Deal of the Day
Now we are talking about a good deal. One of the reasons I started to do this blog was because I believe that singers should be responsible to protect their voices. This is one of the more useful among the members of the newest tool catagories for that self-preservation project and this price for this tool seems really good to me.
Click on this text to see the deal.
Every voice student should have something like this, and this one at this price, the one you found when you clicked, is like 1000 lessons for the price of one. That is if you live in NYC. Don’t you think you should be your own instructor, critic and best -friend. This little number is made to order for keeping your voice teacher honest.
If you can afford to take voice lessons, you can afford this or something like it.
If you find a better deal, please let me know.
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So Why Should Anyone Belt?
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”.
Read MoreBarcelona and Friends
A little over three weeks ago I received an email from my friend Miguel Lerin. He’s the fella in the photo caught in his natural habitat. He asked me to come to Barcelona to be part of the Judging panel for the big 50th anniversary “Concurs Francesc Viñas” in Barcelona, Spain. Mirella Freni, who should have been on that panel, came down with something serious enough to keep her from leaving home. Miguel asked me to come take the chair with her name on it, and I am confident that at least I did a great job of keeping it warm.
On my way back home, about 2 weeks ago, I started a blog that absorbed all of my meager writing abilities for the week that followed. One week ago, I decided to chuck it in the digital dust bin. The trip to Barcelona gave me artistic heart burn, and no amount of ranting was going to make it better.
Barcelona is a great city! The reports of dire economic conditions in Spain are not to be taken lightly, but to walk the streets of Barcelona is to see a city that shows no fear. In fact, I am not the only non-Spanish judge at the “Concurs Francesc Viñas” who was struck by the vibrancy of Barcelona. The cultural life in Barcelona that I saw was not wilting under economic sogginess either. The appreciation for Barcelona’s operatic heritage was on full display in the ceremonies and installations remembering Francesc Viñas and the great acts of love his descendants have dedicated to his name for the past 50 years.
The competition itself was most interesting. And therein lays the discontent that inspired me to beat my keyboard with a vengeance last week. I lost myself to my passionate opposition to modern trends in the opera business, and I slashed madly at those whom I see turning Opera into an art form for the eyes.
It was a dark week of ruminating rage after rubbing shoulders with Music Moguls made my vision color everything red. So what positive statements can I make about the experience? Number one: I got over it! Halleluiah!! Number two: I saw friends who helped get the red out of my eyes. Number three: I was able to help one of those friends. Number four: I heard lots of singers.
Now I’m HAPPY again, taking coffee with my wife in the morning, shoveling snow and teaching voice. Now that the red is gone, I can see the snow is white, and it’s about time to get serious and get on with the blog. Coffee with the wife has benefits for the hubby that may get overlooked by some tenors. In my case, Debbie hands me lots of information that she digs up from the internet. Just yesterday she shared a sad picture of Plattsburgh that she found painted in two articles posted by our local paper. When I read them I knew I had to use them. I also knew that Debbie deserves a salary adjustment.
First, I want to report the existence of great vocal instruments in the human population. I was introduced to a lot of them at Viñas. Second, I want to report that all the voices that passed through Viñas need to know Garcia. Third, I want to report the ignorance of the truth of Garcia in high places. The majority of my fellow judges contented themselves by eliminating the most interesting singing from the final. That interest was due to the least influence of “Factory” teaching on those singers. When those voices didn’t come back for the Semi Final, I had to do my best to rate the returning talent from least to most boring. Fourth, I want to announce that the world of Opera is in the same predicament as my local community.
In Barcelona I found a mix of individuals among whom there were more than a few who are as concerned as I am about the precarious position in which many Opera Houses can be found. Among the judges there was at least one who worried about the low ticket sales at the box office of the Metropolitan Opera. My Debbie found an article about that problem one morning and told me about it between sips of coffee. With confirmation that this newspaper article was telling the truth, I brought it up with the most important Opera person I met in Barcelona, Joan Francesc Marco. Since he was not one of my fellow judges, I consider myself fortunate to have been seated next to him at a luncheon. He had other concerns that took up the majority of our conversation, but the whole line of discussion started with my question: “Does the Liceu (his theatre) share the Met’s problem of ticket sales taking a downward turn.” Mr. Marco answered “Yes”.
I may be flattering myself to even have an opinion, tenor that I am, but it seems to me that an entertainment without a ticket purchasing audience is certainly going to go the way of cities and towns with populations who can no longer afford the administration of their municipalities.
Our local newspaper offered us two articles that are great examples of the difficulties that face the North Country. The first tells us about one among many problems that face anyone wanting to start a job creating business in the extreme north of New York State. The other article does a great job of praising the concerned elite of our community for their efforts to address the problems they recognize as creating demographic difficulties. That these articles showed up in the same edition was too rich to pass up. The local “wise people” of Plattsburgh think that if you build a theatre accessible by riding your bicycle along the Saranac River, education will improve, young families will flock north and the progeny of those folks will stick around to ride their bikes to the Strand Theatre. Really??!! I think they forget that these super fit, hypothetically well-educated, culturally sophisticated people need a community with an economy in which a career can be made.
The Musical Mogul would seem to have a similar dream. He seems to think that if the stage is outfitted with something truly innovative for sets and the staging of the cast is of the same innovative quality and the talent on the stage is nice to look at and clothed to maximize the visual effect, then the audience will be entertained and they will have copious income from the box office as confirmation that all is well with the World of Opera. Don’t look now. That is not happening. Innovation is everywhere to be seen. What these Moguls forget is that Opera is first an audible art form. The singing is the engine of audience interest. Bore them with the singing, and you will only have the visual portion of the entertainment to keep them interested. The singers who were favored by the majority of judges at Viñas bored me, and I have to credit those singers with the ability to do the same for any other normal entertainment consumer. I hate to be the bad guy messenger, but the average High Definition wide screen TV with standard cable service is better eye candy than most anything Opera Companies can afford to put on their stage. Opera without vocal entertainment is like Plattsburgh without a thriving economy. Ticket sales at the Opera box office could shrink as fast as the immigration of sophisticated families to Plattsburgh.
What bucks this shrinking trend and actually grows? TICKET PRICES AND TAXES. Now what are we to think of this? The art world sure looks like the smaller real world of Plattsburgh.
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