It’s September. For months, you have managed to ignore the problems posed by this year’s required recital, which you have relegated to the dim recesses of your mind. Now, back at school, you are facing the serious prospect of your junior, senior, or graduate recital. Just considering the magnitude of the effort that demands has sobered you.
Think about it. What are your aspirations for this event? Certainly, you want to do your best, showcasing your hard-won skills and talents. You want to deliver a recital that is enjoyable to your audience, in content and in performance. You want your recital, in short, to be a success.
Be of good cheer. These pages feature some helpful suggestions. In addition, be sure to ask your teacher and your coach for their ideas on how best to proceed, and do this immediately! They know your skills, your work habits, your organizing abilities, possibly even better than you do. They also are aware of their particular music department’s musical, linguistic, and vocal requirements.
Once you have consulted these pages and your teachers for suggestions, make an outline of what you must do and in what order, now—not next week, not next month, now!
First Things First
Secure a date for your recital, so that you have a firm timetable for planning. Together with your teachers, make an estimate of how much time you will need. Reserve a convenient date before someone else takes it. (The competition for those later dates is fierce.)
The Program Itself
Clearly, the program is of the utmost importance. The sooner you have the date and the program fi xed, the more productive and enjoyable your preparation period will be.
A general estimate of the five or so kinds of repertoire you wish to undertake is the first chore. Then choose the songs. I have several strong convictions on this subject, but the strongest of them is this: Don’t take the easy way out. You will face a strong temptation to simplify your recital workload, to cut back on the onerous memorizing by stringing together songs you have done previously. This will result in nondescript and undistinguished groups of repertoire. Put together a program of quality that shows you at your best. Such a program will challenge you and keep your audience more interested. It will facilitate your long-term development and be a personally rewarding accomplishment.
To invent a program that puts your best foot forward, you must be willing to spend time learning songs that are new to you, and then possibly rejecting them, without regret. Learn (but do not try to memorize) each song that is a candidate for inclusion in your prospective program. Practice it only until you can reasonably represent its vocal, musical, linguistic, and performance demands.
Once you are singing it as well as you can at this point in your development (in your opinion and that of your teacher and/or coach), make a decision with the help of your team. Will this song show you to best advantage? Does it fi t well into the group in which you intend to place it? Will singing it give you pleasure? Stack it up against the other songs earmarked for inclusion in that group and compare. Be ruthless: excise any that do not pass muster.
What you want in each instance is a group of songs that hang together well, that imbue the program with variety, and that you sing with competence and pleasure. Factor into your planning the amount of time this valuable but time-consuming procedure requires. Do not begrudge the effort and time it takes to learn a piece only to reject it when necessary. This method does not guarantee you a success, but it certainly raises your chances.
An easy way to encompass the works of several composers within one group without ending up with a group that lacks unity is to choose one poet who has been set by many composers. You can follow this procedure
effectively by consulting my recent book, Researching the Song (Oxford University Press, 2006). Look up the poet to whose work you are attracted. The entry for that poet includes a list of composers who have set his or her poems. Research those songs and choose the songs that allow you and your talents to shine. Carol Kimball’s splendid book, Song: A Guide to Style and Literature (Hal Leonard, Rev., 2006), can also inspire some wonderful choices.
Another guideline: No matter how advanced your development, all your choices do not have to be relentlessly difficult to be taken seriously. First, many lighter compositions are gems. Second, you need some restful pieces and a change of pace, and so does the audience. You prove nothing by excluding pieces that might be called lightweight, charming, inconsequential, or amusing unless you are not skilled at presenting that type of music. Best foot forward, remember?
Including Vocal Chamber Music
Because you aim to make this recital not only rewarding for you but also pleasurable to your audience, remember the need for variety. To that end, including a vocal chamber music piece is a splendid idea. Again, it need not be oppressively “highbrow,” unless you do that type of music well. On the other hand, if you have six months in which to gain mastery over such a piece, and you feel a strong attachment to it, why not go for it? Just keep in mind that you must search for the composition that matches your skills.
Perhaps the chamber music piece that interests you is written for voice with one or more instruments. A piece that asks for more than four instruments can stand alone on the program. Conversely, if you are using one accompanying instrument, such as the guitar, or two, such as violin and cello (with piano), you can use them again in the other half of the program with a piece by another composer.
The composers in the list below represent several historical eras. Choose one or more that add interest to your program by increasing its variety.2 As a practical matter, bear in mind the diffi culty of rehearsing enough with instrumentalists during the busy academic year. Keep in mind that you will be singing by memory but they will be reading the music, so instrumentalists often don’t need or want to rehearse as often as singers must. Make sure
you have settled this issue before finalizing the program. You don’t want to jeopardize your confidence or your competence in the run-up to the event by anguishing over insufficient rehearsals with your instrumentalist(s).
Sharing the Program with Another Singer
Alternatively, you can add interest to your program by inviting another singer to collaborate with you in one or two groups. Duets liven up the program (another person to look at and listen to), and another singer lightens your burden. Choose material that fits into your program and adds variety beyond the types of music adopted in your solo groups.
In a junior recital, generally shorter than other types of recital, an interesting solution is to share a program with another singer, or even a pianist who is also a junior.3 The program will be even more balanced and elegant if both singer and pianist perform the same composers, such as Schubert and Debussy. Two senior or graduate singers could do something very attractive, for example, such as sharing the Italienisches Liederbuch by Hugo Wolf, using two collaborative pianists and two pianos (a programming idea first used by Maureen Forester and Gérard Souzay).
What Shall I Wear?
Your audience is compelled to look at two people, you and your collaborative pianist, for at least one hour of music. The more attractive the picture, the easier they find it to concentrate on the performance. They do not ask to be shocked by your appearance. They look forward to fastening their eyes on something pleasant—with luck, even something beautiful—while being treated to beautiful music, well sung. Staring for an hour and a half at an extreme décolleté, two inches of bare midriff and a navel, or naked toes that wiggle in time to the music is not something they find fetching. Sweat, sensuality, and grunge are the hallmarks of MTV; our trademark is elegance.
Women singers must find a way to look reasonably dignified, elegant, as attractive as possible, and at ease on stage. This means you ought to sing the rehearsals at the end of your preparation period in your recital dress and shoes. Ideally, your recital clothing should become as comfortable as a bathrobe. This will prevent a stiff and uneasy body that can divert you from the business of singing. (The clothing also should hide any unfortunate physical problems, so that the audience is not distracted.) Bare arms, for example, may pose a problem. If you have lovely arms, go right ahead. Otherwise, cover them up.
Men have an easier time because their dress code is pretty much set. The most disconcerting things for the audience to view include jackets that fail to close over a protruding stomach, sleeves that are too short or too long (revealing either too much or too little of the shirt cuffs), collars that are too tight (perilous for singing), and trousers that are too short (very annoying to look at for a protracted period of time).
Which Languages? Operatic Arias? Supertitles?
In your quest for variety, try to include at least three of the usual languages (remembering to check out the requirements) and perhaps one more exotic language (Czechoslovakian, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Hungarian, Polish, or Russian). Do what you do well. If the department mandates a language that is not yet one of your fortes, plan for a period of intense work at improving your command of that language.
Unless the department supports the performance of operatic arias on song recitals, it is probably wise to avoid invidious comparisons with reigning operatic experts. In an academic program, the best place for operatic arias is among the encores. Arias from operas that are no longer performed are the exception. Rigorously avoid styles, historical periods, and languages for which you lack skill, unless department regulations say otherwise. Again, best foot forward.
Using supertitles in opera is fairly new and very successful. Some singers are now toying with the idea of using them for recitals. The advantages are clear: audience members are no longer compelled to look away from the performer to read the text translations and program notes. A quick glance at the supertitles allows listeners to follow the sense of the text concomitantly with the music as it moves from phrase to phrase.
If you are inclined to try supertitles, it will, of course, take some creativity on your part to come up with a way to physically place the titles on stage near to you. (Perhaps a screen to your left at the end of the piano?) Supertitles also require a special kind of rehearsal to ensure they parallel the singing accurately. If this prospect makes you fearful, discard the idea. You have many things to do that are more important.
It would probably be a mistake to rely on titles for the whole program. Consider the possibilities talking to the audience offers during some groups of less formal music. Listeners are fascinated by hearing the speaking voice of the singer. Why? When a singer transforms the atmosphere into one less formal by speaking, the audience clearly feels closer to him or her. Just be sure to choose the right group for this tactic, such as a group of songs your talking will enhance, rather than diminish. Give a précis of the translation and a charming, informal résumé of the accompanying program notes. If you cannot speak easily from the platform with charm and some humor, however, don’t do it.
The Last Hurdle: Self-Confidence
Your knowledge that your preparation has been very thorough will automatically reduce a great deal of your anxiety about this performance. What remains will be either physical or mental anxiety. If you are plagued by either kind, see Chapters 8 and 11 of Power Performance for Singers by Shirlee Emmons and Alma Thomas (Oxford University Press, 1998), for exercises that will enable you to understand and control (not eliminate, you need some excitement) the level of your anxiety.
Was It a Success?
What is a successful recital? One in which you created a win-win-win situation for you, your audience, and your school. Did you:
• enjoy singing the wonderful music you chose?
• derive the satisfaction that comes from living up to your potential?
• treat your audience to an evening of great music and artistry?
• treat your audience to a performance that was under your control, a performance in which you shared your personal concepts about the music?
• provide a performance that made both the school and the department proud of a talent they have nurtured?
One Last Word
You are the CEO of your own company. The product you are selling is you. It is your responsibility to make your recital a success. You can do it. Start now.
Endnotes:
1 For a thorough discussion of how to choose repertoire, see “Spice Up Your Song Recitals With Variety” by Shirlee Emmons in the December 2004 issue of Classical Singer, available in the online archives at www.classicalsinger.com.
2 For further help in constructing your program, see Chapter 3 of The Art of the Song Recital, by Shirlee Emmons and Stanley Sonntag, Waveland Press, 2002, pp. 37-62.
3 See pp. 67, 74, 79 of The Art of the Song Recital, Waveland Press, 2002, by Shirlee Emmons and Stanley
Sonntag, for sample programs featuring two singers as well as a singer plus solo pianist.
