Dear Editor: I’m interested to know if other singers have had the problem of auditioning in spaces where the acoustics were challenging, and how they dealt with this problem.
On two separate occasions, I was “thrown” by the acoustics in the auditioning space: one was in New York City in what seemed to be a converted apartment with a very low ceiling. I felt my voice was not carrying at all, and I struggled against forcing [my voice] during the audition.
The other case was opposite: the audition was in the hall of a very large church in Maryland where I felt as if my voice was diffusing or echoing and I couldn’t control it.
Fortunately, I’ve never had this problem while actually performing; although I wouldn’t think most presenters would hold a concert in that kind of a space.
B.J. Rieders
Bucks Co., Pennsylvania
[Thank you for the suggestion. Watch for an article covering this topic in the upcoming August issue. –ed,.]
Dear Editor: An issue I would like to see addressed in the magazine is when to call it quits. I am a 37-year-old soprano who has been running into more closed doors than open ones. I have a had series of ups and downs in my journey to the stage. Lately I have considered calling it quits. Singing has always been fun and a joy in my heart. Due to several factors ranging from the loss of my day job and countless unsuccessful chorus auditions, I have been wondering if it is worth continuing. I recently was cast in a local production but had to bow out due to the unorganized nature of the company, in addition to not being paid.
When is it time to just move on? How does one deal with the emotions of giving up on your dreams? What do you do when the opportunities are just not there or the phone isn’t ringing?
Name Withheld
New York, New York
[Adria Firestone’s series, “The Singing Addiction,” appeared in the magazine from Sept. 2008 to Feb. 2009 and addressed this difficult issue that all singers face at some point in their career. The articles are all available in the Classical Singer online archives at www.classicalsinger.com. –ed.]
Dear Editor: Having recently read David Littlejohn’s excellent book, The Ultimate Art, and more recently having read a review of NYCO’s new production of Don Giovanni, I began thinking again about the present day over-emphasis on the production team and the little attention given the singers. Mr. Littlejohn lists operatic evolution thusly: first, the Age of the Poet (earliest opera); second, the Age of the Singer (18th – 19th centuries); next, the Age of the Composer (1860 – Verdi, Wagner, et al); then, the Age of the Conductor; and, since around 1950, the Age of the Producer.
Now more than 50 years into this frustrating period where unwonted importance is given to the production, even the singers would like to rebel but, for obvious reasons, are intimidated. Really, opera stage direction does not require the imprimatur of the director to the extent of serving as a conduit for his or her personal views on culture, politics, or the need to rescue Mozart from oblivion by making his operas “relevant.”
The notion that updating operas or otherwise distorting a work will bring “new audiences” into the fold is sheer nonsense. Anyone frequenting opera performance is there mainly to hear live their favorite singers, the newcomers to the roster, and the orchestra. It’s the music, stupid. The opera-goer is quite happy with a nice, appropriate, nondistracting set, and staging which makes sense in the context of the libretto. Do not insult us by having Gluck spoken of in “Capriccio” as though he were still alive in the 1920s in an updated production. Strauss and his librettist, Krauss, strove zealously to have perfect agreement in time period and text.
Few operas really gain from updating, much less do they benefit from changing the intent of the composer. We get the message of Don Giovanni without its protagonist being turned into a drug addict in Spanish Harlem. This reminds me: the City Opera review was approximately 810 words, [and only] 23 of them were devoted to the leading singers. Actually, Zerlina, Masetto, and the Commendatore had no mention as to their singing. The singing seems to be today just a necessary evil in opera, hardly worth mentioning.
But those are probably not only problems of opera’s evolution and our being presently in the Age of the Producer. Reading Sutherland Edwards’ book History of the Opera (vol. 1, 1862), we find a quote from a letter written to the Spectator at the success of Handel’s Rinaldo. “Pleasure and recreation of one kind or another are absolutely necessary to relieve our minds and bodies from too constant attention and labour [sic]” and that “where public diversions are tolerated, it behooves persons of distinction, with their power and example, to preside over them in such a manner as to check anything that tends to the corruption of manners, or which is too mean or trivial for the entertainment of reasonable creatures.”
Wonder what that production was like?
Doris Jung
New York, New York
