“It’s about the love of singing,” Florence Birdwell says, summarizing her entire teaching philosophy. No matter what you’re singing—opera, art song, musical theatre, pop, rock—you must love performing and, above all, communicating.
Birdwell has not always taught musical theatre. She started as a performer and teacher of classical voice. “In fact, I didn’t know what good musical theatre was in those days,” she says. But when Oklahoma City University introduced its musical theatre program, she adjusted her curriculum.
Now, with a list of former students that includes Kristin Chenoweth, Lara Teeter, and Kelli O’Hara, Birdwell long ago established herself as a master teacher of musical theatre performance.
She shared with Classical Singer her advice, from breathing to diction, about giving musical theatre a chance.
What is the very first thing you tell a classically trained singer who wants to sing musical theatre?
I find, and I believe so strongly, that good music theatre is based on classical technical understanding of the voice. For a long time music theatre lost a lot of voices to incorrect technique because they did not choose people that had been taught the techniques of correct singing, which also means saving the voice. If you have a safe technique and a good technique, you can sing. I will tell you, you can sing anything.
And I really mean that, because what opera has learned from music theatre is the meaning of conveying words. If our students are taught the importance of the meaning of words, you can therefore portray meanings to audiences that never before could be done. Not only that—the important thing for me as a teacher is that a [singer] knows what he means. It can mean a lot in the quality of the tone.
A student needs to know his voice. If he understands his voice—his voice, not yours, not mine, but his—then he can take his voice and his heart and succeed wherever he puts the amount of work into succeeding. Both elements take tremendous work. That’s what students don’t all understand. . . . My students who have succeeded greatly . . . work so diligently and so hard without ceasing. And it is a tremendously difficult job.
Understand yourself. Learn to know thyself. That’s another thing that I work all the time toward is for my students to know themselves. Don’t pretend to be somebody else. Everybody comes out of high school saying, “Oh, my grandmother thinks I have the most wonderful voice. I think I better learn to be a singer.” And so forth. And that’s very difficult to overcome, the expectations of the young singer, ’til that person—and this is the hardest thing of all—learns to know himself.
Must classical singing come before musical theatre singing?
You learn both. Not at the same time. You start with the fundamentals of the physiology of singing. I don’t care whether you’re majoring in opera or whether you’re majoring in music theatre. The fundamentals of the singing voice are the fundamentals. That’s where you start. I start with how to sing healthily. Then, when the student understands the instrument, his instrument, then we can move into where his passions lie. A good pianist can also play jazz, sure. A good violinist can play fiddle. But he first knows his instrument. Then he can take on other desires, other fun things, other necessary things. But if he doesn’t understand his instrument, he’s going to get in trouble.
Do you teach classical and musical theatre in the same lesson?
I will say that I separate it but remind the student how what he’s working on can be used in the other [style]. You know, I can say, “See how you feel about that same statement in English. Now translate the French statement and find the same feeling in the French that you have in the language you know, that you’ve grown up with.” So there is a comparison many times. [It is] so difficult to convey what the song means when you’re not familiar with [another language]. But in music theatre it’s equally difficult because people know music theatre songs and they want you to sound like Eydie Gormé, [for example]. To find your own self is the challenge, and that’s what I work on in both music theatre and in legitimate [style repertoire].
What would be a good song for someone new to musical theatre?
I always try to choose the legitimate feeling in music theatre, such as Rodgers and Hammerstein. . . . Sondheim is all words, so I don’t give them Sondheim the first year they’re working in music.
Do you give different warm-ups when you begin teaching musical theatre pieces to classical singers?
No, but I add certain warm-ups. I always make sure that they have a healthy introduction to the belt, which too many people misunderstand. A belt has to be physically correct or you will hurt yourself. You have to have tremendous support to belt correctly, and a healthy belt oftentimes increases the quality of the operatic voice, amazingly enough.
How is that?
Because the belt demands absolute support, and the opera singer has to have absolute support. And sometimes an opera singer gets so engrossed with the head [voice] that they forget all about support. And to really support an operatic voice, you have to be able to lift the piano. My students lift the piano all the time, and I mean lift it—not just stand there and hold onto it. You lift the piano to get that support from your feet and your thighs and your butt.
Do you think an opera singer can learn to belt in a healthy way without compromising his or her range?
Yes, if they are doing it physically correctly, absolutely. Look at the opera singers that are singing in music theatre now. There are lots of them.
The ability to use the low part of the voice is very valuable because it has textures that you can create from an emotion. Many sopranos have to sing an A below middle C. Many sopranos can, because the voice itself is very flexible, but it has to be taught. It’s coming from a free instrument, not a tight instrument.
A healthy belt has absolute support, and that’s the same support that goes up high and supports the very high legitimate, sometimes operatic, sometimes coloratura even. Now, a coloratura, you just want to touch—in order to keep the voice free—those [low] notes when vocalizing, but you’re not going to sing down there, not a coloratura.
But a lyric soprano many times has to face the ability to sing a few notes below middle C. So you have to know your voice. Know what it takes to produce free sound. If you try to sing or belt without support, what has happened? The throat tightens, the jaw tightens, the tongue tightens, everything, the shoulders tighten. I get so weary of people’s shoulders going up when they sing. Especially opera singers. That’s tension!
What is the function of vibrato?
Vibrato is a natural function, not a forced function. [However], a lot of vibratos come from tension. A vibrato has to come naturally from the breath.
Do you think removing vibrato is acceptable for musical theatre songs?
Well, certainly. . . . The emotion of the word, that creates a certain type of vibrato. Vibrato is a gift; don’t manufacture it. The breath brings the vowel into play, and the emotion brings the color of the vowel into play.
When the vibrato comes out of the emotion of the word, it’s not manufactured. But now, a lot of teachers teach [to create] vibrato, and I’ve tried sometimes in the past, but I find that it creates a difficulty because they’re manufacturing it. I approach it from a different direction—a direction of beauty.
Now sometimes a straight line is good because you want that straight line sound. Lots of choirs use a straight line. Lots of composers use certain things with straight lines, and I love it. I love the sound of it.
Do you believe words are more important in musical theatre?
Whatever you’re teaching, whether it’s opera or music theatre . . . it’s the same devotion to word, it’s the same devotion to correct vocal production. The production might be varied a little because of the difference of the height of the opera singer and the languages required.
But our problem in music theatre is it’s American. So what are the things I have to teach a new student? It’s to learn to speak correctly. If you don’t change the speech habits, that’s how you’ll sing.
There are so many beautiful songs that are just musically learned. But they don’t pay much attention to the words, even in music theatre. No they just hum [hums The Sound of Music theme]. But then they find out the importance of the words on that familiar theme. You learn the importance of what those words meant in that song. You see, it’s always a continual learning job. It’s very difficult.
