THE ROAD FOR YOUNG SINGERS?

For the past several years I have judged a contest for emerging opera singers. As such I receive between 30 to 40 bios and cds from young singers eagerly seeking careers. After reading through their bios I am consistently amazed at how much time, expense and effort have already gone into their development. Many of these young singers list an impressive number of roles and performances, complete with reviews (does anyone ever include a”so-so” review in a bio?) they have to their credit. Many of the applicants are even under management. But the fact of the matter is that although all of the finalists have decent voices and tremendous resolve, very few have the technique or knowledge necessary to begin the arduous path to a major career.

Anyone who has read any of my blogs knows that I am deeply concerned that the art of opera singing, as we have known it, is almost a thing of the past. And my involvement with these young singers, who are after all opera’s future, convinces me even more of this dismal reality.

Several things seem to be a constant in the vast majority of bios I read: many voice teachers, even more “master classes”, and multiple “young artists” programs.

I understand having more than one teacher in the course of a career. And I do strongly believe that singers should continue to work with a teacher throughout their professional careers. Indeed, pro athletes still have coaches watching how they perform and helping them make transitions as they and their muscles age. I would often run into opera singers well in to major careers ( Martina Arroyo, Grace Bombay, Sharon Sweet, Florence Quiver and Diane Soviero, for example ) when I would go to my lessons with my teacher, Marina Gurevich. But the fact that these young singers already list at least three to as many as five or more teachers is shocking. I do not understand how one can get a consistent technique flitting from one teacher to the other. The reality for young singers, unfortunately, is that there are many, many more bad teachers than good ones.
And because of the way muscles remember what they are trained to do, it is far more difficult to correct bad technique than it is to learn it from scratch.

Master classes are fine and can, and should be, very helpful. But for it to be advantageous, a singer should have his or her technique well established, and the person administering the class must have some real insight that they can transmit to the singer. It also helps if the person teaching the class really cares about what he or she is doing, and not just filling time and making some extra cash and/or selling a few cds. On many occasions after sitting through a master class, I would ask one of the young participants what they learned from the class, and they would say “nothing much, my teacher wanted me to do it, but it didn’t make much sense to me”. Even if the person giving the class has great insight, the singer must be able to digest the material and make it work for them. Just listing all the master classes one has been involved in is of little merit on it’s own.

Young artists programs are the most difficult to discuss, and perhaps trouble me the most, because on the surface they are a great concept; a place where a young singer can get a taste for doing real productions in a sheltered and nurturing environment. And even better, they are connected in most cases to major opera companies. Sounds good, right? And in fact, there are young artists programs that are well run and well-worth a singer’s time and effort. But there can be real problems if the singer is not ready for the program or the program is not well run and does not have the young artists needs at the forefront.

I must restate, that I believe opera is about great singing and musicality; not about acting and cute staging. However, most young artists programs do not work on vocal production,(remember, most of the singers have voice teachers back home) but rather about putting on fully staged performances. In most cases the stage directors go out of their way to present novel approaches to established repertoire. The irony here is why should young singers have to learn new avant-garde staging of classic operas, when they have never performed the opera with a standard staging? But more importantly, if they don’t have their vocal technique in order, and their teacher is not overseeing them, then trying to sing opera, (which requires a solid technique just to sing the notes alone) with orchestra and staging can, in fact, be vocally damaging.

Learning good technique for a singer is a more difficult task than one thinks because from the instant of birth babies vocalize. We may have to learn languages and melodies to songs, but usually we don’t have to learn how to speak or sing. The fact that people learn to speak on their own means that their muscles have learned how to react to be able to make each unique sound. But the singer needs to change the way that he or she speaks and sings to sustain an operatic career. Clearly this can be done, but it takes time and one must make the muscles of vocalization not only learn a new technique but forget the old. Unfortunately, muscles have a great memory but are not quick learners. My point here (and I usually have one, although it may take some time to realize it) is that when a young singer has a performance to get through, with stage business and a conductor to keep happy, there can be a lot of tension created in the young performer. With this tension the singer does not have the luxury of thinking vocally and so the good old reliable vocal muscles resume what they know best; what they have done for most of their life. This not only makes for a bad performance but reinforces the old “ non-technique” in the muscles. In fact, the singer is doing a great deal of damage to his prospects for a career, instead of improving them. What makes this worse is the fact that the young singer is usually in a city away from his or her voice teacher. This is probably one of the reasons I see so many teachers listed on young singers bios.

Another problem I see with young artists programs is that the singers are assigned the roles they are to sing. What is the problem with that, you ask? Well, every tenor’s voice is not suited for every tenor role. This is, of course, the same for every voice category. And there are many more categories than the average person may realize.
At the risk of boring you (why should that bother me now) here is a partial list: all voice categories break down into lyric, dramatic and Wagnerian; add to this, coloratura soprano, “pants-role mezzo”, contralto, tenor leggiero, spinto tenor, counter tenor (if we must), bass-baritone, basso profundo; not to mention voices suited only for comprimario / buffo roles. And I am sure I have left a few out. Making this more complicated is the fact that a tenor (I use the tenor voice as a example since I know that voice the best) who will sing spinto roles in the prime of his career should not be singing those roles at the beginning of his career. This would be the same as a beginning body builder trying to lift Olympic weights without the proper training or supervision.

Back to the young artists programs. Singers are expected to do at least 2 productions a year, and in most cases also do minor roles in the main stage production of the opera company they are connected with. The operas chosen for the young artists programs are generally what the director wants to do and not necessarily the best roles for the singers ( I will remind you that the Seattle Opera Young Artist Program last year performed Ariadne auf Naxos, an opera that most major companies in the word cannot stage for lack of the proper voices).

While adjudicating at the earlier mentioned vocal contest one of the other judges (the only singer besides me) mentioned that the baritone had obviously picked an aria that was too heavy for his voice. Another judge stated that he had personally selected that very baritone for his young artist program (never mind the obvious conflict) and that he was scheduled to perform a role more suitable for his voice. Then, unfortunately, he continued by stating that later in the season they may have him do a heavier role, because he felt singers must be challenged. I would remind you (and him) of my “weight-lifter” example.

The fact that these young singers get to sing small parts in the major productions is quite exciting for them, and indeed, they get the day to day experience of being involved in a professional production. The downsides, however, are the afore mentioned vocal tension and the fact that the roles they are singing are comprimario (secondary) roles when they clearly aspire to make their careers singing leads. It is an unfortunate fact that most major opera companies do not hire singers who become branded as comprimario singers for lead roles. There may be some examples to the contrary, but it is certainly a danger, especially since young singers go from one young artist program to another singing small role after small role. Also because camprimario roles are by design short and not musically difficult the amount gained by performing them is at best minimal. The one real benefit, of course, is to the opera companies who are able to cast their comprimario roles on the cheap The same problem exists for young singers who do lead roles in small “neighborhood” companies. It tends to brand them in the minds of professional opera companies as amateurs, and the quality of the performances can have a negative effect on their vocal and artistic development.

What troubles me the most, however, is that young singers with great potential, but not yet reliable technique, find they can be lulled into thinking they are actually having a career as a professional singer when in reality they are simply going from young artist program to young artist program with a performance in a small regional company or a church oratorio thrown in for good measure.

Clearly the famous singers of the past did not get their training at young artist programs since these programs are a fairly recent creation. In the past, singers simply learned their technique and then auditioned for agents and or opera companies. In many cases their teachers helped them by recommendations and arranging auditions with influential people in the opera world. Are our young singers of today superior to the Martina Arroyos, Richard Tuckers, Robert Merrills, Joan Sutherlands, Franco Corellis, Leontyne Prices, Carlo Berganzis, Leonard Warrens................... of the past? I have stated, ad nauseam, that I believe opera is about music and great singing, but that does not mean that the dramatic element is unimportant. It is indeed, but the drama comes from the music and the emotion created by singers who understand the characters and situations they are portraying and have the technique to convey that to the audience; not by staging and acting learned at workshops.

When I debuted in Germany in 1971, it was the first time I had appeared in a staged performance with orchestra.
After graduating from law school, I went to New York (by way of San Francisco) and worked on vocal technique for two years (most of which was spent undoing bad technique learned in San Francisco). When my teacher felt I was ready, I got an agent who took me, along with a group of aspiring singers, to Germany to audition. Germany, with opera theaters in almost every city was the starting point for most American singers in my day. I was hired by the Pfalztheater in Kaiserslautern and after one year decided to go to Tel Aviv and audition for the Israeli National Opera. I knew that Placido Domingo had started there, so I figured it was a good place for an aspiring spinto tenor. I got the job and spent the next two seasons singing the tenor leads in “Lucia di Lammermoor”, “La Boheme”, “La Traviata”, Casio in “Othello” as well as the operetta, “Eine Nacht in Venedig”.

During those thee years I learned the rigors of having to be at rehearsals during the day and performances in the evening. I learned how to prepare a role and work with conductors and stage directors as well as my fellow colleagues. In other words, I was maturing as a singer and performer and was, indeed, singing in a real established opera company, with an educated audience who bought subscriptions and expected a good caliber production. I also had a wife and two children, who rounded out my life and kept me connected to “the real world”. There was no time to be pampered or play the dilettante

In 1973, while still singing at the Israeli Opera, war with the Arab world erupted. The theater in Tel Aviv closed and we spent the duration of the conflict in New York. While there, my teacher arranged an audition with the New York City Opera and in 1974 I debuted at NYCO singing Pinkerton in ”Madama Butterfly”(my Cio-Cio- San was Patricia Craig who went on to sing at the Met and now teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory after many years at the New England Conservatory). I had never sung Pinkerton before and made my New York City Opera debut in a role I learned a few months before the performance, and, although I had rehearsals in a practice room, I had never sung the role with an orchestra nor set foot on the stage of the New York State Theater before that evening.

I pass this story along not to show what a uniquely gifted person, let alone singer, I am (you my draw your own conclusions) but to illustrate that most of my colleagues have similar stories. They made their careers by diligent, intensive vocal study and taking risks in the “real word” of opera, not by spending years in young artists programs with scholarships from wealthy patrons.

I pride myself in the belief that I have provided my audiences with a well sung, and well thought out character portrayal that did justice to what the composer and librettist had intended.

One of the most satisfying experiences I have had as a singer was being asked by Glynn Ross, founder of Seattle Opera, to open the season as Pinkerton in September 1977.
Melinda Bargreen (who is now a friend, but whom I had not yet met) wrote a review that is one I cherish. Not so much because she praised my voice (Ok!, I liked that a lot, too), but because she wrote about my portrayal of Pinkerton, which was different than most, but is what I strongly believe Puccini had in mind when he wrote what I feel is one of the most emotionally beautiful operas of all time.

Forgive me the indulgence, but I have to quote from her review in The Seattle Times, Friday, September 16th 1977 (I will skip the part where she talks about my “...big, brilliant voice”...) “...Poll’s Pinkerton is youthful and impetuous, downing quantities of whisky and bounding about the stage. It is a believable interpretation, one which can explain Pinkerton’s personality and behavior better than most. In Poll’s performance, Pinkerton is a rash youth rather than a cynical cad.”

I remember the performance well; the other principles were singers I had performed the opera with in New York. The audience was very effusive, and in fact, I still have people stop me today telling me they remember that “Butterfly” performance. I believe it was a memorable performance because we all cared and gave thought to our portrayals and the conductor and stage director believed in the work and let us make the music and plot live, instead of inserting cute stage business to show the audience how clever they were.

Neither I nor any of my colleagues in that performance had been involved in young artists programs. We simply reacted to one another as we assumed our characters would have. A great actor doesn’t act the role; he/she lives it. I think young artists programs spend time on body movement and acting because as directors they ask singers to react with ”stage business” that flies in the face of the plot as the composer envisioned it. One has to “act” if the staging is contrary to how normal people(or even opera singers for that matter) would react; for example, singers bouncing up and down and turning in circles while singing a sextet (Seattle Opera’s “Barber of Seville) or Edgardo reacting to the ghost of Lucia (Seattle Opera’s Lucia) which is not a part of the plot.

In fairness, I must say that there are young artists programs that are well run, and I am all for getting the most training you can to be the best performer you can be. But at the same time the most important commodity an opera singer has is his/her voice, and nothing else should take precedence. A great performer without a good voice is an actor, not an opera singer. Perhaps they are what Seattle Opera called the performers who debuted in “Amelia”; singing actors. But they are not opera singers. I like a good singing actor as much, or more, than the next guy; but they belong in musicals and not on the opera stage.

Today we have hundreds and hundreds of aspiring singers graduating universities, or studying privately with the myriad of teachers, (the majority of whom have never had a career of their own) and unfortunately will never achieve their goal. So what becomes of all these singers when they realize that they are no longer “Young Artists” and have never had a career.?

You have probably guessed the answer by now. Yes, of course, they do the obvious; they teach voice while skipping merrily down the yellow brick road.