acknowledgments
To my wife, Ann Marek, for unfailing loyalty, love, and encouragement for more than fifty years.
To my son, Lou Marek, whose artistic talents contributed immeasurably to this book.
To my son, Paul Marek, for practical help and advice.
To Shirley Lambert of Scarecrow Press, who encouraged me to write this book in the first place.
To Renée Camus, Niki Guinan, and Jany Keat, my editors, whose guidance and help were indispensable in the production of this book.
To Dr. Charles Kaufman, William Knight, and Edward Foreman for excellent advice on style and content.
To John Pennino and Robert Tuggle of the Metropolitan Opera Archives for help with historic photographs.
To Dr. David Slavit, eminent otolaryngologist, who reviewed anatomical and medical material.
To Basil Walsh of www.britishandirishworld.com for the Malibran and Pasta images.
To Erin Schleigh of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for the Garcia I portrait.
To Frank Nemhauser, Lisa Johnson, and Joel Lester of the Mannes College of Music for academic support.
To Karen Oswald of Icon Learning Systems for help on anatomical images.
To the memory of Dr. Berton Coffin, who has shown the way, and to Mildred Coffin and Martha Coffin for friendship and advice.
To my students, past and present, who have helped me to learn.
Practical Advice
“We should be careful not to make intellect our god. It has, of course, plenty of muscle, but no personality.”—Albert Einstein
“Keep on doing what you’ve always been doing and you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”—Sign on New York subway clerk’s blackboard
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”—Theodore Roosevelt
“Even the gods struggle in vain with stupidity.”—Franz Proschowsky
“A great deal of talent is lost in this world for the want of a little courage.”—Sydney Smith
“The duty of the artist is to conceal effort.”—Enrico Caruso
“Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.”—Albert Einstein
“Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult O earth; break forth O mountains into singing!”—Isaiah 49:13
“A big chest, a big mouth, 90 percent memory, 10 percent intelligence, lots of hard work, and, above all, something in the heart.”—Enrico Caruso, when asked about the requisites of a great singer
“So many people are like: ‘Oh, son, what are the chances that you’re going to be a big league pitcher? Let’s do something more realistic. Let’s go to work at the convenience store.’ That’s because people live their lives thinking everything is so darn hard. Everyone is so worried about it, they don’t even let themselves try and experience it.”—Barry Zito, Cy Young award winning pitcher, Oakland A’s
“The artist always has time.”—Isaac Van Grove, composer and conductor
“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”—Francis Bacon
“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.”—Charles Horton Cooley
“Prepare with your brain; sing with your heart.”—Dan Marek
“Placement is a sensation but not an action.”—From an Internet site
“I am very open about the theater; I like innovation; I like interesting things,” he said, “But unfortunately what I see too much of these days is directors using operas as vehicles for their own vanity, appropriating the works for their own career or feeling the works are not strong enough on their own and must be made relevant to modern audiences. For me, the dramatist is the composer.”—Unknown
“What makes any kind of career in the arts so difficult is the wiser you get, the more crippled you are by your own wisdom. The trick is to forget all you know so you can have the innocence of a child.”—Unknown
“It was easy for us to be ‘nice kids,’ we were not preyed upon by dope pushers, our pop music did not issue thunderous invitations to a semisensate flight from normality. Our music used to be played by skilled orchestras; intelligible singers rendered tunes about dancing in the dark while orchids bloomed in the moonlight and nightingales sang in Berkley Square and stars fell on Alabama—silly sentiments, but carried along by intelligent melodic phraseology, and if the words were doggerel, they were often wonderfully compelling. I know my comparison is cranky, but there it is.”—Carroll O’Connor
“The development of talent, I believe, almost invariably means endless effort.”—Feodor Chaliapin
“Art is the only defense against death.”—Arthur Lederman, age 101, a Holocaust survivor
“Change is a process, not an event.”—Unknown
“There seems to be a widespread belief that there is less great singing today than in the past but a higher level of mediocre singing.”—Berton Coffin
Singing is a miracle. It has been called the most complex coordinative act that a human being is ever called upon to perform. Yet, most people can sing, with varying degrees of success, and there is a common understanding that there is something inherently joyful in the act of singing. Even sad songs often evoke pleasurable feelings in both audience and singer. No instrument has the power of the human voice to reach the deepest feelings of the human spirit. Indeed, composers often have resorted to vocal solutions when they have reached the limits of instrumental expression; for example, Beethoven’s setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony. Most vocal music is about love—love of God, love of another person, love of nature, love of country. Song can also express all the other emotions, among them rage, sorrow, exaltation, and mirth. An accomplished singer can capture the audience’s imagination by varying the color of the voice in order to capture changes in mood or character from song to song, and can even portray more than one character at a time, as in ballads like Schubert’s Der Erlkönig. Singing could be considered a secret language that we all unconsciously understand. We sing at all the most important occasions in life. One of my most vivid memories is being in Riverside Park on the night of 9/11, when hundreds of ordinary people came to express their grief and spontaneously began singing all the familiar patriotic and sacred songs.
A beautiful voice and a strong instinct for vocal expression are gifts and cannot be taught. A great desire for success is not the equivalent of talent. Lyric voices cannot be transformed into dramatic voices, nor is the converse possible, unless they were incorrectly categorized to begin with. This happens, but rarely. However, any singer can learn vocal technique and musicianship in order to enhance whatever natural ability he or she has. The necessary discipline of the professional singer’s life is difficult but enormously rewarding, and doing what you truly love means that you will never have to work a day in your life.
Historically, singers who were masters of technique, as well as of performance, have taught singing. They implemented an aural tradition that depended upon demonstration and imitation. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the physical mechanics of singing were but dimly understood, and the control of the vocal organs was mastered empirically. Since the fifteenth century, there have been many books written about singing technique, but it was the publication of Manuel Garcia II’s Traité complet sur l’art du chant in 1841 that was the unintended beginning of vocal science. Soon the traditional empirical school of singing was on the defensive.1
At present, the power of popular culture is so overwhelming that great singers rarely are perceived as the role models athletes, pop stars, movie stars, and tycoons can be. Often, opera singers are regarded as quaint, slightly cartoonish throwbacks to an earlier time. The constant contemporary assault upon our ears and nervous systems by primitive forms of music, advertising, and the general din that pervades our society tends to deaden the ability of the ear to discriminate among any but the crudest of sounds. Also, our culture is intensely visual. In my studio I have noticed that many students intently watch my reactions to their work to evaluate their singing, rather than accomplish this by listening attentively to themselves.
In earlier eras, opera and art music did not have to compete with more sensational forms of entertainment such as movies, television, video games, pop and rock music, and the myriad modern forms of distraction. Then, many educated people were able to sing or play a musical instrument for their own amusement and edification. Indeed, in the Renaissance, artistic ability was expected of the nobility. We still treasure lieder and chamber music as relics of an earlier era.
In America, there has been a comparatively recent shift in education for the majority of professional singers from the private studio to the university. A complicated society seems to have initiated this as a hedge against the possibility of failure in one’s chosen field. Many youngsters with the requisite vocal and musical gifts may have no exposure to great singing until they are nearly twenty years old, or older in some cases. Many are advised late in high school or early in their college years that they have a quality voice and should study. This is as much as ten years later than nineteenth-century voice students began their vocal education. For example, Henriette Sontag2 made her professional debut at fifteen, Adelina Patti3 at sixteen, and Jenny Lind4 at seventeen. Of course, the male must contend with the adolescent voice change and must interrupt his vocal studies for two or three years during the process.
If youngsters decide to pursue a career in voice, they become students in a university or conservatory, typically receiving only one voice lesson per week, while trying to deal with a crowded schedule of other subjects, each with its own demands. They have so few lessons because the one-on-one instruction necessary for vocal study is a nightmare for university cost accountants. A law professor can lecture to 200 students at once for almost the same cost as a voice lesson given to an individual student by an eminent teacher. Sometimes the voice class becomes the “solution” to this problem. The result is an overabundance of educated but ill-trained singers, often instructed either by retired professional singers who are neophytes as teachers, or by academics steeped in scientific theory but lacking the experience of the wear and tear of the professional world.
Because there is little general understanding of the difference between talent and skill in singing, those with talent often are encouraged to step into vocal situations, even in school, for which they are not equipped technically, musically, or emotionally. Nicola Porpora’s5 students required more than seven years to become finished artists—even with daily lessons, a curriculum devoted entirely to the singers’ specific needs, without distractions, and with a single-minded determination to succeed. Why do we think that we can do with so much less? No real learning is done in the comfort zone. If there were a shorter road to vocal glory, Porpora, Garcia, and Lamperti6 surely would have found it.
The singers of the last [eighteenth] century began to learn to produce and steady the voice before they were ten; they continued studying how to render it supple and docile not only up to the beginning of their career at seventeen or eighteen, but long afterwards; they went on refining their style, selecting their ideas, all their lives; and then, ending their career, they might say, as the old Gasparo Pacchierotti said to the young, yet unknown, tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, “Our art is too long for a lifetime: when we are young we have the voice, but do not know how to sing; when we are old we know how to sing, but we no longer have the voice.”7
Modern science has contributed much to the study of vocal phenomena, especially to the study of vocal pathology, but has been unable to contribute significantly to the art of singing. Attempts to measure such things as vocal cord vibration and subglottal pressure by the use of fiber-optics or electrodes are invasive and unreliable. Much of the data accrued to date only concern speech. Some were collected from studies of so-called trained singers as opposed to untrained singers. But much of this material is questionable because we do not know who these trained singers are, by whom they were trained, and what methods were used in their training. Vocal science has unquestionably contributed to the field of vocal pedagogy and pathology, but practical application of arcane knowledge is lagging.
Much bad vocal instruction is practiced currently. This is obvious to any qualified professional who regularly hears young singers. Certainly, there is no contemporary shortage of advice, even for the advanced singer. It looks so easy! It seems that everyone knows more about singing than the singers do. Coaches, doctors, conductors, stage directors, managers, and critics all vie with one another to instruct inexperienced singers in the execution of their craft. Many specialists have arisen who concentrate on one facet or another of the singer’s art. Workshops and master classes create transient enthusiasm for what seem, at the time, to be quick fixes for problems in performing complex works of art. Yet, somehow, they keep coming: young people in love with great music, swimming against the tide of their own culture, seeking careers in voice and opera.
With the foregoing in mind, it is imperative that singers have exemplary command of their craft in order to cope with these assaults upon their resources and to attain the skill necessary to reach the musical and dramatic goals which talent and imagination demand. They must have qualified instruction and reliable information in order to achieve this. We teachers have an obligation to help them with the best instruction possible. As Husler and Rodd-Marling (1965) observed:
There is no doubt that the singing teacher’s reputation has suffered a decline among professional singers in general, and especially perhaps, among those that have to do with them. They have lost confidence in his knowledge and his capacity to help them with their vocal troubles. Obviously, it would be absurd to suppose that an entire profession could possibly consist entirely of unintelligent or unreliable individuals; yet the fact remains that an unbroken chain of singers travel the world at the present time in search of someone with knowledge enough to put their voices in order. A discriminating outsider, if asked an opinion, would doubtless come to the conclusion that training a voice must be infinitely more difficult than the majority of singers, amateurs, or even singing teachers supposes. He would be perfectly right.8
Many survivors of the vocal wars will tell you that they have wasted years pursuing their vocal muses down countless blind alleys of imagery and misinformation. Some singers attempt to directly control their vocal organs without realizing that their nature is reflexive. This has been going on since 1840, when Garcia reported to the French Academy on his investigations of the physical nature of the human voice. Those of us who have pored over the writings of great singers and teachers have been disappointed when we attempted to apply some of their empirical and subjective methods to our own vocal problems. I believe that, in addition to having great voices, these masters had wonderful ears. Their descriptions of their physical sensations while singing usually make sense only after one has experienced them personally.
So what is to be done? The vocal scene resembles the Tower of Babel, with many voices screaming for attention. The regrettable truth is that there is no immediate panacea, no technological shortcut, and no red button to push that brings instantaneous success in this most difficult of professions. The price of excellence is effort, but what kind of effort? I will attempt to answer this question in this volume. To achieve anything in your chosen art, you must love the process and, in a sense, you will never “graduate.” On the highest levels of the singing profession, great artists are eternally looking for ways to perform better, and they often compare notes with colleagues. There is an apt Italian proverb: “Se il giovane sapesse; se il vecchio potesse!” (“If the young only knew; if the old only could!”)
In this information age, I believe that one of the great skills the singer must develop is the power of discrimination. During an operatic performance various challenges arise, and priorities must constantly shift to meet them. One of the new buzzwords of the computer age is “multi-tasking” and operatic singing can surely be described by this term. Shirlee Emmons states that there are more than forty vocal, dramatic, and musical controls that the singer must balance at any one moment in a staged performance.9 I am convinced that much of the confusion about the art of singing stems from a lack of understanding of the general overall organization of the singers’ art and the conflicts which arise between the separate, yet interconnected aspects of their work. It seems to me that there are four distinct categories to be considered: the Vocal, the Musical, Drama and Expression, and the Psychological and Spiritual.
In this volume we shall discuss all the attributes of the voice, including native ability, and all aspects of vocal technique and production of the voice. This concerns the craft of singing as opposed to the vocal art. Many singers, including professionals, never master this category and struggle with intractable voices all their lives. In a recent visit to the Mannes College of Music, Jon Vickers stated that the artist’s life was a quest for beauty, truth, and love. Beauty and love may be achieved more easily than truth! A reliable vocal technique can be very elusive. The incredible irony is that many of the greatest singers have no idea how they produce their glorious voices. One needs only to read Jerome Hines’s book Great Singers on Great Singing (1982) to verify this statement. Unfortunately, most of us do not have the wonderful voices and the genius of these great artists to help us circumvent our physical difficulties. But we must persevere. We should seek out positive role models like Jussi Björling, whose exemplary technique and silver voice shine through the late twentieth century. Marilyn Home and Joan Sutherland reawakened interest in Handel and in the Bel Canto operas of Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti by demonstrating the sound of a truly well-developed voice. Maria Callas and Feodor Chaliapin were models of the total vocal artist, whose superb singing is always immersed in the drama. We can try to use our intelligence, our ears, and our feelings in order to find our way.
If the voice sounds unsatisfactory and feels uncomfortable, what you are doing is wrong, no matter what you think or what you have been told. The ultimate responsibility rests with you. If you fail to master the instructions your mentors provide, or if you do, and the result is wrong, you must change your course. Heed the motto seen on the wall of a token booth in the New York subway: “Keep on doing what you’ve always been doing and you’ll always get what you always got!”
Fortunately, we can use the emerging field of acoustical phonetics to help us. All of us have learned to speak at our mother’s knee and, unless physically impaired, most of us can speak vowels of relative purity. We can learn to use this ability, and the voice can literally teach us what it is supposed to do. As usual, the Bel Canto masters had a saying for this: “Canta comme si parla.” (“Sing as you speak.”) Hopefully, our studies will teach us what this means. In this text I will use fact and opinion, as well as exercises and demonstrations, intended to empower singers to eventually become their own authorities. I will not add anything to the body of scientific knowledge about singing. I will not address the subjects of vocal pathology or rehabilitation. Assertions will not necessarily be “proven” by scientific studies. The field of vocal pedagogy is such a gigantic smorgasbord that, like the Bible, we can make almost any statement and find some reference to support it, while ignoring contradictions that we don’t like. Therefore, we must choose our information carefully. The ear and the body know whether we are on the right path. The training process is in three stages as follows: First, the singer must recognize the difference between a vocal fault and good technique. Second, the singer must choose the proper adjustment each time the choice presents itself. This should be done in the studio—not on the stage. This is the reason for practicing diligently. Third, after about six months, the singer internalizes the new technique and no longer thinks about the faulty response. This is when singing becomes fun again.
Musical elements are the things that singers have in common with all other musicians; among them concerns about pitch, rhythm, phrasing, melody, harmony, and style. Schools teach these quite well, although, to me, there are a few glaring inadequacies, and time that could put to better use is spent on irrelevant material. Singers should master and internalize these elements and the vocal category in order to have a career. The vocal coach, who is also an expert pianist and linguist, is very helpful in guiding the young singer musically. It is usually best if the coach refrains from giving vocal advice; but he or she should make musical demands that require technical solutions.
When we consider musical matters, such as phrasing and style, we are moving toward the art of singing, as opposed to the mere mechanics of the craft. In the twenty-first century, it will no longer be acceptable to have a great voice and to be unable to read music. Contemporary music has become too complicated for that. It gives us pause when we consider that many of the great artists of the past, among them Enrico Caruso and Adelina Patti, were singing contemporary music! Our composers must help us by writing music that is truly vocal and that reaches the hearts of the public.
If there is no mastery of technique and musicianship, the freedom to concentrate on the poetic, the literary, and the theatrical aspects of the performance will be denied the singer. On the other hand, exemplary technique and theory without the emotional connections that great theater can bring will result in a sterile performance. Titta Ruffo, who was renowned for his sumptuous voice, shared this opinion:
A beautiful voice is certainly indispensable to the singer, but prior to his complete musical development the artist must analyze, elaborate and assimilate the characters he will take on stage, to be able to rouse a more vivid emotion. When he has achieved entire mastery of vocal technique in the studio he should forget singing and develop the interpreter in himself, the actor. In this regard I prefer an intelligent actor with a mediocre voice to a perfect singer without the spark of intelligence.10
The area of the drama is little shared with other musicians. The text is the major vehicle for this aspect of the singer’s art, and the study of poetics, languages (including one’s own), and diction is a time-consuming but essential part of this work. We must also learn body language, facial expression, costume and make-up, role analysis, and stage interaction with others, in order to reach that ultimate judge of our work—the audience.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra: Fifty percent of singing is ninety percent mental! Such diverse subjects as personal philosophy, management of personal stress and stage fright, self-discipline, self-confidence, determination, and imagination are all included in this aspect of the singer’s art.
Singers, as athletes, should be aware of issues of bodily health in order to care properly for their instrument—the physical body. I also believe that it is important for us to understand the history of our craft before we begin to try to master it. Informed and well-trained singers are the only ones who will develop the authority necessary for great careers. With this authority they can then use their instincts with confidence. I hope you will begin to feel a connection with some of the great singers and teachers of the past who have established the grand tradition of western vocal art. In this regard, we are like the Epigoni, a mythical race of dwarfs that dwelt upon the shoulders of giants. When all is said and done, the final question to be answered is—Can we move the heart?
NOTES
1. Manuel Patricio Rodriguez Garcia (1805–1906) was the son of Manuel Popolo Vicente Garcia (1775–1832), who created the part of Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and the brother of Maria Malibran (1808–1836) and Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), two of the most celebrated singers of the nineteenth century. Garcia II was the teacher of Jenny Lind (1820–1887) and Sir Charles Santley (1834–1922), among many others, and his influence upon vocal pedagogy remains unmatched to this day.
2. Henriette Sontag (1806–1854) created the soprano part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony when she was only eighteen.
3. Adelina Patti (1843–1919) was the most famous prima donna of the nineteenth century. Verdi said that she was perfectly organized with perfect equilibrium between singer and actress, a born artist in every sense of the word.
4. Jenny Lind (1820–1887), called “The Swedish Nightingale,” was the most famous pupil of Manuel Garcia II. Lind’s fame rested upon her astonishing coloratura ability. P.T. Barnum arranged a tour of the United States for Jenny Lind in 1850–1851, and she was perhaps the first of the public relations media stars that we see in classical music today.
5. Nicola (Antonio) Porpora (1686–1768) was reputed to be the greatest voice teacher of all time. Among his pupils were the castrati Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) and Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano), whose vocal feats are legendary.
6. Francesco Lamperti (1813–1892) was the author of a treatise on singing and teacher of Marcella Sembrich (1858–1935), his son, Giovanni Battista Lamperti (1839–1910), William Shakespeare (1849–1931), and Herbert Witherspoon (1873–1935)—all fine teachers and authors in their own rights.
7. Vernon Lee (pseudonym of Violet Paget), Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy (London: Unwin, 1907) 183.
8. Frederick Husler and Yvonne P. Rodd-Marling, Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ (New York: October House, 1965) xiii.
9. Shirlee Emmons, Tristanissimo (New York: Schirmer, 1990) 62.
10. Ruffo, Titta, My Parabola, (Dallas: Baskerville, 1995) 212.