Advice for the Young
I’m getting my work done. I have a mission and it looms over everything I do, but no one can “Tote that barge” until barges cease to be, or “lift that bail” until no bail shall be left to lift. It is a special work for me; editing this Garcia book. I started out reading Donald Paschke’s translation with a tenor attitude. You know,,,, I couldn’t really understand how it was important and if people were handing me contracts all the time, what good was that dead white guy going to do me anyway? Now I’m older and totally in love with Paschke’s brilliant idea. By sifting together two different editions of Garcia’s “Method” he allows the reader to discover for him/her-self some very subtle secrets that are becoming even more fascinating for me as I approach the end…. Not my end, I hope,,,, but the end of my first edit of the first book.
“Barge and Bail” Song
Paul Robeson had a great voice, didn’t he?
As important as I know it is to make Garcia’s writings available to young singers, I just had to drop the “Tote” rope and break away from my stack of editing “bails” to jump on an opportunity to be useful to two singers who asked for my advice. I hope helping them in plain view may also be helpful to you.
What fun it is to have a request coming from Sweden. Jenny Lind left Sweden looking for Garcia’s help, and in Paris he put her singing back on track. The results are historic. Well, another Swede, Petter Reingardt, is seeking my advice. I hope I can make Garcia as helpful to this tenor as the Grand Maestro was to that stellar soprano who started her life in Petter’s neighborhood.
The tipping point to distraction from my present “barge” and “bails” landed in my Email as a response to a letter I sent to everyone I recently heard in LA. I was there to audition singers for the Palm Springs Opera Guild Rossini Award. One of the respondents asked me to cover the same program about which the Swedish tenor was asking advice. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a blog of my answer. Besides, pulling “barges” and handling “bails” are kind of heavy work for tenors anyway.
Some time ago I asked Petter if I could blog my answers to his questions, and he graciously accepted to be outed as a singer seeking help. My correspondent from the Palm Springs Opera Guild Rossini Award auditions may not want to be publicly exposed, and, since I didn’t ask, her name is changed to protect the innocent.
Petter Reingardt:
3. I feel that my voice is quite small but high and light. I’m searching for that dark timbre you have by breathing low, relaxing jaw and throat, and keeping the larynx in a lower position. Now I wonder: have you ever felt that your voice is not big enough? If you did; how did you solve this problem?
Jenny Lind (pseudonym):
My current teacher, Dr. *******, has been having me work to bring the low, settled larynx position into the higher notes, and not strain for them.
Mr. Reingardt could be doing his own thing, but my soprano friend has a teacher telling her to adopt the same project. They use different words and describe different motivations, but the project is the same, and it is totally upside down. According to Garcia, the larynx has no “settled’ level. Garcia asserted and demonstrated to The Academy of Science in France on April 12, 1841, that the larynx has two different mannerisms that are relevant to our discussion. They have nothing to do with attaining a particular size of voice or high note decoration. The larynx moves for many reasons that fall mostly within the category of Timbre application to the voice.
Picking out the position of the larynx as the key feature of the vocal instrument and focusing on maneuvering it to a lower than normal position as a general principle regulating “size” of voice or vocal “beauty” in singing is like deciding to concentrate on the position of the elbows as one takes on the hurdles. I think the modern vocal pedagogical statement can be phrased: If the larynx “settles”, or, better stated, is pulled into a lower position, the singing will improve.
Team USA 400 meter hurdle runner, Georganne Moline, practices on Wednesday, August 1, 2012.
It is no less folly for a Track and Field coach to suggest that if a runner manages to pull the elbows as far back as possible while running the hurdles, he/she will have lower times and fewer downed barriers.
Garcia demonstrated to the Academy the mobility of the larynx in his students while they sang in Clear Timbre and the “fixed” position of the larynx while they sang in Dark Timbre. Today we are faced with acceptance of a very wrong idea. It seems that many think the human voice to be capable of being anything its owner or the teacher in charge wants it to be, and the larynx is the principle tool for building the voice desired. It would seem that my friends are working from the hypothesis that the larynx is in some way an obstacle to attaining the results they or their teachers would like to hear. My soprano friend wants better high notes and Mr. Reingardt wants a bigger sound.
The descriptions that Garcia employs for explaining what happens to the various parts of the vocal apparatus are always post performance discussions. He is describing what can be observed while a person makes a vocal effect. That is to say, one must first attain the effect, and then one can discuss what happened as the individual made the vocal effect.
There are a lot of unrevealed assumptions that Garcia terms “Secrets” and in Philosophical circles the term “presuppositions” would be applicable. They lurk between many lines of Garcia’s writings. I find almost all of them related to a consensus existent during the many days of Garcia’s life. I am talking about a consensus that existed between Garcia, other vocal maestri, critics reporting on the musical doings in their region as well as the majority of the audience Garcia would join when he would attend performances. When Garcia would sit to hear great singers ply their trade on the stage, Garcia and his fellow audience members would enthusiastically applauded and bravo their work according to the satisfaction these singers would provide, and critics wrote of these events with a level of understanding I believe no longer exists. If the singer happened to be a student of Garcia, his pedagogical competition might have curbed their enthusiasm for partisan reasons, but even they would have agreed on one assumption. The great singer they heard had a great gift, and what that gift consisted of was recognized by just about everyone who would applaud. Consensus was there, and a singer of Jenny Lind’s caliber could attain the same level of fame in the Mechanical Age as Luciano Pavarotti did in our Age of Hyper Media.
So, what is my advice? Don’t lower your larynx to make your sound larger, and don’t expect the lowered larynx to make your high notes more beautiful. Laryngeal position management has nothing to do with attaining the best display of a singer’s gift. The larynx moves about as a participating component of the vocal instrument that attains an endless list of vocal effects. The beauty of one’s high notes and ultimate greatness of the individual gift is independent of such technical considerations. Garcia tells us teachers to seek out these gifts:
Often one needs an experienced judgment to recognize in the voice of the student the germ of the true qualities which it possesses.
And then he speaks of the first job of a teacher:
Generally, these qualities are only in the rudimentary state, or well veiled by numerous faults from which it is necessary to free them.
The essential point is to first establish the existence of them; one then manages to complete the development of them by patient and orderly studies.
Voices in their natural states are nearly always unpolished, unequal, unsteady, even tremulous, and, finally, heavy and of short range; only study, but a well-informed and persistent study, can make firm the intonation, purify the timbres, perfect the intensity and the elasticity of the tone. Through study, one can smooth the harsh-nesses, the disparities of the registers, and by uniting them to each other, one can extend the scope of the voice. Study will make us acquire agility, a quality generally too much neglected, especially in Italy. It is necessary to submit to rigorous exercise not only the stubborn organs, but also those which, drawn along by a dangerous facility, cannot control their movements. That apparent flexibility is connected to lack of clarity, steadiness, balance, and breadth; that-is-to-say, to the absence of all the elements of accent and style.
The above text is on page 3 of the book I am about to finish editing. I’ll be back to tell my friends how I think Garcia would advise them further if he were still with us.
While putting this blog together I’ve let a few too many “bails” pile up and that “barge” is drifting away………………….
HEY YOU!!!! LEAVE THAT BARGE ALONE. IT’S MINE.
Read MoreTorino Memories
So I’m back on home ground. I have many reasons to celebrate and want to dedicate this blog to a few of them.
There are so many friends who welcome me home, and a few of them decorate this blog. Everyone passing through my North Country at this time of year is offered a wonderful costume show by my friends and their family members.
It is a short display of glory before they go to bed for the winter. This fleeting beauty is just one of the many local natural adornments that surround me and enrich my life. Happy to show them off, I often remark that this North Country of mine is really God’s country.
Those eight days away from friends and family that I dedicated to playing Johnny Appleseed with Garcia’s wisdom also enriched my life. Unlike the local arboreal color parade, I can’t show you anything without permission, but I can tell the story of three lovely gifts that make me smile every time they come to mind.
When a singer asks for my help, I try to imagine the best possible
future that could be attained by the help seeker. If I can see an accomplished artist as a possible future for the singer, I set to work, using everything I can bring to the task, toward helping the singer to develop into the artist that I can foresee in the future. I am no more able to guarantee an outcome than anyone else, and like every time period in History, ours is interestingly in flux. Who can know of outcomes not yet established?????…… Well,, I do have an answer to that question, but it needs a website of its own.
On the day she arrived, a mezzo soprano, whom I met in a previous Master Class in Rome, planted her feet on the platform and sang two arias on which we had collaborated since our first meeting in Rome. Her performances earned rousing applause. Her singing displayed all the Garcia technique I had introduced to her and her interpretation included every detail of the art I wanted her to master. I asked her where she had
learned to sing those two arias so well and she smiled a big smile and pointed directly at me while mouthing the word “you”. On top of this bang up job of tossing back at me everything I had thrown at her in her lessons, she tossed off NEW things.
The skill and understanding of a great craftsperson is sufficient for delivering everything someone might ask you to do as a singer, but the label “artist” should only be applied to singers who come up with their own successful mix of messages and effects. Paola Cacciatori delivered on all counts this time, and I have great hopes that she will move from “Budding Artist” to “Accomplished Artist” quickly.
My second celebratory Torino story has another gifted soprano at its center. I also met her in that Rome Master Class where I first encountered Ms. Cacciatori.
She came to Torino wanting to prepare arias on which we had never collaborated. She also surprised me and made me smile a lot by taking every Garcia suggestion I tossed at her and turning it to good use. She grabbed every artistic detail and concept I passed on to her as well, garnering good results in her performance. Claudia Alvarez Calderon yanked one of my “Great Crafts Person” labels out of my hand and applied to herself as I applauded her for letting me see our collaboration bear fruit in studio and on stage. This, however, is not the end of the Calderon portion of my Torino story.
I have every hope that Opera is going to survive the present crisis that faces the Arts generally, and it is with that hope that I write these blogs, give voice lessons and run the travel industry gauntlet to play “Johnny Garcia-seed”. Ms. Calderon asked me to endorse her as a teacher of singing. It is with great joy that I do so. When she asked, I told her she was going to have to earn my endorsement, and she earned it both in the studio and on the Master Concert Stage. She knows more than she can yet put into practice as a singer, and what she knows is mountains more than the average voice teacher I keep hearing about in the lamentations of many modern voice students. My endorsement of her as knowledgeable in the craft of singing is of small value. She will have to earn the label “Great Teacher of Singing” by transferring what she knows to others so that they can eventually appropriate the label “Great Crafts Person” for themselves. It is my prayer that Garcia’s banner will be taken up by many students of singing, and, when appropriate, they would take on the mantel of “Johnny or Joanna Garcia-seed”.
If Ms. Calderon finds some students for Garcia’s teachings, I will be waiting to hear some good results.
My third reason to party is a young man. We share a common…. Well, I would say uncommon friend. Alessandro Mormile has been telling me about Pietro Di Bianco for a long time. Sr. Mormile finally brought us together for the Torino Master Class. Pietro has exactly what Garcia tells us to look for. His gift is so exceptional that even the Opera World of today recognizes he has something. I can see for Pietro a future artistic life equal to the lives of the greatest singing artists the World of Opera has ever enjoyed. I hope he will allow me to help him become the artist I know his voice can enable him to become.
With that off my chest, I am back to my homework, which is no less important to my project to see the Operatic Stage populated with exciting singers.
With giving lessons, Garcia translation to do and Christmas coming………. Etc. I expect to be silent until 2016.
Read More
Torino Bound
Summer is starting to cool its heals, and leaf fall is already covering some lawns in my neighborhood. In short order, frost is going to bring my “weeds war” to an end. I’m already planning the day that I’ll have our traction expert change those smooth rolling treads on car and truck for our noisy ice munching studded numbers. They’ve been under wraps since spring rang the bell on our quick bout with short sleeve temperatures. I am happy to foresee the snow that Global Warming seems unable to steal from us, and the redirection of my energy from garden to Garcia. I still have a lot of work to do on Part 1.
I missed doing a master class in Plattsburgh this summer. When my wife and I retired, I believed that living in the North Country would effectively isolate us from the Opera addicted and we could cherish just a few visits from our artistic friends. You know, the ones that happen to be passing our little ‘burgh on their way to somewhere else on Route 87. I was also sure that students of singing would only venture this deep into the woods if they were really serious about asking my help. Well, that isolation worked better than I expected this summer. Preparations were made, thank you Jo Ellen Miano, but interest in visiting us in the woods just wasn’t enough to cover costs. Thanks also to Dr. Karen Becker for making herself available, even if we didn’t get to work together this year.
With weed wars soon to be well behind me, I am looking forward to a Master Class that is, happily for anyone wanting to attend, more convenient for traveling. I’ve been charged with two Master Classes in Torino. The interest of potential participants in the upcoming Master is already greater in Torino than we saw in Plattsburgh. After the press conference scheduled for September 21 that Armando Caruso set for presentation of this year’s activities, see and click on little poster to the right of this text, I hope even more participants will register to participate. Sorry to post an un-translated Italian document, but if you can make the conference, I think you can read it.
For those of you, who don’t dream of becoming stars of stage and screen in the shrinking Opera world but read my blogs anyway, please let me tell you why I think these Master Moments are important. There is no shortage of gifted humans among us on this earth, and I want to help those blessed with the gift of voice. Writing this blog and putting an English translation of Garcia’s books back into print isn’t enough. You may ask: “Enough for whom?” or even “Enough for what?”
I’m glad you asked. Garcia was all about empowering the singer to a high degree of effectiveness with his/her audience. Now that a century has passed since his death, I can see that Garcia’s mission has become a little more complicated. The need for “empowerment” is still with us, but I must add “Audience Expansion” to it. “A.E.” is on the mind of many an arts mogul and opera operative. It has become a subject of “Higher Learning” and a professor of this subject has a clear view of the problem (click to read his latest evidence). I don’t think he and I agree about what is needed to stop the audience shrinkage bothering the Arts, but he can see the problem as well as anyone else. I would say it is just an added component to “Development” (fundraising) as I first discovered it about a third of a century ago. I signed up with an able salesman hired by Houston Grand Opera to “develop” Texas citizens with largish bank accounts. What did I do? I sang for quite a number of lovely ladies and a few handsome fellows in a number of living, meeting and dining rooms. My salesman friend wanted me to help him inspire these well-dressed individuals into donating large sums of money to the benefit of HGO. When I sang for those small groups of happy and successful Texas types, I knew why I was there and did my best to get everyone excited with my singing. I must have been effective enough. Requests to come help out didn’t stop until I was out of town.
If money was pulled from purse, pocket and/or bank account, it wasn’t because of the nobility of the Art of Opera. It was because those open handed cash flush individuals had a good time, and wanted to support a fun art form that was never really profitable. Opera cannot support itself or better yet, it is unsustainable without an excited fan club that can afford it.
News of unsold seats at the bastions of Operatic life make the big, BIG buttons: “DONATE NOW“, “BUY TICKETS“, “SUBSCRIBE“, “GIVE“, “DONATE” and “SUPPORT” quite unsurprising. Unfortunately, just as unsurprisingly we see opera operative elites beginning to view dragging a big bag of cash out the door before the roof falls in as an attractive alternate choice to the rigors of “A.E.”. Click to follow one such story.
The Operatic roof no longer shelters my grey hairs, but I want the roof to stay up. The present and future generations of gifted singers seeking entry into the House of Opera need that roof, and the roof needs them, or it will fall in.
My crusade includes the prayer: “If it be the Lord’s pleasure, may all those relevant buttons on Opera Internet pages be clicked enough to break them.” I believe Garcia has the answer for how to get people to DONATE NOW and BUY TICKETS to the Opera. Garcia offers an un-simple answer, but it is what Opera needs: Gifted and talented singers trained to excite their audiences.
I wrote about Garcia’s first ingredient offered to The Opera World in Factory Made. The relevant quote is:
“Often one needs an experienced judgement (sic) to recognize in the voice of the student the germ of the true qualities which it possesses. Generally, these qualities are only in the rudimentary state, or well veiled by numerous faults from which it is necessary to free them. The essential point is to first establish the existence of them; one then manages to complete the development of them by patient and orderly studies.”
Garcia tells us to discover in the student a voice worth the effort, and then develop that voice. Such developed vocal gifts are Garcia’s first ingredient. The second part of his answer to the question:“How do we develop donations and sell tickets?” is in his second book. In it he tells us how each artist should use his/her fully developed gift with his/her fully functional technique to excite an audience to ecstatic applause. That empowerment to excite is just the ticket to develop donations and ticket sales.
I answer Garcia’s first call to arms in every Master Class. I always discover vocal gifts! Each class gives me a chance to help the owners of these gifts to develop them. When an artist with enough preparation shows up, I can put Garcia’s second book to good use, and teach “Excite your Audience”.
If you want to become a star and you have a gift sufficient to carry you there, the Opera world needs you. I want to find you and I want to help you. Come to Torino.
If you are an Opera lover, and want to see and hear how good singing is key to the survival of Opera, there is room for you.
For the purpose of demonstration, I dust off my vocal chords every day in those classes. Some have lamented about never hearing me sing in the flesh. Well, there’s room for you, too. Come to Torino next month.
Read MoreEmail exchange
I am happy to be home and have my garden somewhere between 10% to 20% weeded. I’m sure the rest of the weeds in my back yard are still comfortably soaking up the fertilizer I intended to feed my flowers, but they should be shaking down to their roots at the prospect that I will get to them in due time. The weather has dropped lots of happy flower making H2O for the roots, topped off occasionally with a magnificent halo of promise for the eyes that can see and appreciate.
As I recovered from my Torino trek, I have wanted to write something about it and my prayers for inspiration were answered in an Email:
—–Original Message—–
From: Michael Papadopoulos
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:18 AM
To: rocky@************************.***
Subject: A note from a fan
Hello, Mr. Blake.
Just a little note to tell you how much I admire you and your voice. I’m a bel canto fan and I was following your career for years. It’s a pity I never heard you live. I think you retired too early! I have heard you in almost all your roles in private recordings. I have the old Mozart and Rossini recital lps and the Dame Blanche cd, but I think that your live recordings show off your amazing coloratura and breath control to better effect. I can’t find your complete Idomeneo. All we have is just the 2 arias on video… You’re pretty amazing in Meyerbeer too, in Robert le diable and Les Huguenots…The current Rossini tenors are fine, but none has your range of colors and unlimited breath resources.
Many thanks for the many hours of pleasure you have given us.
All the best,
Michael
Now I’m just as vulnerable to flattery as the next tenor, but I have a larger view of what it’s all about, and responded to my correspondent with the following:
Dear Michael,
Thanks for your note.
I hope my work will in time raise up a few singers capable of inspiring you to write to them of your admiration.
I have my sights set on even larger targets, but my bottom line is inspiring people like you when you go to the theatre. It was my hope, back in the day when I was still singing, that I might be one among many singers who could inspire people like you to drag your friends to subsequent performances. My dream moments, when I was surrounded by singers who inspired, were few, but magic when they happened. Audiences would stop performances in mid-stream for uncomfortable periods of applause, and sometimes kept us singers and conductor parading back and forth through proscenium curtains held open for us by stage hands dreaming of the wine and cheese that some in the orchestra were already enjoying in bars adjacent to the venues.
I have returned home from a Master Class in Torino, Italy where my efforts were dedicated to this proposition, and the work had a draining effect on me. I seemed to empty myself out in service to the singers who showed up seeking to make their way onto any stage that might allow them a chance to inspire an audience. They did get a tiny open door at a concert that marked the end of the Master Class. An audience of intrepid Opera lovers showed up to see if they would discover any inspirational youngsters.
My drained tank of teaching fuel got a big influx of potential energy from the applause of that audience who came out in the rain to attend our little concert. The post event comments directed toward me that day brought my tank to an even higher level of refill. Your note has brought me to the overflow point.
Many thanks,
Rockwell Blake
I’m going back to Torino in October, and I hope to meet you there if you are on that side of the Atlantic pond or can afford the freight to get there. If you are stuck on the USA side, come to Plattsburgh in August. Don’t worry, our Augusts are cooler than might be thought. We are too far north here to suffer the effects of Global Warming, if you believe in Global Warming.
Read MoreAlmost Two Weeks to Torino!
I left my previous blog with the promise to write “more” about “Una furtiva lagrima”. I’m back with a little bit more Falsetto stuff, and an invitation to meet me in Torino, Italy for a Master Class. It starts on June 9, and I am looking forward to making new friends as well as getting back to work with those of you signed up already for more of what Garcia spent his life teaching. Even if you haven’t already signed up, I hope to see you there if you will let me help you.
In case Torino is too far to travel or just doesn’t fit your calendar, please come to my home town, Plattsburgh, NY, for a Master Class. It will begin August 10 and finish with a concert on August 16. Last year’s Plattsburgh event was a blast that moved some of our participants to make some really big changes in their vocal lives. Come and see if we can bring your singing to a higher level.
Now to get back to dragging Falsetto out of today’s confusion, let’s first remember what the Great Master had to say about discerning talent:
Garcia writes:
Often one needs an experienced judgment to recognize in the voice of the student the germ of the true qualities which it possesses. Generally, these qualities are only in the rudimentary state, or well veiled by numerous faults from which it is necessary to free them.
A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing: Part One by Manuel Garcia II
I don’t think anyone needs any experience or judgment to admit that Luciano Pavarotti had a fantastic talent, and successfully sang all over the World. I seem to remember that when anyone wanted to talk about the “faults” that Luciano may have possessed while he was still singing, critics and theatre goers were more concerned with non-vocal imperfections. I don’t remember anyone quibbling with his vocal qualities.
Let’s push off into the Falsetto fog by agreeing that Luciano is not displaying any “faults” in the little video embedded at the end of this blog.
The audience response recorded at the end of this video should help me convince you to agree.
Mario Salerno
Luciano used enough Falsetto in his interpretation of Nemorino’s aria to fulfill the traditional interpretive mannerisms I learned from a fantastic old man of the theatre, Mario Salerno. “Who was Mario?” could be a stand-alone blog, or a page, and I may get to it one day, but for now I introduce him as my guide to a lot more Falsetto use in Nemorino’s aria than Luciano used when he was caught on video tape.
Falsetto can be a big fault in the singing of a student when it appears unintentionally on notes that a composer would argue should be sung in Chest Voice. I encountered, in Roveretto, just such a student.
In that same jewel of a town, Roveretto, I ran into an un-tenor that reported the displeasure of certain important Italian Opera operatives with a tenor that used a lot of Falsetto in Nemorino’s aria just as I had I taught him to sing it in Torino last year.
I can agree that when Falsetto is the only function used by a fella, it is a fault.
When Falsetto is used convincingly, according to traditional interpretive values, it is not a “fault” but is a wonderful tool.
Back to Luciano: I suggest you download the music (by clicking here) and follow along with the video. You will find that my markings in the music indicate where Luciano used “CGC” – “Complete Glottal Closure” or “Chest Voice” and where he incorporated in his singing “IGC” – “Incomplete Glottal Closure” or “Falsetto”.
This blog is an introduction to my analysis of Luciano’s performance and only addresses two issues.
- Where did Luciano change from Chest Voice to Falsetto?
- What does Falsetto – IGC and Chest Voice – CGC sound like?
Luciano’s voice has a striking divergence of quality when he moves from Chest Voice to Falsetto and back. The difference that you can hear in this video is an excellent example to use for recognizing these two functions in the singing of other vocalists, and in your own singing if you happen to be a guy.
How much of either function should a singer use?
An answer to that question was dumped on me by that un-tenor in Roveretto who put me on notice that Falsetto is just not good singing. I’m glad Luciano knew better.
Luciano used Falsetto much less than I would like to hear. Falsetto only appears on 35 notes of his singing as compared to Luciano using Chest Voice on 159 of the notes he sang. But then I can understand that Luciano’s voice was just so beautiful when he sang in “CGC” – Chest Voice, that making his listeners wait and wish for that gorgeous flow of glowing vocal gold by singing a lot of Falsetto might seem a big risk.
Does anyone want to suggest that there is no difference between the beginning phrase Luciano sings at measure #10 and the phrase we hear at measure #27? If so, you need medical help or an upgrade to your hearing aid. If you think Luciano should have sung #27 the same way as #10, then you may be a Verdi or Wagner addict who needs to expand his/her taste in music.
I’m going to leave you with an assignment. Keep the music with my markings handy. Print it out if you like, and troll through You Tube for “Una furtive lagrima” sung by other singers. See if you can pinpoint where each singer sings in “CGC” and “IGC”. Certainly no other tenor will sing this aria the same way as Luciano. I believe there was no more perfect voice for “Nemorino” to be found anywhere, but his rendition of “Una furtiva lagrima” could have been more interesting interpretively. But, again, given the beauty of his voice, keeping his audience happy was more about delivering his sound to their ears than developing the character of Nemorino or sharing Nemorino’s emotions with them. This is not the case for the rest of us.
I have a lot to say about what the rest of us should do, and I’ll be back later to say it.
Read MoreFalsetto Friends
I am about to pack my bags and go back to Torino for a Master Class that will bring me back where another Falsetto kerfuffle in my life was born.
Last September I had the privilege to work with some really talented young people who offered me many opportunities to use Garcia. It was a tenor, of course, who started the ball rolling toward an incident in Rovereto. I taught that tenor how to sing “Una furtiva lagrima” from L’ELESIR’ D’AMORE. It wasn’t the only aria we worked on, but it became a bone of contention. I mentioned this tenor’s success in the little concert we did in Torino in a previous blog from that city. It was a struggle to convince him, but eventually he successfully put Falsetto to exactly the use for which the Bel Canto composer, Donizetti, intended. The result was most gratifying, but a kerfuffle was set to catch up to me a month later.
Now, my struggle with my Torino tenor was nothing new to my work. I strove for an extended period, back in Plattsburgh, to convince another tenor to utilize Falsetto in Bel Canto music with eventual and welcome success. Apparently Verdi loving voice teachers are loath to accept Falsetto as a worthy component of good singing, and I encountered in these tenors a shared attitude of aversion for Falsetto use. My Plattsburgh tenor told me that his previous Maestri had told him that what I was suggesting to him was “not singing”.
Even with this background, I was not ready for the incredulous inquiry I received after the Rovereto concert. A Rovereto home boy baritone participated in the concert, and during the crowded aftermath he got in my face (it was very noisy in the hallway) and asked me if I had, by chance, ever worked with a certain tenor. It was my Torino guy. I told the home boy that I had worked with him in more than one master class, upon which declaration the baritone told me that he had recently been on the jury of a competition in which that tenor had sung “Una furtiva lagrima”. He did not win the competition because of the way he sang that aria. The baritone wanted to know if it were true that I had taught him to sing so badly. Given that I was not there to hear what that tenor had done, I was at a loss to discuss the quality of his rendition of “Una furtive lagrima” but I did manage to bellow that I had taught him how to sing the aria “alla” Bel Canto. I was happy that at that point in our semi-shouted conversation a bevy of fans grabbed him away from me and I was accosted by a few audience members that wanted to recount to me good memories of performances in which I sang. I felt badly for my Torino tenor.
The baritone’s dislike for good Bel Canto style was easily understandable given his performance of Mozart’s music in the concert. Everyone, including me, would praise the quality of the man’s voice, but I wouldn’t suggest his rendition as a model for anyone to follow in the interpretation area. This is because I believe Mozart’s music lives best in a style of singing that this Rovereto home boy just didn’t bring to the concert. I suspected that many of my favorite components of Mozart style are missing from the man’s vocal technique.
I subsequently learned from my Torino tenor that he was a “good friend” of this Rovereto home boy and that they had shared a voice teacher. A light bulb switched on in my head! It has long been my observation that teachers often teach the style of singing they employed, when and if they sang for a living, as if it were a technique. I have often heard and read references to Verdi technique, Rossini technique, Bellini technique etc. essentially mixing style and technique together. These Torino / Rovereto events brought home to me most forcefully how limiting this way of thinking and teaching can actually be. Vocal technique is not style specific, but empowering to all styles. Style and technique are not the same thing. Each style, excepting the hardest Bel Canto, has a limited set of technical requirements, and teaching only those requirements leaves the student bereft of many elements of technique necessary for the other styles.
I knew that the technical components I had taught my Plattsburgh and Torino tenors to use for “Una furtiva lagrima” would inspire an audience to applaud. My audiences did when I used them. Since I learned these technical things from a woman born just 5 years after Garcia’s death and I learned how to apply them to “Una furtiva lagrima” from a man of her generation who attended her alma mater at the same time she did, I assume my taste and style of execution for the singing of this aria are traditional. Looking back at the history of music through the lens each composer offers us on the time line can be a wonderfully enlightening study, but if one of them, like Verdi, becomes a glass so darkened that his becomes the only style visible to a teacher or singer, then just about all other composers’ music will suffer damage at the hands of the teacher and the voice of the singer. It was nice to hear from my Torino tenor about his audience at the competition that he didn’t win. He told me that they enthusiastically approved of his rendition, even if his “good friend” Rovereto home boy, and the teacher they once upon a time shared, who was also on that jury, didn’t like it.
Falsetto has a place in the House of Music, even for boys. There is a lot of confusion about when it is called for, what it should sound like and when it is inappropriate. I hope to get to these issues very soon.
The artist in the above video is my reason for never singing Nemorino. I knew I couldn’t compete with Luciano. My Torino tenor is no match for Luicano either, but he learned to do everything Luciano did in the above video and more. I’ll be back to explain the “more”.
Read More