Originally published in 1922, shortly after Enrico Caruso’s untimely death, this small book has been in continuous publication for more than eight decades. Marafioti was Caruso’s medical adviser and friend for more than 15 years. Marafioti took the opportunity to observe Caruso’s method of singing closely, saying he had seen “the correct application by the master himself of the natural laws governing the mechanism of voice production and…by testing [Caruso’s] ideas and principles, of ascertaining that they conformed with those…developed in the scientific part of this book.”
Marafioti includes a very useful condensed illustration of the mechanism of voice production at the beginning of the book (see Ex. 1).
The opening chapters are filled with Marafioti’s personal stories of Caruso, disputing the claim by some in the musical world at the time who felt that the “miracle of Caruso’s voice” was only to be associated with some “secret magic power of his golden throat.” It was important to the author that his readers should know the truth: Caruso had nothing exceptional in his laryngeal apparatus. In fact, Marafioti claimed, “there were shortcomings in his throat which were so evident that if he had had to rely on his vocal organs alone for his career, he would perhaps never have become a singer at all.”
When Caruso was 20, a laryngologist in Italy had advised him to take up another career, for he had “not the throat for singing.” All laryngologists who treated him, according to the author, knew that his throat was often “much congested, and that he smoked too much,” apparently without impairing the beauty of his voice. All of this served to strengthen Marafioti’s theory that the importance given to the throat as the organ that characterizes exceptional voices is greatly exaggerated.
Marafioti also concluded that it was not an exceptional power or strength in Caruso’s diaphragm and intercostal muscles that contributed to a phenomenal breath supply and led to his beautiful singing. Instead, it was the “careful and intelligent distribution” of his breath that made his breath control seem to be so easily produced. Caruso “always employed only the exact amount of breath required for producing each tone, and no more; and this was responsible for his precise intonation, his remarkable legato, and his long-sustained tones.”
The exceptional physiological attributes that Caruso did possess were the “majestic freedom of his voice production” and the “striking power of resonance of his body, which he utilized to full advantage.” Marafioti concluded that Caruso’s magic power lay in the fact that he sang with a correct physiological voice production, allied with a remarkable physical conformation of his body, including the proper use of all his resonating cavities. His entire body was an extraordinary resonator for his voice. Added to this was Caruso’s attitude about his singing. For him, “singing was a pleasure rather than a technical struggle for effects.”
“His mind, freed from the necessity of thinking high or low tones, was always open to the inspiration of the words and the music he was singing,” Marafioti continued. “…He sang the words for themselves—for their significance—feeling and meaning them.” Marafioti’s second chapter, “The Aim of This Book,” is also historically enlightening, since it deals with an issue very much in the current pedagogical forefront: the role of scientific principles in the study of voice production and how laboratory study can and should promote “radical reform in the art of singing.” He spends several pages convincing his 1922 readers that science can have a very definite impact on vocal instruction, saying the public needs to discriminate between “voice culture” and “artistic vocal education.” Not surprisingly, he concluded (as have most of us) that the two should go hand-in-hand, that “all efforts must be combined to discover the real cause” of the art of singing.
One more fascinating historical tidbit surfaces in Chapter 4. Marafioti traces the causes that brought about the decline of true Bel Canto singing to two primary sources. The first is musical: the evolution of singing in general and opera in particular. But the second he attributes to the “degeneration of the artistic aims of the modern singers, whose careers have become essentially commercial, and who have forsaken all ideals, to pursue solely a financial and ephemeral success, regardless of how it is obtained.”
Alas, it would seem nothing has changed in nearly a century.
After calling for singing teachers to become voice specialists who undergo a regular course of training in scientific and musical matters related to voice (and who must be subject to examination by a special “Board of Scientific and Musical Experts, elected or recognized by the Government”) Marafioti begins a chapter-by-chapter discussion on how the seven principles of his “Radical Reform of Voice Education” can be brought about. They bear quoting here in their entirety, exactly as printed. Some are controversial, some accepted today without question.
Voice is Speech, and is produced by the mouth, not by the vocal cords. The vocal cords produce only sounds, which are transformed into vowels and consonants by a phonetic process taking place in the mouth, and giving origin to the voice.
(a) The full extension of the natural range of the voice is produced only by using the minimum tension of the vocal cords and the minimum breath required for each tone. This establishes a correct mechanism of voice production. (b) The laryngeal sounds must be transmitted to the mouth free of any interference; freedom is the fundamental pillar of voice production.
Breath is an indispensable factor in voice production, but it is not the essential power that develops the voice as it is taught today. On the contrary, the function of singing develops the breathing apparatus and its power, just as any physiological function develops the organ from which it takes origin. Therefore singing develops breathing, not breathing, singing.
Resonance is the most important factor in voice production. It furnishes to the voice volume and quality, and emphasizes its loudness. To rely on resonance rather than on force is essential for producing a big and pleasing voice.
Speaking and singing are similar functions, produced by the same physiological mechanism; therefore, they are the same vocal phenomenon.
The pitch and the dimensions of the singing voice—the volume, the quality and loudness—are determined by the speaking voice. Speaking high or low, resonant, loud or soft, in any gradation of sentiment and shade of color, lays the groundwork for singing in high or low pitch, resonant or soft, in any musical color or expression.
There are no registers in the singing voice, when it is correctly produced.
According to natural laws, the voice is made up of only one register, which constitutes its entire range.
Marafioti expounded on each of these principles in the ensuing chapters. Nearly all of his information was anecdotal, and not always about Caruso. He mentioned in a very positive light several well-known singers of the time—Emmy Destinn, Titta Ruffo, Emma Calvé, and Amelita Galli-Curci among them—while politely and prudently refusing to name the singers whose technique he questioned. The fourth principle (resonance) he explained in an easily understood and highly readable way, while the fifth principle concerning the similarity of the speaking and singing functions is downright fascinating.
Marafioti wrote that one of the most striking features of Caruso’s artistry was his approach to operatic recitatives. Caruso’s recitative was akin to “melodious talking,” and asserted that this method illustrated the “clearest, most colorful and brilliant display of what a valuable cooperator the speaking voice is in singing.” Caruso, according to Marafioti, delighted more listeners with his “musical speaking than many singers with their big or pure tones, which, no matter how pure or big, are far from reproducing the real human voice.”
He told how Caruso would recite his recitatives in a normal speaking tone (always with the proper emotional content), gradually making the “speech” more musically inflected; he would next raise the tones upward to a more musically pitched area of the voice and continue reciting, then finally speak the emotionally-inflected tones on the written pitches. Although I’d certainly been taught recitative technique before, Marafioti’s explanation of Caruso’s method ignited my imagination, and I found myself immediately trying it out with a difficult recitative from a Handel cantata. It worked!
Marafioti’s discussion of the seventh principle reveals one area in which later research has proven him to be dead wrong. Marafioti wrote that the traditional, timeworn division of the voice into three registers (chest, middle, and head) is so named because the chest voice gets its resonance from the chest, the middle register from the pharynx, and the head register from the head. This is absolutely untrue. Modern voice scientists have proven that singing activates all the resonating cavities, and that the outdated terminology exists because it refers to where singers perceive the vibration to be. Sound vibrations cannot be directed toward any particular resonator; they enter every available nook and cranny and set the bones and air into vibration. It is only our awareness of the sympathetic resonance sensations that causes us to think that we’re singing “from” those places.
Marafioti’s contention that there is only one register may also strike us as untrue, but I believe it’s simply a matter of semantics. Certainly, any of us who have ever worked through that big crack in our lower-middle or upper-middle voice know that the negotiation is tricky and it’s real. What Marafioti wants us to achieve is one register, to arrive at a point where it does indeed seem that the registers are unified, that there is only one. Some contemporary teachers also teach the one-register approach with great success. Often, if we change what we call something it can loosen the fear that clutches us, and we achieve the goal more rapidly.
A wonderful and informative chapter quotes Caruso at length, discussing his own voice. The great tenor felt that singers who use their voices properly should be at the height of their talents at age 45 and keep their full strength beyond 50, welcome news indeed to those of us who’ve been taught that if we haven’t “made it” by 35 we should quit. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Several x-rays taken of Caruso’s jaw region while he was phonating various vowels are quite intriguing, as are the exercises. Marafioti included to help singers enunciate consonants. These exercises, used by Caruso, should prove useful for improving articulation. But the real value of the book is its captivating documentation of living history. Taking such an intimate look at Enrico Caruso’s method of vocal production makes us aware of the inherited artistic legacy that all singers share every time we take a breath to sing.
