I’m back from Barcelona and now that I’ve washed that trip right out of my system, I can get back to the subject that was tickling my interest before I heard about a diva falling victim to sickness in the singing ranks. I hope that you enjoyed reading the articles I suggested to you in my last “Belt” blog before I flew the coop. If you missed them, click them, they are:
“The opera-izing of the American musical”
“Zambello brings personal touch to retooled Glimmerglass Festival”
If you have enough time to dawdle, you might consider meandering about the internet by clicking on the links in those articles and get an even bigger picture of the cultural state of affairs in the United States. You will also acquire an overview of the vocabulary and attitudes of some who are employed to dispense opinion on this small sliver of the “Arts and Entertainment” industry.
I know I may appear to be picking on Ms. Anne Midgette. I guess it’s unavoidable since, once upon a time, she called me on my cellphone to talk about the cultural industry in the environs of Washington, DC. I can be a real pain when asked to opine. If I have anything to say at all, I’m likely to run on at the mouth wandering way beyond the original subject which I will have forgotten before running out of air. This should be expected from a tenor who tends to forget librettists’ words. In this particular instance, with Ms. Midgette, my memory served at least for the short term, but what about the long term? Given what I remember now, she could have asked me how I made my morning coffee. Anyway, I have taken a shine to reading what she writes now and again, and when I discovered her discussion of Old Broadway Show revivals I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to mix some of my thoughts with her reporting.
Ms. Midgette did not write about “Belting” specifically, but her articles are about the natural habitat of that style of singing. Ms. Midgette seems to center her “Opera-izing” thoughts on the lynch pin word: “authenticity”. She doesn’t seem to believe Glimmerglass was wise to seek “authenticity” in “Annie Get Your Gun”. I don’t suggest she is wrong to complain, however, I do want to expand on her conclusions. When I asked her, she told me that she was at least aware of “Belting“, but I’m not certain she would agree with what I am about to write. I believe that the “authentic” component missing in “Annie Get Your Gun” at Glimmerglass in Cooperstown, NY and in “Oklahoma” at Arena Stage on Sixth Street in Washington, DC was “Belting”.
Now that “Highbrows” want to compromise and play with “Lowbrow” music, they have a big problem. They can’t find those “Lowbrow” “Belters” who can deliver those “Lowbrow” melodies the way Irving Berlin and other “Lowbrow” composers expected their melodies to be “Belted” into the theatre. The Opera Singer can’t be faulted for not having the authentic vocal style that a lot of “Lowbrow” music demands. The Opera Singer has always been taught to avoid “Belting”. I am not surprised that in her article Ms. Midgette wrote that two unamplified Opera Singers:
gave the impression of being less invested in, or less serious about, this musical than about opera, as if carelessness were a hallmark of the “lightness” of this particular style.
Excuse me, but, if you don’t “Belt” you “ain’t” serious about old “Lowbrow” music generally, and even less serious about those old Broadway Shows. Let’s get serious and say: All they really had to do is “Belt”.
Ms. Midgette asks a very valid question of Ms. Deborah Voigt after citing some of her impressive high notes:
“why does the rest of your singing seem so pale?”
The honest answer would be……… “I don’t Belt!”
Ms. Midgette suggests that “fetishizing authenticity is of questionable value” and I heartily agree. It is REAL authenticity that gets my juices flowing and my hand reaching for my wallet to pay for tickets. Whether the tickets are for the theater or for a museum, I want to have at least a fighting chance to hear or see authentic talent employed authentically. That’s why my preference these days is for botanical gardens. I haven’t found one of those places putting a single silk or plastic plant or flower on display, yet.
I was happy to read Ms. Midgette’s mention of Ethel Merman, but I really wish she hadn’t suggested that Ethel had formal vocal training. It would seem to contradict Ethel’s biography. There is no real barrier to Deborah Voigt undertaking the study of “Belting” so that she might sound more “Merman” like. Why didn’t she? Ms. Midgette seems to give us a good answer, albeit unintentionally, on page 2 of the other article she wrote about Glimmerglass and its new director Francesca Zambello:
Zambello also has great connections. “A lot of it is asking your friends,” she said. This summer, she’s lured singer friends into accepting Glimmerglass’s relatively modest fees……..
Asking an Opera Singer to make herself a viable reviver of Ethel Merman style is like asking a brain surgeon to go back to school to learn how to use his/her scalpel skills to prepare the raw material for “Steak au Poivre or Tartar”. Well,….. it’s not really like that, but you get the idea. When it comes to money the parallel does hold. At Glimmerglass Ms. Voigt was certainly paid less than her normal surgeon like salary to put her vocal talents at the service of “Lowbrow” music. If you put her in Brünnhilde’s costume, even I might actually come to listen, but Annie’s vocal demands just don’t fit the voice. If you ponder my assumption that the fee for Brünnhilde in NYC, Chicago, Dallas or San Francisco is likely to equal or exceed the cost to Glimmerglass for all singers on the stage in “Annie Get Your Gun”, you can get a glimpse into a singer’s material calculations and priority system.
A little further on Ms. Midgette tells us about her preferences. After the very short preamble: “It may be heretical”, she explains that the amplified performance of “Oklahoma” at the Arena Stage was a better artistic experience than the unamplified performance of “Annie Get Your Gun” at Glimmerglass. It is an aggressive paraphrase, I admit, but Ms. Midgette can always defend herself, if I’ve misrepresented her meaning. Neither cast at Glimmerglass nor Arena Stage can be expected to have any “Belting” instruction or experience in todays’ world. And to emphasize one last time: If you don’t “Belt” you ain’t authentic Old Broadway or even authentically old “Lowbrow”. So what’s the difference between those productions besides differing dancing abilities? Microphones!
The critics praise the youthful “Oklahoma” cast for good looks, high energy and great legs. I think this is a good, and likely complete, list of assets those up and coming stars of modern musical comedy bring to their production. No one seems to say much about them vocally. Perhaps it’s because none of them “Belt” or sing “Au Natural”. (“without a mike”.) Now that we have critics opining that building a “Field of Dreams” with lights and sophisticated amplification is a wonderful thing for “Lowbrow” Broadway revivals, could the Opera World be next to face some big changes?
Because many tools of the singing trade like Chest Voice, which is the foundation of Belting, are being ignored and even vilified, perhaps in the future we may find Ms. Midgette or her descendants writing similar articles about Opera. Amplifying the singing of “Lowbrow” music seems to be STANDARD practice, and now critically preferred. With practice on the “Lowbrow” stuff, the technical problems with amplification in the theatre will eventually get worked out. The opera singer hopefuls I heard just last month at Viñas only reinforced my conviction that the big opera houses are in trouble. All those young people are singing with a lot less volume than previous generations of opera singers. It seems to be an inevitable compromise. Opera Theatres will have to imitate the Arena Stage if this trend continues.
In the meantime, I will stand on my soap box and yell many things, one of which will be: Better to “Belt” and be rid of the mike. If the amp blows a fuse, one might be reminded of the fate of Millie Vanilli.
As for the photo of Rocky’s Pizza Place at the top of this blog. I snapped that photo just a few days ago while I was in Burlington, VT running errands with my two favorite ladies, Debbie, my wife, and Dot, Debbie’s Mom. Debbie spied the pizza emporium and asked me to take a photo while she and Dot did their thing. At first I was happy for the opportunity to add a ha-ha photo to our collection, but as I was snapping away it dawned on me that my blog was almost finished and the title asks a question. I realized I was taking a picture of the best answer ever. Those Millie Vanilli guys might now be kicking themselves and wondering why they didn’t do pizza and pasta instead of lip syncing. But as for anyone who quests for stardom and has Broadway as his/her target, even if you only want to know how to sing, take the risk and learn to “Belt”.