In the last century Konstantine Stanislavsky created a system that freed acting from gesture-ridden melodramatic performance practices, introducing the premise that truthful action on the stage is more meaningful and has a stronger impact on the audience. Stanislavsky is commonly regarded as the father of modern acting techniques. Throughout the twentieth century his system influenced performance practices in stage, film and television. What is not so commonly acknowledged is that Stanislavsky was passionate about opera. He sought to deliver it from a “concert in costume” to a fully recognized dramatic event. For Stanislavsky the singer was not a mere puppet but rather an active creator of the drama. The Stanislavsky technique has been around for almost a hundred years but is sadly under-utilized by opera singers even though it provides an effective and logical solution to today’s performance demands. When used well, Stanislavsky’s system aids the classical voice by integrating the acting and singing within a wide range of styles.
A solid acting technique is becoming crucial for singers because knowing how to act in opera is more necessary than ever. In today’s climate the stage director has an increasing influence on casting. Directors, who often come from media such as theater and film, are seeking not only good voices but also well-rounded artists who have the skills to make their dramatic interpretations come to life. There is no western process of acting that is not influenced by the Stanislavsky system. Most directors have been exposed to a Stanislavsky-derived method of acting and use aspects of the terminology to give the singer instructions.
Audiences today demand good acting. The contemporary opera patron comes filled with the influences of television, film, music videos, and graphic visual aesthetics imposed by the saturation of advertising. Whether we like it or not, popular culture is affecting production practices and performance expectations. A strong and flexible performance technique is now a requirement to survive as an operatic artist.
Today’s audiences follow surtitles, listen to CDs and watch videos. When the audience knows what’s going on and has preconceived ideas of a production, they expect a fuller experience of the drama — a live moment-to-moment event that exceeds mere reading, listening, and watching.
The up-and-coming artist must also take into account that the kind of gesture-ridden acting often seen in the major houses by the old school singers, is no longer an avenue to a solid career. Smaller venues are more exposed, so good and bad acting is seen, noted and reviewed. Promising opera singers are tried in these smaller houses throughout Germany and the United States. Early reviews and recommendations from these houses are important and can make the difference between getting a good or an average agent.
In this climate Stanislavsky’s work is both relevant and crucial. When we hear the name Stanislavsky many educated singers and teachers think “Method Acting” and its association with highly emotional acting exercises and narrative-based text analysis (which is feared to cause conflict with the music). With this understanding the apprehension to adopt an acting practice is fully justified, though sadly misinformed.
The Method and The Stanislavsky System are not one and the same. Method was derived from Stanislavsky’s early work and was developed in America by Lee Strasberg and popularized at the Actor’s Studio. Strasberg developed the Method by incorporating the expanding knowledge of human psychology focusing on conscious and subconscious origins of behavior. The central premises of Method Acting technique were developed without knowledge of Stanislavsky’s later work, work that included his directing and teaching of opera and his experiments with a wide range of theatrical styles. Stanislavsky’s later work was not purely psychological; it was in this period that he devised a psychophysical approach that is ideal for opera singers.
The following is a small taste of Stanislavsky’s work and does not presume to act as a “cookbook” for good acting, rather it offers a place to start, some ways to practice and suggestions for developing a role.
Quality of Doing
Acting on the stage is about doing actions truthfully as the character in the dramatic circumstances, not doing actions of a singer in the circumstances of performing. Acting is not pretending or indicating the emotion of the music or the movements with the attitude of the character. Working like that is exhausting and damaging to the voice.
Tensions are created when we fake. Singers who are aware of their voice and body relationship know that to manufacture a sound is to create superfluous tensions that get in the way of your breath and authentic sound. Acting is no different. To lie, or fake, or even to “act” like you are doing something rather than doing truthfully creates unnecessary tension. This tension not only creates a stilted performance and forced emotion, it also adversely affects the voice by dampening the upper harmonics.
A basic premise of Stanislavsky’s work is to do on stage truthfully and consciously with your full instrument and awareness. Choosing what you do is also important. Making choices is a large part of what acting practice is about. Acting, like singing, requires practice. Choices come from the full score (both music and libretto) and take into account your complete physical, vocal and emotional instrument. The best way to know if your choices are working is to get up and try them.
Relaxation
When starting to work with opera singers, Stanislavsky began with relaxation. He observed the practices of many great artists but was particularly inspired by Russia’s famous bass, Fyodor Chaliapin, who cultivated a deep state of physical and mental relaxation as a prerequisite for every performance. This state is the key to achieving the creative state from which to work. Clearing yourself from the hustle and bustle of the day is a ceremony that should precede all practice. It directly effects the quality of your work.
Many singers suffer from extraneous physical movements, muscular and facial tensions and posture problems. Without the preparatory relaxation, all the tensions and bad habits magnify and compound within the heightened state of performance. The results can be as subtle as tightening your tongue, shallowness of breath, holding the intercostals, or gripping your lower back. In performance or audition these tensions keep you from living up to your full potential. Stanislavsky said that relaxation exercises were unnecessary for “singing mannequins” but “for living human beings, if they wish to remain such on the stage, they are imperative”.
Given circumstances
Once you are ready to work, choosing what to do on the stage can be a daunting task. Stanislavsky advocated looking at the given circumstances of the drama. The who, what, when, where, how, and why give the artist much to work from. Does your character live in a time before electricity and motor transportation? How does this effect your notion of time? Does your character wear a corset, or boots, or anything that effects habitual movement? What time of year is it, what is the temperature, how does this affect your character’s inner rhythm, movements, state of being? Is your character living in a time of peace or war? What is his/her social status? How does this affect how he/she acts? There is no question too small, particularly if it inspires a more well-rounded performance. However it is crucial not to make this a purely intellectual exercise. Get up, try your ideas and sing using them in action. See how they affect your voice, the music and your experience.
Your choices are not meant to “accompany” the singing; rather, they are invaluable working tools that can add light and shade to your sound, a way for your body to move, and a greater sense of connection with the drama. The use of the entire human condition is one of the elements that make opera so wonderful and emotive. Separating or setting the aspects of opera in competition diminishes the dynamic that makes opera so incredibly powerful.
Affective Memory
Making your dramatic choices believable to the audience requires that you make them believable to yourself. For this, Stanislavsky developed affective memory. It is the most controversial aspect of his work. Most of the controversy is related to the assumption that Method Acting and Stanislavsky System are one and the same.
Emotional memory is an aspect of affective memory that can be inappropriate for the opera singer. With emotional memory the actor/singer makes the emotional state of the character believable for himself by remembering a time in his life when he experienced the desired emotion or similar situation. This technique must be used carefully. Evoking the memory of your first love may help to bring up appropriate feelings for an intimate scene, but remembering the recent death of a close relative would be an unwise choice for a scene where you need to feel grief, especially if the memory is so powerful that it transports you out of the opera’s drama and into your own personal drama.
Opera is filled with extraordinary circumstances and high emotion. If an artist has experienced anything like the drama in the libretto, it is likely that using this personal choice will not be conducive to the vocal instrument. However, substituting a less intense experience and recreating and enhancing it with some imagination is often a good compromise. One can control the imagination more easily than fresh personal emotions.
Stanislavsky warned that “If any actor says ‘I entered into my role so completely, was so powerfully affected by it that I began to weep and could not stop,’ then he must be warned that he has taken the wrong turn. That way lies hysteria. This is not art.” Essentially one must remain in control of one’s performance. This takes practice, as does singing.
Sense memory is a crucial aspect of affective memory and arguably the most effective for the opera singer. Sense memory is the use of all the senses to create reality on the stage. If the actor/singers in the opening scene of La Bohème do not feel the cold through their veins, see the dim flickering light of the candles, hear the creak of the floorboards, the hush created by snow, the sounds of carriages outside; smell the musty air and taste the hunger in their mouths, then the audience surely will not either. As a singer you must see, hear taste, touch, and smell, and not simply appear as if you’re doing so. A good artist does not ‘act’ like they are sensing, they sense. As Stanislavsky was fond of saying, “There is no acting in acting.”
Your most valuable aspect as an operatic performer is your imagination. It is used by voice teachers in visualizing techniques to engage the necessary muscles that are by nature involuntary. It can help nervous singers transport themselves to a safe environment, and is also the best substitute for the controversial emotional memory aspect of Stanislavsky’s technique. Stanislavsky said that imagination “transfers the actor from the world of reality to a world in which alone his creative work can be done.”
Magic If
Using Stanislavsky’s magic if statement, the singer can begin to explore what it was like to be a different character within the given circumstances. Magic if provides a structure for the imagination. If I were Mimi (in La Bohème), if I were hungry and ill how would I move? If I were shy, if I met a young man and was stimulated by this contact how would I behave? What would my state of being be like. What would I do? Again these are ways for actor/singers to begin to transport themselves from their own personal event of performing into the event of the drama.
Character
The creation of a character is an incredibly important aspect of Stanislavsky’s work. It takes much practice and study but is very rewarding.
Many opera singers do not understand the difference between a caricature and a character. A caricature consists of stereotypical movements, empty gestures, and pushed and exaggerated emotions. The second and more sustainable character has a past, a personal history, a childhood, a family life, a temperament, a set of habits and quirks, and a way of responding to others and to the environment. The more specific the singer is about the choices the more the character comes to life.
Ideas should be informed by both the score and the libretto. Themes associated with the character, music responding to events, harmonic underpinnings to emotional episodes, orchestration choices, dynamic changes, harmonic changes, time signature changes, inverted melody lines, ensemble arrangements…all offer important clues.
In the libretto it is helpful to take into account everything your character says about himself, as well as everything every other character says about your character. In the case of Don Giovanni such analysis is particularly enlightening. What he says about himself is quite different from what others say about him. This gives the actor incredible vocal and dramatic material to work with.
Using sensory work to make the physical characteristics believable is helpful. If you play an old person and you are young, you can feel the heaviness of your legs, the pain in your joints, the decaying of your teeth. It is important to make sure that your choices do not conflict with the physical needs of the singing. If you are particularly creative you can even help your voice.
Moment Before
Stanislavsky’s moment before is a seemingly obvious dramatic tool but it is often overlooked, with both tragic and humorous results. In the very first moments of Mozart’s The Magic Flute we see the prince run from a serpent and then sing out for help. If the tenor were to simply wait for his cue, and then run out pretending to be scared and frantic, he would look just like that — a tenor pretending to be scared and frantic.
The first moment is very important in both winning an audience and preparing the artist for the rest of the performance. Stanislavsky recommends that such a tenor create a moment before for himself off-stage. In this case, he could perhaps create with his imagination a monster that he was scared of as a child, or use his emotional or sense memory to relive an experience that had scared him. The tenor could imagine the dragon chasing him, almost catching him, actually grabbing him, and then that he struggles free. If he runs on stage at that moment, he will be in an appropriate state of being and his actions will be in sync with those of a living character.
The creation of a moment before gives a sense of truth and urgency to the character’s first moments on the stage. The audience is, all of a sudden, witnessing a slice of a continuous life, and not the first of a series of stills. This is very compelling for the audience.
Method of Physical Actions
Sensory work, moment before, magic if, character work: all have to do with making the action believable. The artist still has to make choices about what actions to do in the drama. The director gives some of this framework but he cannot be expected to fill every micro-moment for the operatic artist. Stanislavsky’s method of physical actions deals with what to do on the stage. Stanislavsky drew a distinction between physical movement, which is a mechanical act, and physical action, which has some reason for happening — an inner justification.When used correctly it provides a psychophysical involvement and helps to integrate singing, acting and movement. This is wonderful for the voice, exciting for the drama, and can mean the difference between a good technical performance and an incredible work of art.
Two key elements of the method of physical actions are actions and intentions (sometimes referred to as objectives). When someone has an intention, they do things to achieve that intention. Whether the character succeeds in fulfilling their intention or not is often up to the librettist, but the actor/singer must always be trying to achieve that intention. Actions are little intentions activated to achieve a big intention. Often the director gives you an intention and a few actions, but expects you to use your own creativity to find more actions within their framework. Blocking instructions are not actions, you must justify blocking with actions. This means to give the blocking a reason within the framework of the intention.
An example that most of us can relate to is the intention to get to work on time. The given circumstances include that it is 7:30 and you have overslept. You do not have a car so you take the bus. It is raining outside. Your actions could possibly read as follows: get up, wash quickly, grab a quick piece of toast for breakfast, find some money for the bus (probably while still eating), grab an umbrella, lock the house up, run to the bus, wait for the bus, get on the bus, pay the bus driver. These are all things you could do to achieve the intention in the context of the given circumstances.
What you should not be doing is ‘acting’ like you were in a rush, showing that you were annoyed, breathing hard to indicate hurried feelings, or moving fast to exhibit urgency. Singing and doing all that would be difficult. However, singing and authentically doing does not cause tensions that lie outside the realm of the drama or your vocal instrument. Anyway, who wants to watch someone show, indicate, and exhibit?
Every operatic character has an intention and an action at all times. An action can be internal, such as to figure something out or to remember, or external like to grab the sword or to save her life. It is important to do as the character does towards the character’s intention, rather than to do what the actor/singer does towards the actor/singers intention. The audience will experience what you actually do — not what you show. The audience sees that you show and experiences what you do.
In opera, the actor/singer must never forget the music when composing their actions, as the two are married in the drama. Stanislavsky stated that “The music in fact is the dramatic content of an opera, provided in a ready-made musical form. It is in it, and in it alone, that one has to look for the nature of the action.” Stanislavsky thought singers were more fortunate than dramatic actors. “They are given both tone and rhythm. The composer tells them ‘how’ to reply to their partners’ cue. but it would be a mistake to think that this ‘how’ is everything. The composer provides the form, that is to say, the music depicts ‘how’ in the same way that the word says ‘ what.’”
This article provides a mere tease of the genius that Stanislavsky offers. But a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Read his books. For the singer, I recommend Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage edited and translated by David Magarshack, which includes good translations of lectures given by Stanislavsky to the Bolshoi opera students. Also, see Stanislavsky on Opera which documents much of Stanislavsky’s operatic directing. It is dictated by his opera student Pavel Rumyanstev.
Stanislavsky believed that The System was like a science — there to be applied, played with and developed. In the end each artist develops their own personal technique. No two singers have the same vocal technique, because no two bodies are the same. No two actors will have the same technique either, but a technique is necessary for both. We cannot rely on inspiration all the time just as we do not always wake up in good voice.
When Stanislavsky said, “Create your own method, don’t depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.”, he probably never dreamed that by the time we reached the year 2000, to simply act on the operatic stage would be breaking a tradition. Go break traditions and Toi, Toi, Toi!
