Following a session with mezzo-soprano Cynthia Munzer, there can be little doubt in singers’ minds that energy, communication, and passion should always be priorities when rehearsing or performing a piece of music. Having performed internationally for 33 years with major opera companies and symphony orchestras, including over 220 performances in over 20 roles with the Metropolitan Opera, Munzer has been exposed to and developed numerous techniques designed to increase singers’ energy levels and make them better communicators by liberating their voices, minds, and bodies.
“Communication is one of a singer’s biggest goals, so the body should work seamlessly and allow you to be free to communicate. I call that ‘organic artistry,’” she says.
Passion is the other major goal. “Music transforms us,” she continues. “Students need a great passion for the actual music and for physically creating music. My position as a teacher is to make it possible for students to react and respond to music. You have to be thrilled or learn to be thrilled by the music so that you can physically form the music within your body. You need to have a high level of natural response to the music and then develop the tools to express the feelings.” The caveat is that those techniques should not block your responses. In Munzer’s words, “You don’t want to be so preoccupied with technique that you forget what the music is all about.”
Munzer started teaching vocal arts and opera in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in 1994, became an assistant professor in 2000, and has been an associate professor since 2006. Focusing on classical singing with some crossover into musical theatre, Munzer works with singers in both one-on-one sessions and masterclasses. She enjoys diagnostics and finds that a singer’s obstacles are often breath related—sometimes the problem is easy to fix, and sometimes not so easy.
“Professional sound is consistent sound,” she explains. “And by consistency, I mean acoustical consistency, the consistency of resonance. When describing sensory or actual placement of tone, one may have an awareness of the spaces that produce this resonance but not have the breath management to help maintain resonance in these spaces. Or one may have a natural and organized breath but no awareness of the best acoustical spaces to produce consistent tone.”
Aside from correcting breathing trouble, Munzer is well known for motivating singers to leave their comfort zones (stagnation, as she refers to it) and try new approaches to vocal performance. While she insists that many of her performance tools can be understood only by seeing them in action, she does integrate yoga and tai chi and offer a partials list of “named” exercises: Hollywood Flaunt (a position at the piano), The Whine (adapted from a skit on Saturday Night Live), The Phelps (adapted from swimmer Michael Phelps), Miracle Thumb (for the palate), Breath Odometer (measuring breath from full to empty), The Greek Chorus (giving word commands of various emotions while a singer sings), Goose Bump Time (giving the audience goose bumps), No Nonsense Macarena (kinesthetics), and Magical Moments (special chords, key changes, rhythm changes, or any transposition).
Soprano Erica Miller studied with Munzer from 2002 to 2007 at the recommendation of a teacher at Westminster Choir College, and audience reaction was a major focus of her lessons. “Cynthia challenged me in every lesson to really feel the music, to never let a part of any phrase have a generic emotion, and to become a performer who would be convincing, real, and able to give the audience chills. She stopped me every time she could tell that I wasn’t fully mentally engaged in what I was singing—I was giving her a generic emotion, instead of being 100 percent in character and making specific emotional and physical choices. When everything comes together vocally and emotionally . . . it can give an audience member chills. Without her coaching, I would not be the professional singer I am today,” she says. Miller received her master of music degree in 2004 and stayed at USC for over three years to earn her doctor of musical arts degree and continue studying with Munzer.
Munzer also highlights imagination and opposite emotions with her students. To help singers develop imagination, she instructs them to visualize a scene with or without other singers on stage. “You have to have imagination,” she says, “especially when it comes to the kind of sound you want for expressing a particular thought.” In fact, Munzer is trying to undo a lack of imagination that she encounters in many singers.
“A lot of students are over-taught and think they need a grown-up’s permission to make decisions, or they’re waiting for a grown-up to make a decision for them. These singers come from the school of ‘being the recipient of instructions’ and don’t take responsibility for themselves. I give them permission to be free and take the piece in different directions. As soon as they are allowed to speak for themselves, they come out with gorgeous tones,” she says.
As far as opposite emotions are concerned, Munzer wants to eliminate preconceived ideas within arias so that singers can react in the moment. In every masterclass, as a singer sings an aria, he or she is told to change emotions for different phrases. “No matter what the emotion is, it never goes against the aria,” she explains. “The performer has so much energy in developing different emotions that it doesn’t matter what the emotion is. The music takes flight, allowing for a dynamic performance.” For example, singing a sad aria with sadness causes the energy level to wane, and the performer is stuck in what Munzer calls a “generic” form of singing. Inserting exuberance or joy raises the energy level to new heights.
What about opposite emotions for upbeat arias? “If an aria is already positive, one needs to create several specific types of positive emotions so that the aria is not a generic ‘happy.’ I tell my students that every aria or art song should be sung as though it were a matter of life and death. There is no ‘lovely,’ ‘happy,’ ‘lonely’ or ‘blue’ but, instead, ‘ecstatic,’ ‘electrifying,’ ‘craving’ or ‘desiring.’ There is also a technical advantage to these emotions. One needs a lifted open face for better acoustics, not a pinched negative expression with downcast eyebrows, mouth, and drawn cheeks,” she says.
There is one correlation she wants students to avoid: volume does not mean shouting. Tenor Tim Gonzales, who has studied with Munzer for five years and is in his final semester of graduate studies at USC, was singing strenuously and pushing his voice too hard. “Cynthia immediately began devising ways to get me off balance so that I couldn’t plant and scream,” Gonzales says. “One of the first techniques I learned was to crouch, as if in a football huddle. This served to engage my core and get the tension out of my throat. I have sung arias on my back, on one leg, in a lunge position, bent over from the waist, and in a couple of yoga poses—all of these got rid of the tension I was creating and forced my body to engage the way that it knew how to engage. Cynthia’s philosophy is that . . . as easily as I yawn, speak, or walk, that is how I should sing. Her great strength to me as a teacher is her ability to have a tool for every occasion.”
As might be expected, personal experiences with directors and conductors have heavily influenced Munzer’s teaching philosophies, techniques, and advice. She recalls her first performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta in 1980. In one rehearsal, Mehta changed all of the breath markings that she had spent months preparing, and she was beside herself, worrying how her performance would be affected. “I was in a state of great anxiety,” she recalls, “but his gestures toward me at the beginning of the concert were so warm and inviting that I just focused on making music instead of breathing and technique, and I couldn’t believe the sounds that came out of my mouth.”
She made a point of always attending opera rehearsals with preconceived ideas about her roles so that the directors could take her in different directions, thereby taking her out of her comfort zone. And, even though she concedes that it is not a perfect example of being taken in a different direction, Munzer describes her conflict when she sang Azucena in Il trovatore for the first time.
“I had prepared it technically but felt that something wasn’t working,” she remembers. “I told the director that I was feeling uncomfortable in a few places and wanted to refrain from singing and only produce the moves and emotions he was looking for. My body started to memorize where I would go and what I would do. I made my body do the work and then put the voice and acting together. For performances, my concentration was on singing and my body was rehearsed, so they went together beautifully. That freed my body, and I sang better. I learned that it was okay not to sing in every rehearsal, which is a scary thought because opera is supposed to be singing first and everything else second, or else you might as well be in straight theater. I tell my students the same thing about their staging rehearsals. Your mind wants to do one thing at a time. Learn the staging and dramatic intentions, and then add your voice.”
Of course, Munzer’s techniques also stem from her collaborations with world-famous singers and conductors including Montserrat Caballé, Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Alfredo Kraus, Luciano Pavarotti, Jerome Hines, James Conlon, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, and Leopold Stokowski. “As a stroke of luck, my friend Jerry Hines was writing a book about the vocal techniques of the Metropolitan Opera stars called Great Singers on Great Singing,” she says, “and I was fortunate to be invited to observe some of those interviews, which took place at the Met. Many views about technique were shared, but the end message was always the same—consistency of tone and resonance, organization of breath, and legato line.”
Once she imparts her wisdom—and elicits a beautifully sung phrase—how does Munzer ensure that her students have learned from their mistakes, will be able to rectify their vocal problems in the future, and can maintain their newfound energy? “I ask them to sing it again and tell me what they did, to demonstrate that they understand,” she says. “Plus, the names of the performance tools help them remember the techniques that elicit energy. I make the expressions fun because I love to make people laugh.”
