San Francisco Opera
Research shows that choral singing has both physical and psychological benefits. In his recent book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, author Daniel H. Pink cites studies showing that choral singing not only calms heart rates, boosts endorphin levels, and supports the immune system, but it can also increase pain thresholds and self-esteem while reducing feelings of stress and enhancing one’s sense of purpose and meaning.
Study after study concurs. And these days, experiments are being done to see if singing in a choir may ease symptoms of Parkinson’s or help to improve boys’ reading and writing proficiency. At least one study finds that the benefits of group singing “may be experienced similarly irrespective of age, gender, nationality, or well-being status.” In other words: everybody can benefit from singing in a choir.
Many programs for vocal performance majors have some sort of “ensemble” requirement, especially for undergraduate degrees. But with stardom as the goal, some singers bristle at the idea of taking time away from solo studies for this purpose. But for soprano Joanna Taber, a professional member of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus since the 2011–12 season, solo work and choral singing go well together. Taber, who sings first soprano and has also sung with San Francisco Opera Chorus, has stepped forward as soloist with the symphony on several occasions, winning critical praise and valuable performance experience under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas and choral conductor Ragnar Bohlin. She also works for San Francisco Opera as principle giving manager.
Working with great conductors and sharing the stage with great singers is something Taber appreciates about the job, along with the opportunity to sing in different styles and genres, including film music and the semi-staged productions the symphony has recently experimented with. Her colleague mezzo-soprano Terry Alvord agrees. Like Taber, Alvord is a paid AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists) member of the symphony chorus, which also has nonprofessional members. Alvord, who has been singing in choirs since she was seven, will be starting her 19th season with the chorus this coming fall and has also spent 13 years with an ensemble at Sherith Israel in San Francisco, one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the United States. Alvord, who sings alto and also conducts and performs as soloist, describes each concert as creating a community.
But the perception that a choral singer is somehow “less than” is something all choral singers, no matter how qualified, contend with. In the 1991 Oscar-winning documentary In the Shadow of the Stars, baritone Fred Matthews comments on how people have an “I’m sorry” response when he tells them he is in the chorus. A second alto, currently working professionally as a chorister in a regional house in Germany, feels the same way. “Altissima,” as we’ll call her, says it bothers her “when people view chorus singers—who are often extremely good singers who have spent a great deal of money and time on honing their skills—as failed soloists.”
Taking San Francisco Opera as an example, such biases could not be further from the truth. These AGMA positions are highly sought after and not easy to retain, with regular re-auditions and even probations (and sometimes firings) for singers deemed not up to snuff. The conductor pictured in the documentary, Ian Robertson, has been chorus director since 1987. He asks for, and gets, a lot from his singers.
And there are some other challenges being in an opera chorus. Another chorister featured In the Shadow of the Stars claims that the chorus costumes for a production of Parsifal were so hot that one could steam broccoli under them (or at least asparagus). Singers in a more recent production of Mefistofele were also covered head to toe, singing while sweltering. And Altissima reports that despite not having had substantial dance training, she is called upon to perform quite a bit of choreography onstage.
In some shows, a chorister has more stage time than the principals and must play multiple characters. And on those precious off days, while soloists are resting, choristers are back at work. This amount of stage time offers precious opportunities to develop a keen stage sense. As Matthews puts it in the film, “I can think on my feet. I can predict what’s going to come next. If there is a hole on the stage, I can almost feel it. You learn quickly to find the light pool, so you can be well lighted.”
Other challenges Altissima mentions include competitiveness, or stage hogging among certain colleagues, and gossip—though the latter is surely an affliction common to most workplaces. For Taber, the greatest challenge of choral singing is to maintain what she calls her “core technique.”
Still, church and temple jobs, symphony jobs, and opera chorus jobs can offer a trained singer things that a solo career may not. Altissima, who considers herself a “team player,” feels well suited to her profession. “Chorus singers in Germany enjoy financial and geographical stability,” she says, “and many of my colleagues have chosen this profession for exactly these reasons.” Taber’s decision to join the symphony chorus and create a career mostly as a local singer was also intentional. After spending some time on a rather fast track as a soloist, she felt that a life near family, with more stability, would make her happier.
So what does it take to be a professional chorister? I ask Vance George, upon his retirement after 23 years as choral director for the San Francisco Symphony, if a lyric voice type makes for a better choral singer than a spinto or even a dramatic.
“Depends on the piece,” he says. “If you’re doing a Bach cantata, then you don’t need huge voices. What I look for are voices that are flexible. For instance, Stephanie Blythe sang with a soprano whose voice is about this big [gesturing a small distance between forefinger and thumb]. And Stephanie went into this tiny, light voice that matched her perfectly. What an artist! She could have blown her out of the water. She didn’t. So what I look for is a voice that is flexible and can sing lyrically and musically—and have a good time while doing it.”
This enjoyment is key to popular TV choir master Gareth Malone, whose popular BBC television series The Choir and its American version It Takes a Choir highlight him going to various communities, military, factories, and impoverished small towns to start a choir. Malone, who also participated in the successful experiment to use choral singing to improve boys’ performance in reading and writing, says that singing in the choir is a great way to help people feel less isolated.
“I think choirs have helped us rediscover the simple joy of going out,” Malone says. “We’ve all got the most ridiculous setups at home . . . where we can watch any movie we want to watch at the drop of a hat, play any computer game, listen to any music. . . . But, actually, what I really want to do is just go out and be with other people and see and feel something that’s live.”
In addition to better health, Malone cites other benefits of choral singing. Structure, because the long rehearsal process gives a shape to your life. Friendship, because you work to create something together. And exploration, because many singers travel with choirs to places they would otherwise never go.
In his book, Pink goes so far as to recommend taking up choral singing for the sake of synchronizing with others to find what he calls your “syncher’s high.” Psychologist Rick Hanson might call this “connection.” In his book, Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, Hanson lists connection as one of the three most fundamental human needs, along with safety and satisfaction.
(Author’s note: Many people I count as friends sing or have sung with these two major choruses in San Francisco, and I have certainly witnessed a social dimension beyond the job. Members of the chorus celebrate life’s milestones together with weddings, baby showers, baseball games, and nights out—and the level of camaraderie is quite different, at least in length but also perhaps in depth, than that found among the ad hoc “families” soloists create when in town for a few weeks to do a show.)
In a recent company bow for San Francisco’s Götterdämmerung, along with chorus director Robertson, baritone Matthews was there, as were a few other singers featured in that documentary all those decades ago. These are meaningful, long-lasting collaborations between artists, with all the ups and downs weathered together that those kinds of relationships entail.
As far as that pesky ensemble requirement, some may view the motives of school administrators as “flat,” simply aiming to keep their risers well populated, or “sharp,” genuinely trying to curate well rounded singers. That their students may also emerge happier and healthier than had they not been asked to sing in a choir, perhaps we should call that a happy “accidental.”
