Audiences who attend concerts and recitals have different visuals than audiences who attend operas. Concert audiences see the singer with an orchestra or piano, as opposed to staging with sets, costumes, and theatrical lighting. In the concert setting, how can a singer effectively bring vocal music to life, using only his or her voice and the musical accompaniment?
Classical Singer interviewed singers with extensive concert experience to learn how they handle difficult pieces, how they interpret text, and whether it concerns them that many audience members follow the text in their programs during a performance—thereby understanding what is being said, but simultaneously breaking eye contact with the stage.
While covering Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano Deborah Domanski received invaluable advice: “Expand your personage.” As Domanski explains, experiencing life informs your interpretation of music. “Don’t just eat a meal, but taste the meal. Where do the flavors take you, mentally? What do they remind you of? The more details you can absorb from life, the more context you will give your performances,” Domanski says.
Words are symbols, and the singer is responsible for bringing those symbols to life. “Make the words important and relevant to every audience member,” she says. The meaning of the words can be gleaned from several sources: the poets’ intentions and lives, the composers’ interpretations (evoked in the emotion of the music), and other singers’ interpretations.
Domanski’s major challenge is singing depressing works or works that do not relate to her life experiences. “I tend to be drawn toward uplifting, transcendent texts. When I have the option, I choose not to sing depressing repertoire because I can bring my passion to other types of music that speak to me. Otherwise, if I am singing something depressing, I draw on personal experiences, my vivid imagination, and my compassion for human suffering,” she says.
Regardless of what she is singing, Domanski yearns to experience the words as they come out of her mouth, freshly and freely, so that the audience feels that spontaneity. For the same reasons, she loves that the audience has access to the words while she is singing. “The feeling of the music is going to come through in the voice, whether they’re looking at you or not,” she says. “That’s why recordings are successful. It’s essential that the audience members know what I’m singing, so whatever makes them happy and comfortable—reading every word or reading for a summary—makes me happy and comfortable.”
You can listen to free samples of Domanski’s newest CD, Arias & Songs, at www.deborahdomanski.com.
While no specific works pose a challenge to tenor John Aler, he likes to find something new each time he sings the same piece. Overall, his message to singers is to understand what every word means.
“People say things all the time without knowing what the words mean,” he says. “The phrase, ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’—what does that mean? What does the word ‘hark’ mean? Of all the students I’ve ever asked that question, no one has ever known what the word ‘hark’ means, or they don’t know what the word ‘herald’ means. It all starts with the text. You cannot be a singer of songs unless you are a lover of poetry.”
In addition, Aler recommends rehearsing music with different inflections. “Sing through the phrases a thousand times and figure out how you want them to sound and how you need to breathe,” he advises.
Admittedly torn about the potential distractions resulting from the audience reading the text in the middle of a performance, he does believe the text is a “fantastic help.” “When I don’t know a piece very well, like when I saw the Met’s Ring on TV, I enjoy having titles,” Aler says. “There are also times when, even if I don’t know the piece, I just want to surrender myself to the music and performance at that moment.” He simply believes that singers should be themselves on stage, be true to their standards and the demands of the music, and not worry about what the audience is doing or thinking. He adds, “Don’t perform like you’re trying to please someone.”
Ultimately, for Aler the experience is all about the sheer sound of the voice. “Music is an aural experience,” he says. “I would trade every recording I have or ever made if I could hear, in person, one live concert with Jussi Björling. I love his voice and singing so much that I would give anything to hear what that voice sounded like in person. It’s not what singers look like, but what they sound like.”
Languages outside the standard repertoire can be a sticky area for mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, but she has been able to capitalize on her industry connections to learn what she needs. With Hungarian, for example, her first step is a word-for-word translation. In the case of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, which is not in print, she sought advice from a Hungarian friend who composes, and he recommended Hungarian pianist Peter Nodg, who coached her. Nodg’s wife, a singer, slowly spoke the part on a CD, and DeYoung studied that disc intensely prior to her next coaching.
“Any language is tricky if it is new. German is second hand to me now but, at one time, it was like Hungarian,” DeYoung says. “The more you learn a language, the more you study and sing in it, the better and easier it is. We do the best we can with the resources we can find.”
Like Domanski, DeYoung points to life experience as the basis for her interpretations. A Mahler veteran—including his Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 3, and song cycles—she has found that her interpretations change through life, especially after dealing with grief. “Singers have to be very in touch with their emotions. In Mahler, it’s all there—his music ranges from the most exciting to the most devastating,” she says.
She is unequivocal when asked about audience members reading their programs. “People won’t enjoy the music as much if they don’t know what it’s about,” DeYoung says. “I want people to get it—I want people to enjoy the music, enjoy the meaning, and understand my interpretation. If that’s what they need to enjoy it, I’m all for it. I have no ego problem about them not watching me.”
When asked about the visuals associated with her body language, she says they simply result from her interpretation. “I’m not doing it for the audience. I’m very physical, and that’s part of the way I express myself.”
What happens when you’re singing something that is not well known? Bass Denis Sedov has faced that obstacle and says those pieces—contemporary, for example—are the most difficult to interpret. “Nowadays, there are fewer rehearsals altogether and, if the piece is unknown, it is harder to figure out the entire pattern,” he says. “I just try to find an emotional connection with the text and discuss the dynamics with the conductor or composer, just to create interesting nuances.”
As a Russian who is fluent in eight languages, Sedov believes that a singer should speak fluently the language of every piece he or she is singing. “If you don’t speak the language, your ability to convey emotionally charged messages is somewhat diminished,” he says. For his part, German is Sedov’s weakest language, so he turned down a production of Parsifal because there is too much text for his comfort level.
And if a singer is not fluent? Seek coaching from a native speaker and listen to as many recordings as possible. “As hard as it seems to learn a language, it should not be that hard, because we learn so much music by heart. The languages are approachable, and I think many professional singers speak several languages,” Sedov says. “There is a huge difference in understanding a work’s style, because the languages are different, phonetically.”
On the topic of program books, Sedov, like Aler, offers two viewpoints. “If your performance is at a top level, nobody is going to read the text while you’re singing, but I think the text should be made available to the public as general information.” Plus, Sedov makes this observation about those audience members who might or might not be watching the stage: “You are performing to touch people’s souls. Your performance is bigger than one person who might or might not look at you. Sing to the whole audience as one.”
Beyond examining the text, soprano Christine Brewer seeks renewed inspiration whenever she returns to a work—especially those she sings often, like Strauss’ “Four Last Songs,” which she first sang in the early 1990s. “With any piece, you can only bring so much of your own life experiences to the piece, so the ‘Four Last Songs’ have meant something different to me at various stages of my life,” she says.
Brewer tends to avoid recordings so that she does not inadvertently duplicate someone else’s interpretation. However, besides her life experiences, she pays close attention to the conductor. “If it’s a piece that I’ve sung in the past, and if the conductor says something in rehearsal that sparks my imagination, I write the conductor’s remarks in the margin of the score,” she says. “If I repeat the piece, especially with that conductor, those notes will remind me of the ideas.”
Speaking of conductors, it has happened more than once that a renowned conductor has invited Brewer to sing in Missa Solemnis and she has accepted, even though she usually promises herself after each engagement of the piece that she will not sing it anymore.
“It is one of the most thrilling choral pieces,” she says, “and one of the most challenging to sing because it’s very instrumental. The soprano vocal line is written more like a violin’s solo, without allowing for the phrasing that singers need, so you have to figure out where to breathe and how to phrase. There are rhythms where, if you trust your ear, you’re going to get it wrong. There are harmonies where, if you trust your ear, you’re going to get it wrong.” Thus, she always gives herself several weeks to get the piece back into her mind and voice before a performance.
Even though many singers might think that body language in concert should be focused on the arms—perhaps the most visual elements to the audience—Brewer says the face is the name of the game. “In concert, the most prolific body language should be in the eyes,” she says. “When an honest emotion is expressed on someone’s face, it will be heard in their voice. The same way you can ‘hear’ a smile in someone’s voice, even when you might not be able to see that person, the voice takes on the emotion that is being expressed.”
These singers’ suggestions, with an emphasis on experiencing life and understanding every nuance of the text, should help others feel more confident and comfortable about connecting with audience members during concerts. These interpretations will give the audience its own renewed perspective on the subtleties of life, as the composers intended.
