Opera is now regularly broadcast live in HD to movie theaters all over the world. Companies frequently hire innovative directors with film and theater backgrounds who expect performers to look like the characters they portray. These factors have created escalating pressure for opera singers to get their bodies into shape. “There’s no doubt that expectations are much higher now,” Renée Fleming commented in the New York Times. “Before, you didn’t have to be so fit, or move with such athleticism.”
With the pressure to slim down or bulk up comes the fear that singers will prioritize appearance over the integrity of their instruments and risk engaging in unhealthy diet and exercise strategies. Last June, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa told the Telegraph that when she was at the Met, “I would see these young girls, starving hungry but terrified to put on weight. They couldn’t even go down to the canteen and eat in front of anyone because they were being watched. . . . You can’t do that. You’ve got to have beef on you if you’re going to sing. I was never really hugely big, but I certainly weighed more than I do now. I ate to sing.”
Opera companies should and do care more about singers’ voices than their appearance. However, once singers are cast, it is the job of the production team to help them embody their roles visually. If you’re fit and flexible, it makes their job infinitely easier. Given a choice between two equally competent singers, the one who can be more easily transformed will get the job. As Fleming put it, “The line is moving somewhere in the middle when you have to decide between an attractive performer and someone who has a little better instrument.”
This is the new industry standard, and there’s little point in fighting it.
The opera industry does itself and its singers, however, a terrible disservice when it regards physical appearance and vocal prowess as though they are somehow unrelated. They thus invite you to ask, however absurd it may be, “How can I make myself look like a movie star without screwing up my voice too badly in the process?”
The admonishment to strive for a certain aesthetic without concern for the overall impact on one’s instrument represents a failure to value singing as a rigorous athletic endeavor. Where our relationships with our bodies are concerned, we have far more in common with athletes than we do with movie stars.
Elite competitive athletes develop diet and training regimens without concern for appearance. They focus on what they want to be able to do with their bodies rather than how they want their bodies to look, and their appearances are shaped by their sport. Contrast the narrow, streamlined physique of a diver with the massive upper-body musculature of an Olympic ring gymnast or the lean, cut look of a sprinter. They each radiate a different flavor of physical health, efficiency, and beauty. Their aesthetic is the inevitable consequence of their excellence.
Athletes are specialists and must maximize strength in specific physical areas while avoiding overdeveloping their bodies in others. Divers must build overall strength and flexibility while avoiding broad shoulders or large pectoral muscles, as both would make them less aerodynamically efficient. Ring gymnasts cultivate tremendous strength and size in their upper bodies, while their legs must be strong enough to stick a good landing but slim enough to keep overall bodyweight down. Sprinters train for explosive movement and swift reaction time. Like the divers, they need to avoid bulking up their chests and shoulders to keep their overall bodyweight as low as possible.
If you think like an elite athlete while training, you’ll see how counterproductive it is to try to slim down or bulk up for the sake of someone else’s aesthetic ideal. Let’s instead consider the specialized physical demands of singing, how to design an exercise regimen to meet them, and the likely results for your appearance.
Things to Cultivate
Alignment
Alignment plays a massive role in vocal technical development. Few people reach adulthood without developing some manner of postural distortion due to long periods of sitting, carrying a heavy bag over one shoulder, or any number of habitual behaviors. As most postural distortion patterns limit breathing and neck mobility, your fitness regimen should prioritize resolving them. A professional assessment of your alignment and a program of strength training and stretches to alleviate distortions is the best place to begin.
Breathing
You must be able to breathe deeply and deploy your breath skillfully, free of tensions limiting inhalation or release. An excellent way to develop this would be a yoga sequence designed to build flexibility and balance strength throughout the torso.
Cardiovascular Fitness
Cardiovascular fitness is the efficient circulation of oxygen throughout the body and the ability to make good use of it. You must optimize your oxygen consumption in order to sustain long phrases. The most efficient way to improve oxygen consumption is a technique called “interval training,” which involves alternately pushing yourself hard and then backing off in regular 30- or 60-second intervals.
Stability
Your vocal technique must continue to work consistently while performing complex stage movements. Maintaining control over your alignment and breathing while in motion requires stability both in your core musculature and throughout all major joints. A yoga sequence will help with core stabilization. Your strength training regimen should include movements emphasizing balance, such as exercises performed on one leg or using a stability ball.
Things to Avoid:
Overdeveloping the Musculature in and around the Neck
Your neck must remain relaxed and supple so that your larynx can rest in a low, settled position and move freely while you sing. You should avoid exercises that develop the upper trapezius and sternocleidomastoid (e.g., shrugs and upright rows) and make sure to avoid the Valsalva maneuver (the forceful attempted exhalation against a closed glottis that results in that constipated grunting you’re likely to hear at the gym).
Changing Weight Class without Care and Support
Your weight has a highly significant impact on the way your voice functions. Increased weight provides serious advantages in the areas of breath management and resonance while making good alignment and stage movement more effortful. A significant change in your weight will have massive consequences for your singing and should, therefore, be supervised by a voice teacher who understands its impact and can help you adapt your technique to the transformation.
Your Likely Results
Engaging in an exercise regimen based on these recommendations two to three times a week will not only optimize your instrument but will also leave you feeling energized and looking svelte. If, after you are a few months into mastering this routine, you find you would like to prioritize slimming down or bulking up, you can easily adjust your diet and add more cardiovascular exercise or strength training moves with the confidence that you won’t do anything to screw up your alignment and breathing.
A fitness regimen designed to optimize your instrument will yield desirable aesthetic results—but the converse is not the case. Swift weight loss can wreak havoc with your breathing strategies, and aggressive strength training programs can create spectacular imbalances in the muscles governing laryngeal function if alignment issues are not taken into account. You can create a very effective fitness routine that is great for both your singing and your appearance, but you must at all times prioritize what is best for your voice and assess your progress accordingly.
My advice is to embrace fitness as an integral part of your singing practice and shut down those voices admonishing you to alter your appearance for its own sake. My hope is that opera companies and vocal training programs will come to appreciate your appearance as a reflection of everything you do to sing well. They should esteem your wellness more highly than your appearance and value the unique qualities of both your voice and your aesthetic.
Future columns will address the elements of a fitness regimen I recommend for singers in greater detail.
