Summer break. Ah, how lucky you are to be young and enjoy a little time off. Sure you have a job, perhaps you are singing in a Young Artist Program, you are definitely practicing, you might be busy combing the beach for some summer lovin’, and/or creating the next best-selling app. You go, kiddos. Enjoy your summer and all those long nights when you won’t be cramming for an exam.
Oh, wait! You have time at night that isn’t spent writing research papers? And what’s that? You actually miss classes and the thrill of learning? Yes, that’s what I thought you were thinking.
As luck would have it, I have some reading recommendations for you college types that include music themes, classic literature that inspired music, some musical entertainment, and inspiration. There are many summer reading lists online, but this list is especially for you, the classical singing student. Pick one or two of these books and charge your Kindle or pick up a printed copy.
Libraries are still free and bookstores usually have coffee shops, so simply attaining your book will be a winning situation. Curling up with something to read will be the break from Netflix that your brain has wanted all year. When you return to campus in the fall, you will be well read and ready for class.
Summer Lovin’ Reading List—In No Particular Order
1. The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas
Giuseppe Verdi based La traviata on this French novel. The title character was inspired by the author’s real-life lover, which makes it all the more tragic. You don’t have to be singing Violetta to be swept away by this story, but you might develop a penchant for white flowers and handwritten love letters.
2. The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer by Renée Fleming
I always enjoy memoirs, and Fleming’s book gives personal and professional insight into her evolution as an international opera legend. She shares stories and offers honest and encouraging advice for young singers. In Chapter 4, she describes two ways of establishing a career: get management or win competitions. Then she states, “I was, in fact, the greatest second-prize winner of all time . . . . Being number two was a powerful incentive to keep me continually working and striving” (p. 57).
In one beautifully intimate story, Fleming shares the memory of a lesson with one of her mentors, Renata Scotto. In the lesson, Scotto instructed her to sing the notes on the page and nothing else. Fleming was expecting theatrical work on her interpretation, but at the end of the lesson, Scotto advised, “Have children. . . . I don’t live or die on the stage every night . . . I have more than that in my life” (p. 69).
There are so many books about great singers and their careers, but I am recommending Fleming’s book because she shares the truthful moments like Scotto’s advice and, more recently, the memory of wanting to throw herself out the window after watching a scratch tape of a Met telecast of Otello! To hear one of our world’s most treasured divas talk about her continued learning process is rather wonderful.
3. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you sing the Mignon Lieder, you will benefit from reading its primary source. The great German poet Goethe introduces Mignon’s character through Wilhelm’s observations and his fatherly actions towards her. In the novel, Wilhelm describes Mignon’s character in such poetic detail that three centuries of composers have set this poetry to music. The English translation retains the magical moments of poetry that inspired Lieder and opera composers alike. Reading these details gives specificity to the music and the character choices for singers working on Mignon. Following are two examples from this book that describe the nature of Mignon.
Wilhelm observes Mignon as a young girl:
Her features were not regular, but striking: her forehead seemed to veil some secret, her nose was unusually beautiful, her mouth, though too tight-lipped for her age and inclined to twitch at times on one side, had a certain winsome charm about it. (p. 54)
And this passage:
He found, however, that he could not even approximate the originality of the phrases, and the childlike innocence of the style was lost when the broken language was smoothed over and the disconnectedness removed. The charm of the melody was also quite unique. She intoned each verse with a certain solemn grandeur, as if she were drawing attention to something unusual and imparting something of importance. (p. 81)
It has been said that Goethe did not care for Beethoven’s setting of Mignon’s songs. Listen for yourself to the settings of Schubert, Schumann, Reichardt, Spohr, and Wolf to see which you prefer.
4. Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo, adaptation by E.P. Dowdall
In honor of the hit revival of She Loves Me on Broadway, how about reading the original play from the 1930s? If you don’t speak Hungarian, then the recent translation by E.P. Dowdall is for you (available at www.parfumerietheplay
.com).
This snappy comedy inspired the 1940 movie version, The Shop Around the Corner, featuring Jimmy Stewart with Margaret Sullavan and Frank Morgan—and, more recently, the 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
5. Master Class by Terrence McNally
Is there any story more dramatic than the life of Maria Callas? McNally’s play brings Callas back to life by recreating her Juilliard masterclasses of 1971–72. The dialogue displays her temper, some humor, reflections on her own singing, her loves, passions and heartbreak, and monologues that I cannot wait to deliver someday.
The detail in her short sentences and commanding expertise is fascinating for reader, audience, and actor alike. The play begins with Callas welcoming the audience with these remarks:
How is everyone? Can you hear me? I don’t believe in microphones. Singing is first of all about projection. So is speech. People are forgetting how to listen. They want everything blasted at them. Listening takes concentration. If you can’t hear me, it’s your fault. You’re not concentrating. I don’t get any louder than this. So come down closer or leave. No takers? What? You’re all scared of me? Eh? . . . I don’t bite. I promise you. I bark, I bark quite a bit actually, but I don’t bite” (Act 1, p. 7).
6. The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
As a graduate student, I enjoyed reading Ross’ music critiques in the New Yorker, and his book is both captivating and academic—which makes it a much needed modern resource for research and a self-described beginning of seeing modern music as a “whole.” This book uniquely draws you into the music with bold chapter titles that include “Beethoven Was Wrong”—and who can resist a statement such as “One possible destination for 21st-century music is a final ‘great fusion’: intelligent pop artists and extroverted composers speaking more or less the same language” (p. 542).
Ross creates an urgency to listen to the details that define the presence of music in our modern world. With discussions about such musicians as John Cage, Björk, Messiaen, and the Beatles, the free audio companion makes reading and listening a more integrated experience. Readers can also follow Ross’ blog as he continues to inspire and connect the dots for musicians and civilians alike.
7. The Noël Coward Diaries by Graham Payn and Sheridan Morley
This book is currently on my bedside table, giving me a break from my working world and a peek into the wonderfully witty and delightfully snobbish existence of Sir Noël Coward: an actor, singer, playwright, and man of unparalleled style and grace.
His diary entries range from a single sentence to a few pages of gossip and anecdotes of hundreds of stars. For example: on Sunday, May 25, 1958, Coward recollects an afternoon at the Actors Studio in which he describes Artistic Director Lee Strasberg as a “self-proclaimed God” and “pretentious as balls.” Coward continues describing Strasberg’s account of Italian actress Eleonora Duse’s way of smiling “not merely with her mouth but with every part of her body! Which comes under the heading of the neatest trick of the week” (p. 380).
Curt Olds—the international baritone, master of Gilbert & Sullivan characters, and the epitome of charm himself—recommended this book to me, and I think of him as I am reading Sir Noël Coward’s exquisitely worded remarks.
8. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
I first heard Dr. Brené Brown give a TED talk that changed the way I viewed my life. If there is a more vulnerable craft than classical singing, I have yet to discover it. I include this book on the list because vulnerability is our trade. This book really should be given to all freshmen voice majors before they sing in studio class. We must develop vocal technique and learn our repertoire, but our true success comes when we can give an authentic part of ourselves to our performance.
Brown discusses connections as the reason we are here and vulnerability as our key to humanity. What resonates fiercely with me is the correlation she presents between wholehearted living and the competition we face as singers. Among the many ways her research feels like therapy for opera singers, she includes cultivating creativity by letting go of comparison. “Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in” (p. 2).
9. The Doctor and the Diva: A Novel by Adrienne McDonnell
This historical romance is the summer novel you were hoping to find on this list. Follow an opera singer from Boston to Italy during the turn of the century while she longs for a child but ambitiously follows her career. By all reviews, the characters are flawed, the drama is hard to put down, the early infertility treatment work has scientific appeal, and the writing is sensitive and detailed. I think this novel would best be read lying in a hammock during a perfect sunset while one of the Barihunks squeezes some fresh lemonade for you.
(Note: I claim no affiliation with Barihunks calendars, but they can be found at Lulu.com. Charity, y’all.)
10. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman
This is a cookbook. You can read it or just look at the pictures, but I recommend going the extra mile and learning to cook a few delicious meals this summer. The music you play while you are cooking is completely up to you—Prince, Puccini, whatever moves you to preheat your oven. The Internet chef Pasquale Sciarappa says that if you sing to your food, it will taste good. So there you go: sing, cook, and share your delicious creations with friends and family. How else can you prepare to sing Bernstein’s La Bonne Cuisine or Bolcom’s “Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise” if you haven’t earned some street cred in the kitchen?
As you train to become the best singer you can be, you will be learning for the rest of your life. As the famous saying goes, “Everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten.” As a mother of kindergarten-aged children, I can report that reading is the skillset prioritized for this age in the classroom and at home. So the kindergarten sentiment rings true as a building block for all that we continue to learn. And as the notable adage (often attributed to Mark Twain) points out, “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
When you make time to read, you will recharge your spirit, your imagination will thrive without pressure, and you will be exposed to different points of view. There are many literary classics that inspired operas and songs, and the more we know about our characters, the better we can share their stories through our singing.
