Great Singers on the Art of Singing Part 10

Nothing can take the place of routine in learning operas. Many, many opera singers I have known seem to be woefully lacking in it. In learning a new opera, I learn all the parts that have anything to do with the part I am expected to sing. In other words, I find it very inadvisable to depend upon cues. There are so many disturbing things constantly occurring on the stage to throw one off one's track. For instance, when I made my first appearance in Mascagni's _Lodoletta_ I was obliged to go on with only twenty-four hours' notice, without rehearsal, in an opera I had seen produced only once. I had studied the role only two weeks. While on the stage I was so entranced with the wonderful singing of Mr. Caruso that I forgot to come in at the right time. He said to me quickly _sotto voce_--

"_Canta! Canta! Canta!_"

And my routine drill of the part enabled me to come in without letting the audience know of my error.

The mere matter of getting the voice to go with the orchestra, as well as that of identifying cues heard in the unusual quality of the orchestral instruments (so different from the tone quality of the piano), is most confusing, and only routine can accustom one to being ready to meet all of these strange conditions.

One is supposed to keep an eye on the conductor practically all of the time while singing. The best singers are those who never forget this, but do it so artfully that the audience never suspects. Many singers follow the conductor's baton so conspicuously that they give the appearance of monkeys on a string. This, of course, is highly ludicrous.

I don't know of any way of overcoming it but experience. Yes, there is another great help, and that is musicians.h.i.+p. The conductor who knows that an artist is a musician in fact, is immensely relieved and always very appreciative. Singers should learn as much about the technical side of music as possible. Learning to play the violin or the piano, and learning to play it well is invaluable.

WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES

The singer must be ever on the alert for opportunities to advance. This is largely a matter of preparation. If one is capable, the opportunities usually come. I wonder if I may relate a little incident which occurred to me in Germany long before the war. I had been singing in Berlin, when the impresario of the Royal Opera approached me and asked me if I could sing _Ada_ on a following Monday. I realized that if I admitted that I had never sung _Ada_ before, the thoroughgoing, matter-of-fact German Intendant would never even let me have a chance. Emmy Destinn was then the prima donna at the Royal Opera, and had been taken ill. The post was one of the operatic plums of all Europe. Before I knew it, I had said "Yes, I can sing _Ada_." It was a white lie, and once told, I had to live up to it. I had never sung _Ada_, and only knew part of it.

Running home I worked all night long to learn the last act. Over and over the role hundreds and hundreds of times I went, until it seemed as though my eyes would drop out of my head. Monday night came, and thanks to my routine experience in smaller companies, I had learned _Ada_ so that I was perfectly confident of it. Imagine the strain, however, when I learned that the Kaiser and the court were to be present. At the end I was called before the Kaiser, who, after warmly complimenting me, gave me the greatly coveted post in his opera house. I do not believe that he ever found out that the little Toronto girl had actually fibbed her way into an opportunity.

TALES OF STRAUSS

Strauss was one of the leading conductors while I was at the Royal Opera and I sang under his baton many, many times. He was a real genius,--in that once his art work was completed, his interest immediately centered upon the next. Once while we were performing _Rosenkavalier_ he came behind the scenes and said:

"Will this awfully _long_ opera never end? I want to go home." I said to him, "But Doctor, you composed it yourself," and he said, "Yes, but I never meant to conduct it."

Let it be explained that Strauss was an inveterate player of the German card game, Scat, and would far rather seek a quiet corner with a few choice companions than go through one of his own works night after night. However, whenever the creative instinct was at work he let nothing impede it. I remember seeing him write upon his cuffs (no doubt some pa.s.sing theme) during a performance of _Meistersinger_ he was conducting.

THE SINGER'S GREATEST NEED

The singer's greatest need, or his greatest a.s.set if he has one, is an honest critic. My husband and I have made it a point never to miss hearing one another sing, no matter how many times we have heard each other sing in a role. Sometimes, after a big performance, it is very hard to have to be told about all the things that one did not do well, but that is the only way to improve. There are always many people to tell one the good things, but I feel that the biggest help that I have had through my career has been the help of my husband, because he has always told me the places where I could improve, so that every performance I had something new to think about. An artist never stands still. He either goes forward or backward and, of course, the only way to get to the top is by going forward.

The difficulty in America is in giving the young singers a chance after their voices are placed. If only we could have a number of excellent stock opera companies, even though there had to be a few traveling stars after the manner of the old dramatic companies, where everybody had to start at the bottom and work his way up, because with a lovely voice, talent and perseverance anyone can get to the top if one has a chance to work. By "work" I mean singing as many new roles as possible and as often as possible and not starting at a big opera house singing perhaps two or three times during a season. Just think of it,--the singer at a small opera house has more chance to learn in two months than the beginner at a big opera house might have in five years. After all, the thing that is most valuable to a singer is time, as with time the voice will diminish in beauty. Getting to the top via the big opera house is the work of a lifetime, and the golden tones are gone before one really has an opportunity to do one's best work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERALDINE FARRAR.]

GERALDINE FARRAR

BIOGRAPHICAL

Although one of the youngest of the noted American singers, none has achieved such an extensive international reputation as Miss Farrar. Born February 28, 1882, in Melrose, Ma.s.s., she was educated at the public schools in that city. At the school age she became the pupil of Mrs. J.

H. Long, in Boston. After studying with several teachers, including Emma Thursby, in New York, and Trabadello, in Paris, she went to Lilli Lehmann in Berlin, and under this, the greatest of dramatic singers of her time, Miss Farrar received a most thorough and careful training in all the elements of her art. She made her debut as Marguerite in _Faust_ at the Royal Opera in Berlin, October 15th, 1901. Later, after touring European cities with ever increasing successes, she was engaged at the Opera Comique and Grand Opera, Paris, and then at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where she has been the leading soprano for many seasons. The many enticing offers made for appearances in moving pictures led to a new phase of her career. In many pictures she has appeared with her husband, M. Lou Tellegen, one of the most distinguished actors of the French school, who at one time was the leading man for Sarah Bernhardt.

The following conference is rich in advice to any young woman who desires to know what she must do in order to become a prima donna.

WHAT MUST I GO THROUGH TO BECOME A PRIMA DONNA?

MME. GERALDINE FARRAR

What must I do to become a prima donna? Let us reverse the usual method of discussing the question and begin with the artist upon the stage in a great opera house like the Metropolitan in New York, on a gala night, every seat sold and hundreds standing. It is a modern opera with a "heavy" score. What is the first consideration of the singer?

Primarily, an artist in grand opera must _sing_ in some fas.h.i.+on to insure the proper projection of her role across the large s.p.a.ces of the all-too-large auditoriums. Those admirable requisites of clear diction, facial expression and emotional appeal will be sadly hampered unless the medium of sound carries their message. It is only from sad experience that one among many rises superior to some of the disadvantages of our modern opera repertoire. Gone are the days when the facile vocalist was supported by a small group of musicians intent upon a discreet accompaniment for the benefit of the singer's vocal exertions. Voices trained for the older repertoire were not at the mercy of an enlarged orchestra pit, wherein the over-zealous gentlemen now fight--_furioso ad libitum_--for the supremacy of operatic effects.

An amiable musical observer once asked me why we all shouted so in opera. I replied by a question, asking if he had ever made an after-dinner speech. He acquiesced. I asked him how many times he rapped on the table for attention and silence. He admitted it was rather often.

I asked him why. He said, so that he might be heard. He answered his own question by conceding that the carrying timbre of a voice cannot compete successfully against even banquet hall festivities unless properly focused out of a normal speaking tone. The difference between a small room and one seating several hundred is far greater than the average auditor realizes. If the mere rattling of silver and china will eclipse this vocal effort in speech I leave to your imagination what must transpire when the singer is called upon to dominate with one thread of song the tremendous onslaught of an orchestra and to rise triumphant above it in a theater so large that the faithful gatherers in the gallery tell me we all look like pigmies, and half the time are barely heard. Since the recesses where we must perform are so exaggerated everything must be in like proportion, hence we are very often too noisy, but how can it be otherwise if we are to influence the eager taxpayer in row X? After all, he has not come to hear us _whisper_, and his point of vantage is not so admirable as if he were sitting at a musical comedy in a small theater. For this condition the size of the theater and the instrumentation imposed by the composer are to be censured, and less blame placed upon the overburdened shoulders of the vocal compet.i.tor against these odds. Little shading in operatic tone color is possible unless an accompanying phrase permits it or the trumpeter swallows a pin!

LUCIA OR ZAZA

If your repertoire is _The Barber_, _Lucia_, _Somnambula_ and all such Italian dainties, well and good. Nothing need disturb the complete enjoyment of this lace-work. But if your auditors weep at _b.u.t.terfly_ and _Zaza_ or thrill to _Pagliacci_, they demand you use a quite different technic, which comes to the point of my story.

I believe it was Jean de Reszke who advocated the voice "in the mask"

united to breath support from the diaphragm. From personal observation I should say our coloratura charmers lay small emphasis on that highly important factor and use their head voices with a freedom more or less G.o.d given. But the power and life-giving quality of this fundamental cannot be too highly estimated for us who must color our phrases to suit modern dramatics and evolve a carrying quality that will not only eliminate the difficulty of vocal demands, but at the same time insure immunity from harmful after-effects. This indispensable twin of the head voice is the dynamo which alone must endure all the necessary fatigue, leaving the actual voice phrases free to float unrestricted with no ign.o.ble distortions or possible signs of distress. Alas! it is not easy to write of this, but the experience of years proves how vital a point is its saving grace and how, unfortunately, it remains an unknown factor to many.

To note two of our finest examples of greatness in this marvelous profession, Lilli Lehmann and Jean de Reszke, neither of whom had phenomenal vocal gifts, I would point out their remarkable mental equipment, unceasing and pa.s.sionate desire for perfection, paired with an unerring instinct for the n.o.ble and distinguished such as has not been found in other exponents of purely vocal virtuosity, with a few rare exceptions, as Melba and Galli-Curci, for instance, to mention two beautiful instruments of our generation.

The singing art is not a casual inspiration and it should never be treated as such. The real artist will have an organized mental strategy just as minute and reliable as any intricate machinery, and will under all circ.u.mstances (save complete physical disability) be able to control and dominate her gifts to their fullest extent. This is not learned in a few years within the four walls of a studio, but is the result of a lifetime of painstaking care and devotion.

There was a time when ambition and overwork so told upon me that mistakenly I allowed myself to minimize my vocal practice. How wrong that was I found out in short time and I have returned long since to my earlier precepts as taught me by Lilli Lehmann.

KEEP THE VOICE STRONG AND FLEXIBLE

In her book, _How to Sing_, there is much for the student to digest with profit, though possible reservations are advisable, dependent upon one's individual health and vocal resistance. Her strong conviction was, and is, that a voice requires daily and conscientious exercise to keep it strong and flexible. Having successfully mastered the older Italian roles as a young singer, her incursion into the later-day dramatic and cla.s.sic repertoire in no wise became an excuse to let languish the fundamental idea of beautiful sound. How vitally important and admirably _bel canto_ sustained by the breath support has served her is readily understood when one remembers that she has outdistanced all the colleagues of her earlier career and now well over sixty, she is as indefatigable in her daily practice as we younger singers should be.

This brief extract about Patti (again quoting Lilli Lehmann) will furnish an interesting comparison:

In Adelina Patti everything was united--the splendid voice paired with great talent for singing, and the long oversight of her studies by her distinguished teacher, Strakosch. She never sang roles that did not suit her voice; in her earlier years she sang only arias and duets or single solos, never taking part in ensembles. She never sang even her limited repertory when she was indisposed. She never attended rehearsals, but came to the theater in the evening and sang triumphantly, without ever having seen the persons who sang or acted with her. She spared herself rehearsals, which, on the day of the performance or the day before, exhaust all singers because of the excitement of all kinds attending them, and which contribute neither to the freshness of the voice nor to the joy of the profession.

Although she was a Spaniard by birth and an American by early adoption, she was, so to speak, the greatest Italian singer of my time. All was absolutely good, correct and flawless, the voice like a bell that you seemed to hear long after its singing had ceased. Yet she could give no explanation of her art, and answered all her colleagues' questions concerning it with "Ah, je n'en sais rien!" She possessed unconsciously, as a gift of nature, a union of all those qualities that other singers must attain and possess consciously. Her vocal organs stood in the most favorable relations to each other. Her talent and her remarkably trained ear maintained control over the beauty of her singing and her voice.

Fortunate circ.u.mstances of her life preserved her from all injury. The purity and flawlessness of her tone, the beautiful equalization of her whole voice const.i.tuted the magic by which she held her listeners entranced. Moreover, she was beautiful and gracious in appearance. The accent of great dramatic power she did not possess, yet I ascribe this more to her intellectual indolence than to her lack of ability.

But how few of us would ever make a career if we waited for such favors from Nature!

LESSONS MUST BE ADEQUATE

Bearing in mind the absolute necessity and real joy in vocal work, it confounds and amazes me that teachers of this art feel their duty has been accomplished when they donate twenty minutes or half an hour to a pupil! I do not honestly believe this is a fair exchange, and it is certainly not within reason to believe that within so short a time a pupil can actually benefit by the concentration and instruction so hastily conferred upon her. If this be very plain speaking, it is said with the object to benefit the pupil only, for it is, after all, _they_ who must pay the ultimate in success or failure. An hour devoted to the minute needs of one pupil is not too much time to devote to so delicate a subject. An intelligent taskmaster will let his pupil demonstrate ten or fifteen minutes and during the same period of rest will discuss and awaken the pupil's interest from an intelligent point of view, that some degree of individuality may color even the drudgery of the cla.s.sroom. A word of counsel from such a mistress of song as Lehmann or Sembrich is priceless, but the sums that pour into greedy pockets of vocal mechanics, not to say a harsher word, is a regretable proceeding. Too many mediocrities are making sounds. Too many of the same cla.s.s are trying to instruct, but, as in politics, the real culprit is the people.

As long as the public forbear an intelligent protest in this direction, just so long will the studios be crowded with pathetic seekers for fame.

What employment these infatuated individuals enjoyed before the advent of grand opera and the movies became a possible exhaust pipe for their vanity is not clear, but they certainly should be discouraged. New York alone is crowded with aspirants for the stage, and their little bag of tricks is of very slender proportions. Let us do everything in our power to help the really worthy talent; but it is a mistaken charity, and not patriotic, to shove singers and composers so called, of American birth, upon a weary public which perceives nothing except the fact that they are of native birth and have no talent to warrant such a.s.sumption.

I do not think the musical observers are doing the cause of art in this country a favor when columns are written about the inferior works of the non-gifted. An ambitious effort is all right in its way, but that is no reason to connect the ill-advised production with American hopes. On the contrary, it does us a bad turn. I shall still contend that the English language is not a pretty one for our vocal exploitations, and within my experience of the past ten years I have heard but one American work which I can sincerely say would have given me pleasure to create, that same being Mr. Henry Hadley's recently produced _Cleopatra's Night_. His score is rich and deserving of the highest praise.