Chapter Six
RECORDS
With the world premiere of Germania by Franchetti at La Scala in 1902, Caruso’s fame increased. Young recording engineers F.W. and W.C. Gaisberg, who also captured Patti’s voice on wax, recorded Caruso in ten arias in a single afternoon against the orders of the home office of the Gramophone and Typewriter Company. For this, the tenor was paid the magnificent sum of £100 (about $50 per record). The records were released to coincide with Caruso’s debut at Covent Garden. The Victor Talking Machine Company bought the Gramophone and Typewriter Company masters and there they have remained ever since. During his lifetime the Victor Company paid Enrico Caruso $1,825,000—about $300,000 more than he was paid by the Met. Since his death, Caruso’s estate has earned more than $2 million from sales of various re-issues. Along with Patti’s and Melba’s, Caruso’s recordings (there were 266) helped the fledgling industry to soar and added immeasurably to his legend.
In today’s world, people tend to speak of history in technological terms, and we often keep track of the march of time by citing the date of some invention or innovation—the automobile was invented in 1889 and the first powered airplane flight took place in 1903, for example. Like all other events in the world, each of these advances in technology is accompanied by a corresponding problem or even sometimes an evil. For example, the rise of the chemical industry has brought a corresponding increase in cancer cases, and industrial growth has produced pollution and enormous amounts of garbage.
The impact of technology on the performing arts has been powerful, but we take it in our stride and scarcely seem to notice the changes in our professional and daily lives. On December 4, 1877, Thomas A. Edison became the first person to ever record and play back the human voice. He called his invention, fittingly enough, a record. The early phonograph (or gramophone) was not electronically amplified and depended upon a mechanical system to translate the vibrations of the singer’s voice directly onto the wax. The typical recording session was more like a wrestling match than an artistic event. Emma Eames (1865–1952) described the experience:
To a sensitive person the conditions were unnerving. We had to sing carefully into the very center of a horn to the accompaniment of an orchestra which invariably sounded out of tune, owing to the fact that metal horns were substituted for the wooden sounding-boxes of the violins. In the case of a brilliant and vibrant voice like mine, as one approached the climax, or a high note, the climax was turned into an anti-climax for fear of a blast, so-called; one was gently drawn back from the horn, so that instead of a ringing high note one sounded as though one had suddenly retired into the next room. The process enervated me, as I felt that with even the most satisfactory results, my voice would be diminished and deformed, and the cross vibrations eliminated completely.1
If the music was a duet or concerted piece there would be the sort of competition described by Gerald Moore: “The charging and pushing that went on made me marvel that they had any breath left for singing. Victory usually went to avoirdupois, a welter being no match for a heavyweight.”2
Figure 6.1. Soprano Marie Hippolyte Rôze sings into an Edison tinfoil phonograph in 1878.
The technology remained crude until 1925 and the advent of electrical recording. Strangely enough, after the initial problem was solved, Edison lost interest in his invention for ten years. Finally, because of competition from others, he regained his interest, formed the Edison Phonograph Company, and went on to make a great deal of money selling both phonographs and recordings.
The benefits of the invention of the phonograph for the vast majority of mankind are undeniable, and Edison’s invention has burgeoned into a multi-billion dollar industry. Millions of people who had never heard an opera or a great singer could buy a machine and hear many of the world’s greatest artists. In addition, popular music, jazz, and other branches of music became readily available. The records were expensive at first. In 1917, the Victor Company sold the trio from Faust with Farrar, Caruso, and Journet for $5 (approximately $55 today), for a record that ran a little over three minutes. When Patti made her 1905–1906 recordings the phonograph was little more than a toy, but it marked the first time in history that artists were able to hear themselves (somewhat) as others heard them.
The beginning of the recorded era also coincided with the twilight of the gods of singing for a variety of reasons. No longer would the singing star be considered the be all and end all of the operatic world. The singer began to be, increasingly, merely another member of the team of conductors, impresarios, stage directors, and orchestral musicians. Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957) began the cult of super-star conductors who increasingly took over the reins of operatic performances.
I would say that the singing star became like a pitcher on a baseball team—indispensable, but a team member none the less. Gone are the days when a Patti or a Marietta Alboni (1826–1894) could refuse to rehearse on the grounds “that rehearsals are so wearing on the voice.” The time is past when opera and fine singing were only the playthings of the rich. Catherine the Great and King Ludwig II of Bavaria are no more, and heads of state these days do not know nor care about the latest exploits of prima donnas. We do have more celebrities in other fields now than ever before, of course, but there is precious little reason to call them divas.
The golden voice of Enrico Caruso was one of the reasons for the great popularity of records during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Caruso’s tenor voice lay right in the middle of the tonal spectrum and recorded better than basses or sopranos, who tended to be distorted by the acoustical technology of the period. Caruso’s records have been constantly updated by technological advances and are still best sellers in the marketplace.
VAUDEVILLE
In 1917, Caruso was introduced to a tall, beautiful soprano only twenty years of age, who had been singing in vaudeville and moving-picture houses with her sister Carmella as “the Ponzillo Sisters.” Caruso heard her sing and immediately said: “Next year you will make your debut at the Metropolitan Opera opposite me in La forza del destino.” Rosa Ponselle, who described herself as quaking with fear, made that debut on November 15, 1918 and has been counted as one of the three vocal miracles of the twentieth century, the other two being Titta Ruffo and Enrico Caruso. I like to think that Ponselle was following in the footsteps of Lillian Nordica (1857–1914), born Lillian Norton, another versatile American dramatic soprano who was one of the greatest vocal talents that America ever produced.
Vaudeville, the medium in which the Ponzillo sisters worked, was an outgrowth of the earlier minstrel show and variety show and was the chief form of entertainment for the general public in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, until it was gradually replaced by the motion picture. This was live theater and provided employment and a training ground for thousands of singers, many of whom were classically schooled. At vaudeville’s peak in 1928, 2 million people attended performances daily in 1,000 theaters nationwide. In a certain sense, one could say that there was a certain similarity between the variety artist and the musico of the eighteenth century. Both were required to sing in an unruly atmosphere and did not depend upon electronic amplification. Therefore, the vaudeville singer must have been able to project very well indeed. There is a story that Al Jolson (1886–1950), who starred in the first “talkie,” The Jazz Singer, followed Caruso in a concert promoting war bonds in 1918. After Caruso finished singing to a tumultuous ovation, Jolson took the stage proclaiming: “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”
Al Jolson, and many other stars of vaudeville, such as Eddie Cantor; Eva Tanguay; Kate Smith; Sophie Tucker, “the last of the red-hot mamas”; Sir Harry Lauder, the greatest vaudeville singing star of the music hall; and Rudy Vallee all took advantage of the new medium to increase their fame and their pocket-books. Cultural events like concerts and opera were mostly provided by touring artists and opera companies like the Charles L. Wagner Company. The tour was always an important part of the Metropolitan Opera season. The operettas of Sigmund Romberg, Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and others were also popular.
THE MICROPHONE AND THE RADIO
It is significant that Rudy Vallee often used a megaphone to amplify his voice. That device soon fell by the wayside when the microphone, invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, was coupled with the loudspeaker, which came upon the scene in 1924—an event that led to electrical recording, the end of oratory, and the end of big-voiced popular singers.
The symbiotic relationship of the crooner to the microphone was established, enabling weak-voiced singers who would never have succeeded in the rough and tumble world of vaudeville to become fabulously wealthy and famous stars who sold millions of records and whose voices were broadcast to more millions by the beginnings of radio. In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi had broadcast the first message by the wireless medium. Radio became an important means of communication in World War I but all nonmilitary use of the radio was postponed. After the war, David Sarnoff proposed to the management of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) “a plan of development that would make radio a household ‘utility’ in the same sense as the piano or phonograph.” Prophetic words indeed. There have been over 5,000 different piano companies over the years, and the parlor piano was an important part of a cultured home. RCA organized the National Broadcasting Company in 1926 and acquired the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929. In 1922, there were 60,000 radios in use nationwide. By 1929 the number had grown to 10 million!
From the beginning, radio was viewed as a tool of commerce. Noncommercial broadcasting played only a minor role in the rise of radio. Therefore, the thrust has always been to appeal to the tastes of the largest number of people. This has not been to the benefit of classical music, especially vocal music. Even so-called “classical radio stations” have largely instrumental formats in order to serve as a kind of highbrow background music. Vocal music is too disturbing and attention-arresting for this purpose, so vocal broadcasts are largely specialty programs, such as “The Vocal Scene”3 and the Met broadcasts.
THE VISUAL MEDIUMS
The motion picture was invented and perfected by many people, including the French brothers Auguste and Louis Jean Lumière and our old friend, Thomas A. Edison. At first, around the turn of the century, short films were shown as part of vaudeville programs, but with The Great Train Robbery in 1903, feature length films began to be shown in theaters built exclusively for their exhibition. European films dominated the market until World War I, but by the late twenties, when the talkies were developed, American films accounted for three-quarters of the market. During the Great Depression and World War II, there were a great many escapist musical films made, and motion pictures remain the great American art form to this day. The logical extension of the marriage of visual and aural entertainment into the home came with the first television broadcasts by the BBC as early as 1935 and the introduction of audio and video recordings in their various formats in the middle of the twentieth century.
CONCLUSIONS
The impact of all this technology on singing may seem to be obscure, but the following points need to be made:
1. Prior to the availability of audio and video recordings, the only way to hear music was to either go to live musical events or make music oneself. People were educated in school to make music, and the family piano in the parlor was often the center of entertainment for the home and neighborhood. The art song was created for intimate entertainment, as was chamber music. What we have been witnessing is the decline of amateur music making. The word amateur is based upon amare (to love). Therefore, an amateur is one who loves what he does. The same can be applied to other arts, sports, and other activities. We have become a nation (and world) of cultural voyeurs. Rather than participate, we now sit passively in our homes and watch or listen to professionals perform. The critics have some share in the blame, because most performances are judged against professional standards and many audience members have learned to become critics. Because of the easily reproduced videos and records, and if the audience becomes content to experience only canned music, one could almost envision a time when only one artist per category would be necessary—one pianist, one violinist, three tenors.
2. Since it does not seem to be necessary for everyone to participate, a further result of this trend is the lack of arts education in the schools. When budget cuts are deemed necessary, administrators cut “frills” such as arts programs. In a democracy, the arts depend on a large informed audience. The “diamond horseshoe” is anachronistic, and cultural organizations such as the Met find it increasingly difficult to find donors who are willing to underwrite productions for a small group of the elite. This is why arts organizations are selling tote bags in boutiques and “papering” houses that were formerly sold out.
3. The goal of the marketplace is to make as much money as possible. Popular music producers must appeal to mass (largely uneducated) taste. The level of musicality and skill in popular music is appalling. One has only to listen to the popular music of the three decades following the twenties to realize that these musicians and singers were very skilled. The emphasis on the visual aspect of entertainment has dulled the ears of whole generations of young people. Conversely, the level of performance of popular music is so low that many people are persuaded that they could become stars without being talented. The most popular show on television at the time of writing is American Idol, which seems to rejoice in the lack of ability of most of its contestants. A recent article in the New York Times discussed the appeal of bad singing and how, to many “artists,” reaching the pitch doesn’t seem to matter these days. Interestingly enough, there is a trend among some pop singers to add melismatic passages to tunes so often that they have become clichés. I doubt that they know or are interested that these devices—passing tones, gruppetti, and such—go all the way back to the time of Farinelli and his brethren.
4. To those few sticklers for accuracy, there is now a machine that corrects the pitch for tone-deaf recording artists! Recording technology has come a long way since Caruso stood and sang ten straight arias into the little horn in 1903. The recording engineer and producer have become more important than the artist. The CD that we buy has been “improved” so much by splicing, editing, use of echo chambers, and other techniques that we are often disappointed when we hear the artist live. The very perfection of studio recordings often misses the moments of flights of imagination that sometimes come to live performances.
5. After a dozen videos of La traviata and La Bohème have been issued, record companies see no reason to sign new artists to recording contracts. As my friend and mentor Isaac Van Grove once said, “There is no longer room for little artists.”
BRIGHT SPOTS
Before you get too discouraged at my somewhat pessimistic remarks, there are some glimmers of hope for the future. Singing, like the Broadway Theater, can be called the “fabulous invalid.” As we have seen, there have been many times in the past that the art of singing seemed dead, and history is full of great artists lamenting its demise. Then, like the Phoenix, the art revives itself. Some individuals and corporations seem to be getting the message that money spent on children is extremely profitable in the long run—building skills and appreciation for culture that lasts a lifetime. A model for the arts could be Little League baseball, which has thousands of participants, provides a basic training ground for those who have the talent to become major league ballplayers, and builds a base of informed fans who support the sport. The level of singing would be vastly improved if singers were educated in technique and appropriate repertoire ten years earlier. We remember that the castrati were children when their education began, and Patti, Lind, Sontag, and their sisters likewise. Instrumentalists are trained early; why not singers?
Another bright spot is the growth of regional theater and opera companies. Besides providing employment for artists, these companies encourage local participation, offer educational programs, and build a sense of community involvement. Despite the best efforts of Hollywood and Madison Avenue to parody the art form as snooty and elitist, opera is gradually losing its stuffy image.
NOTES
1. J. B. Steane, The Grand Tradition (London: Duckworth, 1978) 9.
2. Steane, The Grand Tradition 9. Steane cites Gerald Moore’s book Am I Too Loud?
3. “The Vocal Scene,” hosted by George Jellinek, is broadcast by WQXR in New York City.