Opera singers, opera queens, critics, high note whores: we all love it when a singer achieves the impossible and sings a flawless performance. However, we all have some schadenfreude in us, and we also love it when the performance goes terribly wrong. La Cieca, the blogger at Parterre calls it "Filth", there is a famous CD floating around called "Vergogna" (shame, in Italian) that chronicles rough nights onstage, from Caballe's infamous "Anna Bolena" at La Scala to Alagna's Radames in the same house. Finally, there is a (now) famous youtube channel called Perle Nere, a series of videos where things go wrong.
I am as guilty as the next person of enjoying some of these videos and recordings. In part, maybe, because it proves that even the greatest of the great singers can have off nights. We are all just human, flawed, and fallible. I have my favorite selections that I have listened to a million times: Hildegard Behrens' Met Elektra, the orchestra disaster at the end of Moffo's Tosca, Gedda's "La Donna e mobile"...
But we all have to remember one thing: recording these performances, which most of the time is illegal, imposes a huge strain on singers. It means that if things go wrong, there is a huge chance that our own disasters will live on in infamy on the internet. The propagation of recording devices is a threat. If singers take fewer and fewer chances, that may be one of the reasons.
A friend of mine recently went to see a Beyoncé concert. The next day, I excitedly asked how it was. His response was that she was perfect, but all in all that made the evening boring. He said she was clearly rehearsed within an inch of her life, that every move, every joke, every ad-lib, every word sounded like it was planned. And it probably was. Considering the number of cell phones pointed at her throughout the entire concert, video recording the entirety of the concert, there was no room for a mistake. Otherwise it would have been posted all over the gossip pages of the internet within minutes, and everyone would speculate whether Beyoncé had lost her abilities. If you doubt this, or think I'm being overly-dramatic, please refer to poor Mariah Carey's mishap at the White House last December. It seems the news, and people, thrive on the downfall of icons.
So how can we solve this issue? Well, we cannot. It is now this way, and fighting it is impossible. Short of patting down all concert goers and confiscating electronic devices, there is no way to stop this, whether it be at Madison Square Garden or at the Met. And so performers have to go onstage knowing that this is now part of our job.
However, there is no excuse whatsoever for a rehearsal to be published online. Rehearsals are meant to be a private working session. They are a safe space, one in which to make mistakes and try new things. We should all at least have the satisfaction of knowing that if things go wrong in rehearsal, we can stop and try again.
There is a video making the rounds on the internet right now. No, I will not link it. If you really want to find it, you will. It shows a woman (un-named) attempting and failing her way through the Queen of the Night's second aria, with orchestra. The huge problem I have with it is that it was clearly not a public performance. The singer is not in concert dress. The conductor and the orchestra are in street clothes. This is either a rehearsal or a recording session. My objection to the publication of this video is that I do not feel what we are watching was ever meant to be seen by a broader audience. Disasters happen on stage. But the decision to step out on that stage, ultimately, belongs to the performer and/or the administration, who feel they can deliver the goods on some acceptable level. To publish, and deride, the non-performance of a woman, who may or may not know that she is being filmed, is nothing short of cruel.
We all have rough days in rehearsals. And that is where they belong. And that is where they should be left.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
There's only one other person in the world who can do that...
I've been reflecting a lot lately on the words we use to describe ourselves. I find it fascinating that most of the people with whom I work will answer the question "what do you do for a living?" by saying: "I'm an opera singer."
Well... The answer is true, but very limiting. I find that answer very narrow, and frankly, if you dig a little deeper, it's too cold of a definition. I cannot think of anyone in the business who is just an opera singer. Most of us also sing a multitude of other things: oratorio, mélodies, lieder, musical theatre, even the occasional pop song.
Perhaps the reason for this standard answer lies in the amount of work we all put into trying to get hired in an opera production. 95% of the auditions we take are for opera companies, for specific productions, for specific roles. But does the fact that we work so hard towards this one goal blind us to the multitude of other styles and genres we might be good at? Is it possible to do more than just sing opera?
Last winter, I had the unbelievably good fortune of working with the incomparable Steven Blier on a concert, singing the music of Jacques Brel and Charles Trenet. While I have loved these two singer-songwriters my whole life - Trenet was a staple on the record player ever since I was a small child, and every angsty teenager in France turns to Brel - it never occurred to me that it was a style I could perform. Steven took a chance on me, and I discovered a completely new side of myself (the process was very intense and, at first, terrifying). It turns out that not only can I perform these French songs, but it gives me such joy to live inside those songs. Since that concert, I've started looking at a number of other songs I would never have dared to sing, but I now realise they all mean something special to me. I now have a book full of these French songs, that I perform sometimes when there's a pianist at an open mic. I sing Piaf, Aznavour, even Cabrel and Goldman (Trenet and Brel also feature prominently in the book - they are alive and well). I'm re-discovering a genre to which I have paid no attention for over a decade. I'm also figuring out that, whether I like it or not, a part of my soul will always live in these songs that shaped my life when I was an adolescent.
I've found, with astonishment, that exploring this repertoire has been a huge help when I go back to the classical rep. These pop songs, many of which evoke a strong memory of a specific event, a place, a time or a feeling, have been opening up my emotional range while singing, and have prompted me to take the same emotional risks in the classical repertoire that I am taking in these chansons.
It seems very basic, and very obvious: sing what you know, explore these emotions and understand them, stretch them, learn how to use them to guide you through any piece of music. And yet, I'm afraid once we decide to enter the realm of the classical repertoire, all singing of other types of music become anathema. And in focusing on learning the proper style, diction, languages, technique, we run the danger of forgetting to feed our souls with the emotions that should come naturally while singing. My mother always said she believes that "the vocal cords are the gateway from which emotion pours." I think I've spent so much of my time learning technique that I've occasionally forgotten to make sure emotion and heart were part of the equation as well. Turning back to these songs, which marked my childhood and my adolescence, has reminded me of what it is to be swept up by emotions while singing.
There are many singers, noted for their opera roles (see what I did there?) who have taken the plunge into non-classical repertoire. Some have not found critical or audience approval, but some of them have thrived in the non traditional repertoire. Some of those most successful, that come to my mind, include Eileen Farrell, Jessye Norman, Anne Sofie von Otter and Natalie Dessay. They have each recorded splendid jazz/pop selections. They use their voices intelligently, with the technique they know, but somehow manage to get into the style they are performing, without affectation. I'd like to share with you a few clips of some of these performers, to try to convince you that all of us who use our voices need to start thinking of ourselves as artists or, more precisely, if that helps you, as just "singers". Don't limit yourself. Find a friend, grab some sheet music, and just jam at the piano singing some songs you want to sing, simply because. The result might surprise you. It certainly did me.
Anne Sofie von Otter sings "Avec le temps" by Léo Ferré:
Jessye Norman sings "The Summer Knows" by Michel Legrand:
Eileen Farrell sings "But not for me" by the Gershwins:
Natalie Dessay sings "Mon dernier Concert", with Michel Legrand at the piano:
Well... The answer is true, but very limiting. I find that answer very narrow, and frankly, if you dig a little deeper, it's too cold of a definition. I cannot think of anyone in the business who is just an opera singer. Most of us also sing a multitude of other things: oratorio, mélodies, lieder, musical theatre, even the occasional pop song.
Perhaps the reason for this standard answer lies in the amount of work we all put into trying to get hired in an opera production. 95% of the auditions we take are for opera companies, for specific productions, for specific roles. But does the fact that we work so hard towards this one goal blind us to the multitude of other styles and genres we might be good at? Is it possible to do more than just sing opera?
Last winter, I had the unbelievably good fortune of working with the incomparable Steven Blier on a concert, singing the music of Jacques Brel and Charles Trenet. While I have loved these two singer-songwriters my whole life - Trenet was a staple on the record player ever since I was a small child, and every angsty teenager in France turns to Brel - it never occurred to me that it was a style I could perform. Steven took a chance on me, and I discovered a completely new side of myself (the process was very intense and, at first, terrifying). It turns out that not only can I perform these French songs, but it gives me such joy to live inside those songs. Since that concert, I've started looking at a number of other songs I would never have dared to sing, but I now realise they all mean something special to me. I now have a book full of these French songs, that I perform sometimes when there's a pianist at an open mic. I sing Piaf, Aznavour, even Cabrel and Goldman (Trenet and Brel also feature prominently in the book - they are alive and well). I'm re-discovering a genre to which I have paid no attention for over a decade. I'm also figuring out that, whether I like it or not, a part of my soul will always live in these songs that shaped my life when I was an adolescent.
I've found, with astonishment, that exploring this repertoire has been a huge help when I go back to the classical rep. These pop songs, many of which evoke a strong memory of a specific event, a place, a time or a feeling, have been opening up my emotional range while singing, and have prompted me to take the same emotional risks in the classical repertoire that I am taking in these chansons.
It seems very basic, and very obvious: sing what you know, explore these emotions and understand them, stretch them, learn how to use them to guide you through any piece of music. And yet, I'm afraid once we decide to enter the realm of the classical repertoire, all singing of other types of music become anathema. And in focusing on learning the proper style, diction, languages, technique, we run the danger of forgetting to feed our souls with the emotions that should come naturally while singing. My mother always said she believes that "the vocal cords are the gateway from which emotion pours." I think I've spent so much of my time learning technique that I've occasionally forgotten to make sure emotion and heart were part of the equation as well. Turning back to these songs, which marked my childhood and my adolescence, has reminded me of what it is to be swept up by emotions while singing.
There are many singers, noted for their opera roles (see what I did there?) who have taken the plunge into non-classical repertoire. Some have not found critical or audience approval, but some of them have thrived in the non traditional repertoire. Some of those most successful, that come to my mind, include Eileen Farrell, Jessye Norman, Anne Sofie von Otter and Natalie Dessay. They have each recorded splendid jazz/pop selections. They use their voices intelligently, with the technique they know, but somehow manage to get into the style they are performing, without affectation. I'd like to share with you a few clips of some of these performers, to try to convince you that all of us who use our voices need to start thinking of ourselves as artists or, more precisely, if that helps you, as just "singers". Don't limit yourself. Find a friend, grab some sheet music, and just jam at the piano singing some songs you want to sing, simply because. The result might surprise you. It certainly did me.
Anne Sofie von Otter sings "Avec le temps" by Léo Ferré:
Jessye Norman sings "The Summer Knows" by Michel Legrand:
Eileen Farrell sings "But not for me" by the Gershwins:
Natalie Dessay sings "Mon dernier Concert", with Michel Legrand at the piano:
I would love nothing more than if you shared with me your favorite crossover tracks, those that have inspired you and impressed you! Please post your links below in the comments section.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Her voice is just better than everybody else's
My friends C. and D. and I spend a lot of time listening to music together, discovering new unearthed clips on youtube of our favourite singers, and looking out for new releases of live performances... Listening to opera and studying the art form is a passion for the three of us.
The thing that fascinates me most is how disparate our tastes are. And yet, for the most part, even when one of the singers being featured during one of our weekly gatherings is not the other two's favourite, we can still realise and understand why that singer is important. C. has distilled the reasoning for this in one simple phrase "Her voice is simply better than everybody else's"
Now for you singers out there reading this, please note the very important word choice: better. I didn't say prettier, I didn't say more colorful, and I didn't say louder. "Better." What on Earth does that mean and how can you quantify that? Well, I think it has to do as much with who they are as artists as with who they are as humans. In order for your voice to be "better", you need to know what makes it special in the first place. And in order to really discover that, you need to really know who you are as a human, and use that. You see, being better is having the courage to use the best of you, and put yourself, your heart, and your soul on display. That courage is what makes you "better."
When I listen to Tebaldi singing "Donde Lieta", I'm always on the verge of tears. I'll use her as an example, because generations have argued over her, and therefore she is an interesting case.
Tebaldi singing Mimi, especially by today's standards, may seem ridiculous. When she recorded it with Serafin in 1959, she was 37 years old. She was a handsome woman, though by no means delicate. Her voice was enormous and her top by then already had a tendency to veer a little flat. Her other roles included Tosca, Minnie and Liu. This is not what we think of today as a Mimi. So how is her recording so successful?
Well, Tebaldi knew exactly with what deck of cards she was playing. She was very tall, broad and did not move exceedingly well (perhaps this can attributed to polio, which she got at age three, and which caused her life long problems with her right hip). She had to rely on her voice to play the drama. Luckily for her, by Act III, Mimi is very ill, so does not require a lot of movement. And luckily for us, she had developed her enormous voice and understood its most prized attributes: a melting piano in the middle voice, a plangency and urgency in the upper middle voice, and an incredible breath control that enabled her to go from one of the loudest fortes in the business to a caressing pianissimo.
Her donde lieta is a study of phrasing, crescendos and diminuendos. But what makes her voice (and this version) "better" is how she uses these. For the most part, she caresses the lines with melting pianos. But when she deploys her voice to a fortissimo, it slaps you in the face. You realise that she is using fortes to express the emotion Mimi can no longer hold in. And the difference between her piano, which sound so youthful and delicate, and the forte which express the desperation of Mimi, grabs at your heart. You realise how torn, how sad and joyful Mimi is in this instant.
It's difficult to explain why, but when she sings this aria, she sounds so incredibly honest. Tebaldi was questioned multiple times over her career over why she never married. She never really answered the question, but did say that she had been in love many times. There have been many speculations as to whether Tebaldi preferred the company of women, some going as far as saying that her Maid of 32 years, Tina Vigano, was much more than her maid. Other speculations linked her her to such and such tenor, bass or conductor, though no one ever got a real response.
I think the reason "Donde lieta" is such a powerful piece when sung by Tebaldi is because, no matter what the truth of her personal relationships were, we hear her pain, not just Mimi's. Tebaldi, who never discussed love, pours her soul into this piece and says, with Puccini's music and Illica and Giacosa'a text, what she could not in her own words. Tebaldi clearly knew heart ache, and rather than discuss it, she used it to make her characterization of Mimi more fragile, more poignant, and more tragic. When I hear her sing this aria, I immediately believe that Tebaldi knew great pain in her life, in whatever form it manifested itself, and that she used it to become Mimi.
That's what makes her, and many other artists, "better." When, in an almost imperceptible moment, an artist makes you feel that it is their heart that is singing, and not just their soul. When there is only honesty left, and the sound is coming from the darkest secrets that can be made public for just a fleeting moment. Those moments, which require such incredible courage, are what make me come back endlessly to my favourite artists.
The thing that fascinates me most is how disparate our tastes are. And yet, for the most part, even when one of the singers being featured during one of our weekly gatherings is not the other two's favourite, we can still realise and understand why that singer is important. C. has distilled the reasoning for this in one simple phrase "Her voice is simply better than everybody else's"
Now for you singers out there reading this, please note the very important word choice: better. I didn't say prettier, I didn't say more colorful, and I didn't say louder. "Better." What on Earth does that mean and how can you quantify that? Well, I think it has to do as much with who they are as artists as with who they are as humans. In order for your voice to be "better", you need to know what makes it special in the first place. And in order to really discover that, you need to really know who you are as a human, and use that. You see, being better is having the courage to use the best of you, and put yourself, your heart, and your soul on display. That courage is what makes you "better."
When I listen to Tebaldi singing "Donde Lieta", I'm always on the verge of tears. I'll use her as an example, because generations have argued over her, and therefore she is an interesting case.
Tebaldi singing Mimi, especially by today's standards, may seem ridiculous. When she recorded it with Serafin in 1959, she was 37 years old. She was a handsome woman, though by no means delicate. Her voice was enormous and her top by then already had a tendency to veer a little flat. Her other roles included Tosca, Minnie and Liu. This is not what we think of today as a Mimi. So how is her recording so successful?
Well, Tebaldi knew exactly with what deck of cards she was playing. She was very tall, broad and did not move exceedingly well (perhaps this can attributed to polio, which she got at age three, and which caused her life long problems with her right hip). She had to rely on her voice to play the drama. Luckily for her, by Act III, Mimi is very ill, so does not require a lot of movement. And luckily for us, she had developed her enormous voice and understood its most prized attributes: a melting piano in the middle voice, a plangency and urgency in the upper middle voice, and an incredible breath control that enabled her to go from one of the loudest fortes in the business to a caressing pianissimo.
Her donde lieta is a study of phrasing, crescendos and diminuendos. But what makes her voice (and this version) "better" is how she uses these. For the most part, she caresses the lines with melting pianos. But when she deploys her voice to a fortissimo, it slaps you in the face. You realise that she is using fortes to express the emotion Mimi can no longer hold in. And the difference between her piano, which sound so youthful and delicate, and the forte which express the desperation of Mimi, grabs at your heart. You realise how torn, how sad and joyful Mimi is in this instant.
It's difficult to explain why, but when she sings this aria, she sounds so incredibly honest. Tebaldi was questioned multiple times over her career over why she never married. She never really answered the question, but did say that she had been in love many times. There have been many speculations as to whether Tebaldi preferred the company of women, some going as far as saying that her Maid of 32 years, Tina Vigano, was much more than her maid. Other speculations linked her her to such and such tenor, bass or conductor, though no one ever got a real response.
I think the reason "Donde lieta" is such a powerful piece when sung by Tebaldi is because, no matter what the truth of her personal relationships were, we hear her pain, not just Mimi's. Tebaldi, who never discussed love, pours her soul into this piece and says, with Puccini's music and Illica and Giacosa'a text, what she could not in her own words. Tebaldi clearly knew heart ache, and rather than discuss it, she used it to make her characterization of Mimi more fragile, more poignant, and more tragic. When I hear her sing this aria, I immediately believe that Tebaldi knew great pain in her life, in whatever form it manifested itself, and that she used it to become Mimi.
That's what makes her, and many other artists, "better." When, in an almost imperceptible moment, an artist makes you feel that it is their heart that is singing, and not just their soul. When there is only honesty left, and the sound is coming from the darkest secrets that can be made public for just a fleeting moment. Those moments, which require such incredible courage, are what make me come back endlessly to my favourite artists.
Friday, November 1, 2013
When I was a little boy, tall as this fence...
How does the process of falling in love with opera begin? Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), in Pretty Woman, explains to Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) that "People's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul."
Well, I was seven years old, and my parents thought I was old enough to attend a performance, so they took me to see "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" at the Opéra Comique. I was seated, with my father, in a side balcony box, on top of the orchestra (incidentally, balcony boxes have remained my favourite). The performance began, and all I can remember is being completely enchanted and transported by what I was hearing. An hour and twenty minutes or so later, the act ended, a man dressed in black approached my father, talked to him briefly in a hushed voice, and my father said "well, wasn't it great? Let's go home now." I was thrilled I had attended my first opera, and went home still feeling the exuberance of Rossini's music.
It wasn't until I was a teenager, at a family dinner, that I learned I had never seen the second of Barber of Seville, when my mother made an comment about me getting kicked out of my first opera. It turns out the music did more than impress me, it literally moved me. From my seat, hanging over the ledge of the balcony box, I started conducting along, and moving in time to the music. My father, apparently, tried to stop me a few times, but I just was so involved I never stopped. The man in black who had spoken to my father at intermission was the house manager. The singers onstage had noticed me. Not only was I distracting them, but they were all afraid I was going to fall over into the pit. The house manager had told my father that he either needed to make me stop, or remove me from the theater. My father did the single best thing he could have done. He simply pretended the show was over, so as to not crush my spirit. He saw how enthusiastically I had responded to the music and the drama. He did not see the point of quelling my excitement. He did the right thing.
From that point on, my parents took me to as many performances as they possibly could. They gave me an opera subscription with my classmates by the time I was 11 (I saw unbelievable performances that year, including Natalie Dessay's Paris Opera debut as Olympia, and Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysanek in Elektra!) They figured out music fed my soul, and they fostered that. I am deeply grateful to them that for prodding me along my musical education. Today, it still is music, more than any other art form, that can transport me.
When I was seven, I fell in love with Opera when I first heard it. For those of you who also did, I hope this blog will help you explore and discover new things you might not already know. For those of you who did not but are trying to learn to appreciate it, I'll do my best to try to show you why this art form is exceptional.
I look forward to your comments and your experiences.
Amusing side notes: It took me 16 years before I ever got to see the second act of Barbiere. It was at the Metropolitan Opera in 2002, and the cast included Vivica Genaux, Earle Patriarco and Juan Diego Florez! Also, when I was in college, I sang in the chorus of a production of Rigoletto. The tenor in that production, Noel Espiritu, turned out to have been the one that had sung Almaviva on the night I got kicked out!
Well, I was seven years old, and my parents thought I was old enough to attend a performance, so they took me to see "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" at the Opéra Comique. I was seated, with my father, in a side balcony box, on top of the orchestra (incidentally, balcony boxes have remained my favourite). The performance began, and all I can remember is being completely enchanted and transported by what I was hearing. An hour and twenty minutes or so later, the act ended, a man dressed in black approached my father, talked to him briefly in a hushed voice, and my father said "well, wasn't it great? Let's go home now." I was thrilled I had attended my first opera, and went home still feeling the exuberance of Rossini's music.
It wasn't until I was a teenager, at a family dinner, that I learned I had never seen the second of Barber of Seville, when my mother made an comment about me getting kicked out of my first opera. It turns out the music did more than impress me, it literally moved me. From my seat, hanging over the ledge of the balcony box, I started conducting along, and moving in time to the music. My father, apparently, tried to stop me a few times, but I just was so involved I never stopped. The man in black who had spoken to my father at intermission was the house manager. The singers onstage had noticed me. Not only was I distracting them, but they were all afraid I was going to fall over into the pit. The house manager had told my father that he either needed to make me stop, or remove me from the theater. My father did the single best thing he could have done. He simply pretended the show was over, so as to not crush my spirit. He saw how enthusiastically I had responded to the music and the drama. He did not see the point of quelling my excitement. He did the right thing.
From that point on, my parents took me to as many performances as they possibly could. They gave me an opera subscription with my classmates by the time I was 11 (I saw unbelievable performances that year, including Natalie Dessay's Paris Opera debut as Olympia, and Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysanek in Elektra!) They figured out music fed my soul, and they fostered that. I am deeply grateful to them that for prodding me along my musical education. Today, it still is music, more than any other art form, that can transport me.
When I was seven, I fell in love with Opera when I first heard it. For those of you who also did, I hope this blog will help you explore and discover new things you might not already know. For those of you who did not but are trying to learn to appreciate it, I'll do my best to try to show you why this art form is exceptional.
I look forward to your comments and your experiences.
Amusing side notes: It took me 16 years before I ever got to see the second act of Barbiere. It was at the Metropolitan Opera in 2002, and the cast included Vivica Genaux, Earle Patriarco and Juan Diego Florez! Also, when I was in college, I sang in the chorus of a production of Rigoletto. The tenor in that production, Noel Espiritu, turned out to have been the one that had sung Almaviva on the night I got kicked out!
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