On singers taking roles outside of their Fachs:
Casta Diva: It is the management and producers that are the culprits, IMO.
Vagabond: But the decision and responsibility lies within the singer, not the agent or manager. They work for you, not the other way around.
On facts and science versus feeling and opinion in science and art:
“If the audience becomes aware of your technique and approach, you have failed as an artist.”
—Vagabond
“If you are going to talk in terms of science, then you need to actually apply the scientific method to your thinking, and not think in absolutes. . . . That is decidedly unscientific. If you want to pronounce a particular method of singing as based on a stated fact, then this is not science, but dogma.”
—Enrico Palazo
“I personally like to discuss opinions, because there is no discussion when it comes to facts. . . . Opinions, now there is joy for me, not to know what something is, but who somebody is . . .”
—Vagabond
On splicing recordings for demo CDs:
“I would definitely take the best from as many takes as you like, simply because this is what everybody does, and as it is a known fact, I would not think that it was a dishonest move on your part.”
—Queenofsong
On pushing the voice on performance:
“This said, oversinging is not necessarily pushing per se; it’s like running a Marathon like a sprinter . . . you will need to break, not because you’re not running well, but because you are not running intelligently.”
—Vagabond
On responses to Mario Del Monaco’s assertion that piano and pianissimo singing are damaging for large voices:
“All voices should be able to sing with the full range of dynamics. True, a dramatic voice’s pianissimo is going to be louder than a lyric’s, but still there should be a noticeable contrast [between a singer’s dynamics].”
—Basso1028
On open disagreement on a public forum:
“It is much better that people have a variety of points of view to consider. If we all agreed on everything then this would not really be a discussion forum at all, it would be a club. It appears to me everyone is posting their viewpoints on here under the sincere motive of gaining a better understanding of the voice through reasoned debate, or simply sharing their experiences with people of common interest.”
—Enrico Palazo
