Viennese agent and former singer Erich Seitter on the importance of a solid technique
Most important for me is technique. The beauty of the voice comes second. There are singers who don’t have a beautiful voice, but an excellent technique: a clear, even voice with no wobble, bleatiness, or obvious register changes. The voice has to seem like one smooth register from top to bottom.
I am old-fashioned. . . . In former mass auditions, I would always ask a lyric soprano (now you’re going to say, “How mean!”) to sing Pamina’s aria. The first six measures tell you if she can sing. How she begins is crucial, as well as the jump from “es” to “ist.” Once I hear that, I already know how well she can handle her register changes.
If the technique is excellent, the singer can sell himself or herself very well, and the image is not that important. Singers who are unattractive in real life step on the stage and the artistic miracle happens: they transform themselves due to a complete control and mastery of their technique.
Timbre is a matter of taste. If someone sings without a wobble, screaming, or tightness, that pure sound spreads throughout the body and endows the singer with an aura of grace and elegance, like a dancer with a great technique. What do you care if the singer is cross-eyed?
My father would have said, “It doesn’t hurt a woman to be beautiful,” but it is not as important in this profession as many make it to be. If someone displays a technical security, they can transport you to a place of beauty. Believe it or not, art comes from this technical control.
(from “An Interview with Erich Seitter,” by Cristina Necula, September 2003)
Joyce di Donato says text is key
All the technical things we first must learn to do (dynamic range, colors, clarity of vowel, use of distinct consonants without airflow disruption, legato, breath control) all work toward the goal of delivering the text. Every technique we struggle to master, every action we take on the stage, every nuance we strive for in a phrase, are all set in place to convey the text. Basta. There is no other reason for us to sing.
Beyond that, we must find our uniqueness. It’s like a figure skater at the Olympics—you can tell immediately which athlete is technically flawless and has been the beneficiary of great training, but nine times out of 10 it’s the daring, risky, edgy skater that takes your breath away. Those are the ones the audiences crave. To me, as a singer trained in the best American programs, the challenge has been to take my comprehensive training and use it to find my own, unique voice.
(from “Connecting the Dots,” by Daniel Helfgot, August 2003)
Shirley Verrett on messa di voce
I used the same technique for everything. Students say, “Professor Verrett, isn’t it harder to sing piano? Don’t you need more tension?” I tell them: “No! If you use too much tension you’ll ruin it.” It’s very subtle. You don’t punch it.
If you want to make a piano, you don’t keep expanding the ribs. You don’t also say, “Now I’m going to sing a piano, so it’s time to collapse all the muscles.”
I believe an awful lot in the mind being a part of this huge puzzle—the soft palate, the space, the breath, the tongue. People knew I battled allergies and illness, but I always felt that if I didn’t know the technique for attempting the notes perfectly, I shouldn’t be there in the first place.
(from “She Never Walks Alone,” by Christopher Purdy, November 2003)
James King on singing successfully into later life
You have to learn always to float the tone and never push, which takes complete freedom in the throat and jaw, and a tongue that is like a floppy piece of liver—and it is crucial to find and maintain the proper breath pressure on every note throughout your range.
I also believe very much in the low larynx, which is associated with the Melocchi method but is just good basic technique, to me. Learning to cover properly in the passaggio is tricky too, because while the vowels must become darker, you have to find a way to keep the voice brilliant once you have gotten up and over. You take in the breath primarily through the nose, not the mouth—mouth breathing leads to gasping—and then you feel the tone flowing out through the whole system.
I never vocalize from the bottom up, always from the top down, by thirds, beginning in falsetto. That kept me from the big danger of pulling up too much weight, which will end up killing you over time.
I could sing very loud—and in recitals people sometimes tell me they feel I sing a little too loud—but I never push. People who do aren’t singing at 75, believe me.
(from “The Generous Voice,” by David Kubiak, October 2000)
Richard Leech on the similarities of singing and playing golf
Half of singing is the use of involuntary muscles. You can control some of them, but others you’re not able really to control with a thought. They’re controlled by some other part of your brain, perhaps by the emotions, or the desire to say something meaningful.
I make analogies with singing and golf all the time. Golf, of course, is extremely technical. That’s why most people don’t play golf. They say, “Are you kidding me? You want me to do that? Keep my left arm straight and then do what?” So you do all this technical homework: Where do you put your feet? Where does your weight shift? If you consciously focus on all those things at once, you actually can’t hit the ball. It’s almost impossible, but what you can do is work on each of those elements individually and get them so they’re second nature.
Consciously, you can think about one thing, or maybe two things. Absolutely no more. Whatever you’ve decided to think about consciously is your swing thought. Aside from the swing thought, your conscious mind, and your ego are out of the way.
It’s similar with singing. If you’ve done your homework, when you stand up and start an aria, your swing thought will be the meaning of what you’re singing and an occasional technical issue. You never get far away from the meaning of the piece, because you’ve done your homework, and you’re out of the way.
(from “The Student Becomes a Master,” by Gil Carbajal, July 2003)
Alison England on how she stays vocally healthy
The voice will stay warm, if you’re singing well and you’re singing on your support. I make sure that every
costume I have has a built-in corset that is tight enough that I can push against it when I get tired. I forced myself when I was exhausted to use my support.
A lot of my work is based on the Garcia-Marchesi technique. We do specific breathing exercises every day to keep the lower “abs” strong. I would let the beginning of the show warm me up, and I would always do “ab” work and breathing work before the show for about 30 minutes, and a light warmup vocally.
In Marchesi’s work, breathing is the most important, because when you are tired it’s the first thing that goes. So I always stretch out, do my breath work, humming, etc. It has been outstanding—it has strengthened me and added color to my voice.
(from “Funny Girl: Alison England Takes Her Show on the Road,” by Rodike Tollefson, February 2003)
Erie Mills on Longevity
Good vocal technique should allow a singer of any voice category to sing forever. Choosing the correct repertoire is a must for every voice type. Because I knew that I was a light lyric coloratura, I basically made my career with those roles—and I waited to perform certain [heavier] roles. I sang Lucia after age 30, Queen of the Night at around 40, and only three seasons ago did I sing Manon. I built my career in roles by Mozart, Richard Strauss, Donizetti, and Handel. That’s where I vocally belong, and that’s where I stayed.
Singers need to understand that just because they are asked to sing a role doesn’t mean they should. The score dictates a certain size and weight for each role, and that should be the determining factor, not whether we as singers want to sing the role.
According to Elena Nikolaidi, a truly great singer and my teacher for the last 25 years, the vocal prime is between the ages of 40 and 50. If that’s true, my best singing has been in the last 10 years. Ha!
(from “Erie Mills,” by Daniel Helfgot, March 2003)
Pavarotti on the Importance of Consistent Practice
You have to be with your instrument daily. If you stay one day without singing or practice, you feel a little uncomfortable. If you stay two days, the audience and the critics will feel uncomfortable!
Every day you have to be with it, because if you know that your instrument is answering your requests you are confident, you go on the stage sure of what you want to do, and really without trouble, problems, or anxiety. You have to do more than what is expected.
Like I’ve said before, you lose 20 percent on the stage. So, if you have, for example, “Bohéme,” you must vocalize much higher than the C. You have to go to D flat or D natural, because you lose it when you go on the stage—you take one wrong breath and you’re finished. You need a reserve.
(from “Longevity and Technique: A Conversation with Luciano Pavarotti,” by Maria Zouves, March 2002)
Rosalind Plowright on Using the Chest Voice
Every voice, even a high soprano, shouldn’t neglect the lower, chesty tones. What happens when a voice starts to get high and tight is that the bottom and the middle start to go.
In fact, I gave a voice lesson to a singer the other day who had a voice like a laser beam, a huge voice. But she couldn’t sing an A3! That means she couldn’t sing Ariadne, for example, which her voice would be perfect for. A lot of the low notes are neglected in singers.
In the book Great Singers on Singing, there were a few singers who, when asked about it, said, “I don’t sing in chest voice. It is dangerous.” This is utter rubbish! The chest voice can be very useful. Chesting high is dangerous, but not low.
(from “A Voice Lesson with Rosalind Plowright,” by CJ Williamson, May 2003)
Jennifer Larmore on Not Letting Technique Get in the Way of Making Music
I’m not consciously working on my technique. When you’re young, you have to really pay attention to having a good basic technique. That is the most important thing you can do. But I also think about knowing pedagogy, and knowing what’s happening in your throat—what makes something crack. I think it’s important that you know.
The more knowledge you have, the better it is for you. I guess it’s like eating. Of course you’re not going to say, “OK, now my hand is reaching for the spoon, now it’s going into my mouth.” No, no, you learned how to do that technically when you were a baby. It’s kind of the same way vocally. It comes second nature.
But the other thing is this: Every singer is different. Every singer has different needs. There are some singers, who, for many different personal reasons, like to take voice lessons all their lives. Well, I took voice lessons for three years, and I haven’t taken another one since.
(from “My Voice is a Way of Life” by Freeman Gunter, June 2002)
Cynthia Lawrence on Pregnancy and on Having Interests Beyond Singing
When the hormones started kicking in, I always felt warmed up. Progesterone, which helps the baby grow, also helps the mucous membranes. With the first pregnancy, I sang up until I was seven months along. I had a concert three weeks after Rowan was born, and everyone said, “Whoa! What did you do to your voice?” It was bigger, richer. It was a little bit unwieldy at first, but things got more stable eventually. Things I’d had to work hard at before seemed easier.
I never lost any range. I made my Met debut as Rosalinda when Rowan was two months old. With the second child, I sang “Butterfly” while eight months pregnant.
I love my career. I feel like I have something unique to give—but if I couldn’t sing suddenly (which I don’t plan on) I could find something else to satisfy myself. I feel sorry for singers who are so wrapped up in singing that they have nothing else. Those people are getting fewer and further between, I think.
I feel it is very healthy to have a lot of different interests. I feel like grabbing single-focused people by the shirt and saying to them, “Go get a dog! Go plant a flower! Go run barefoot in the park!”
(from “A Soprano Who Has It All,” by CJ Williamson, June 2003)
Roberta Peters on the Importance of Staying Physically Fit
My goal was always to sing opera. [Bill] Hermann had what you’d call today a holistic approach to vocal training. He was a fitness nut. He was a very physical teacher. I would put my palms on the piano and lean, with my feet about three feet away, leaning, what the Italians call appoggio. I would sing in that position. Then I’d sing bending down, so the blood rushed to the head. It relaxed the whole throat area.
I used to go all the time to Joe Pilates’ gym on 56th Street and 8th Ave. He had all kinds of little contraptions. There was even a little windmill. You’d take a straw and very slowly exhale to see how long you could keep the windmill going. It helps for breath control, for the long phrases! Later on, after my debut, Life magazine had me photographed with a man standing on my diaphragm. I had good muscles!
(from “Staying Power,” by Christopher Purdy, December 2002)
Paul Kelley on Healthy Crossover Singing
It is a different type of support of the breath. You’re still supporting, but when you sing popular music, you’re not opening up all of your resonating chambers. As an opera singer, the chest voice is as important as opening up all of the resonating areas in the head. A lot of that is unnecessary in pop and folk music, where it’s more about pronunciation of words and knowing when to back off the voice. You also use more of the head voice.
If, as an opera singer, you learn the voix mixte [mixed voice], it becomes a very effective tool in pop singing. You use a lot more diphthongs in the vowels in singing pop and folk, and you tend to slight the final consonants or make unusual sounds to get an idea across. That’s something you would never consider in an aria or concert piece.
(from “Songs Are the Diamonds In My Life,” by Cristina Necula, December 2003)
Stephanie Blythe on messa di voce, breathing, and exercise
Some technical things you don’t get in the studio but pick up along the way. I had trouble early on singing softly, and when I was covering Quickly at the Met I asked Barbara Bonney what the secret was to her fantastic piano effects. “It’s real simple,” she said. “You do everything you do when you sing forte, except softer.” That seems too easy, but it’s true. You have to be always singing, always vibrating, at whatever dynamic level—pulling back is not the way to sing piano. That goes for things like staccato singing too. If you think of it as interrupted legato you won’t get into trouble.
On the basic question of breath I have never thought about “pushing out” or “pulling in,” since that seems to me unnatural. We don’t think that way about breathing when we’re walking down the street. The goal is to get a deep breath from the diaphragm, and yoga can be useful in achieving it. When I’m on the road I often do yoga breathing exercises in my hotel room.
I don’t warm up a lot before performances—10 minutes maximum, but I might go for a swim or do something else physical earlier in the day. The point is to get the body ready; the voice shouldn’t need a lot of independent attention.
(from “Blythe Spirit,” by David Kubiak, October 2002)
