Interviewing Dame Joan Sutherland was an exhilarating experience. This true queen of bel canto opera was shy and self-effacing about her ability to communicate her views on singing and careers. I caught her while she was judging the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and to listen to this voice of the century–La Stupenda–talk about her views on singing was a real treat. As she gestured through her explanations and smiled at me, I felt I was living a moment I would treasure for the rest of my life as a singer, writer, and fan.
In your opinion, what is the next best step for singers once they complete their formal education?
They’ve still got a long way to go with solidifying their technique, I think. It seems to me that singers today are much more musically ready to have a career than I was. I think we were out too early from school. I had to work for my living, so I was employed as a secretary, studying very much on the side. I did have a bit of a head start, because my mother sang and she taught me a lot.
Singers need someone to tell them all the truth about what they’re doing incorrectly–to encourage them to improve on what they’ve learned. They need to work with a good pianist, a good coach, or someone who knows the repertoire, until they find the teacher of their dreams. It was probably easier when I was starting out, because there seem to be so many more students now. When they feel it’s time to go out there, they can only audition and hope for the best, I’m afraid.
Of course, there are a lot of competitions, such as the Cardiff Singer of the World and other very fine examples, which at least will help them with performing under fairly tough circumstances. Singers need a good repertoire–a varied repertoire–to sing in competitions. Competitions are helpful, but singers shouldn’t become professional competition-goers. They need someone who can work with them and help them to constantly strive for a higher standard.
How does one choose their repertoire? How do you know when it’s a good time to move into new material?
I don’t think anyone really does. I certainly didn’t. I wanted to be a dramatic singer, and ended up singing bel canto repertoire.
When you leave college, your body isn’t fully matured–the voice is not fully trained. You must be able to judge yourself to a certain extent as to what your repertoire should ultimately be. There again, you need someone who really knows what they’re talking about, who works with you at least three times a week and hears what you’re doing day to day. It’s all technical work–working on technique and finding out what you can do. It depends on your range, the soft voice, and so on. Work on the voice from bottom to top and back again, from the middle of the voice outward. You must feel that you’re not putting any stress on the voice–that you feel comfortable.
Recognize what’s wrong and work on it fiercely and slowly. Most students with problems in the top voice shouldn’t try to improve it by banging at it or conversely retreating from it. One should never cheat the voice by backing off. Having an even quality throughout the voice is essential to good singing.
Work slowly on all problems. Do exercises–faithfully. Don’t try to do new things in a performance; work them out in the studio, when you’re rehearsing for yourself. If there’s a problematic section in an opera, use it as a vocalise. Move it up and down the scale–and extend the scale if you can.
What about the other extension to the female voice–the one for which you are so famous?
What a tough thing to describe! Singers have to learn how to approach the top of the voice, how to feel the change of the register. Getting to the upper register is where the fright comes in. I always feel from my own experience that the majority of the voice is focused forward. When it gets to high B the focus on the voice goes back, but not back in front but to the back of the hard palate–almost to the sub-palate. I find the focus at the back of the top of the head.
I have worked and thought hard about this, and have been asked by other singers about how I managed to sing at the very tip-top of my voice when concentrating to the back [of the head]. I could never sing from a high B to an E flat if I focused the sound [through the front of the face]. It would never come out. But if I aimed it up and back–it was there. It’s amazing when it happens! You can’t believe that that’s the way you get it.
Have a note in reserve above what you have to sing within all your repertoire. I have sung an F sharp above high C, but God forbid that I should have to do it in performance.
Never, never try to solidify the top by singing it, singing it, singing it. Approach it. And don’t have the feeling that the middle of the voice is in one place and the top is in another, because you’ll never make it. You’ve got to have that feeling of connection to the whole voice.
How do you balance work and family while pursuing and maintaining a career? Is it possible to have both?
Oh, definitely. I had a marvelous au pair girl from Switzerland who came to me when she was about 20 years old, for a two-year period, to learn English. She’s still with me after 42 years, married with a 26-year-old daughter, and they all live in our house. That’s how we’ve always managed. I know I was lucky, but in general it is possible. I don’t think it’s wise to take children around with you, because it’s an unnatural existence. I tried it first with our son. I was feeling deprived myself, never thinking that he might be deprived of friends his own age, so we took him with us to Venice, to Palermo–no, thank you. We bumped into lovely American ladies on tour who spoiled him rotten, and so he went back to school. Finding someone we could trust meant choosing carefully. Our wonderful au pair, needless to say, now speaks English very well!
What are the most important qualities a singer should have in today’s music world?
Well, I judge a great deal of competitions and can speak in those terms. If you are competing for a lineup of judges, I think the first thing they want to know is that you are ALIVE. Is your face living? Don’t stand there looking as though you’re terrified. Judges want to feel that you are relaxed (as relaxed as is possible, of course), and that you are all there. You don’t want to be too cocky, but on the other hand nothing is more beautiful than to see someone come on and smile at you and make you feel that they are ready to sing with their voices and their eyes.
Remember the joy of singing! Many operatic themes are tragic or dramatic, but you still have to transmit the joy within the singing. Singers have to feel the excitement–otherwise the audience will never get the excitement themselves. But you don’t have to go over the top–it’s not by screaming or yelling, pushing voices or anything. It’s almost like meditation when you breathe correctly and support the voice on the breath. It’s wonderful! You enjoy it and so do they!
I’ve been very fortunate. Things happened at the right time for me. At this point in my life, singers want to sing for me, since I can help them by telling them what I think they might be doing better. But I can’t get them into an opera company. They’ve got to do it on their own. They have to deserve it.
I did three big auditions for Covent Garden, but I think I confused them because of the repertoire I sang. I refused dramatic soprano arias. I was singing Handel, Mozart, and bel canto pieces. Hearing the color of my voice, they didn’t know what to do with me. They thought, “This is a freak.”
And then they saw me do Giorgetta in Il Tabarro. I got a telephone call the next day from the Garden and they said, “My dear, we have decided that you should join the company, starting in September.” I was only 16 by the time I did Lucia. Ten pounds a week [US equivalent of $16.00] was going into my bank account. It wasn’t very much money. I put all my savings into doing competitions, using my secretarial salary.
What habits did you have that helped keep you in good vocal and physical shape?
I lived like a nun, dear! When I got to singing the big roles like Norma and Traviata (and oh, Lucia, too, that was one tough one to I didn’t do anything–I did things, but I didn’t talk that much. I got to the theater at a decent time, and there you were.
It was the discipline of quiet that kept me in shape. I did very little vocalizing. I always read through the score the day of the performance, no matter how well I thought I knew the role, because there was always something in the previous performance that I had missed.
I had a funny little piece that I sang to vocalize–something I learned as a young singer from my mother. [Here Dame Joan sings this sweet tune in a low voice] I can’t anymore. It’s terrible.
If there was one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you in the very beginning of your musical life, what would it have been?
Hasten slowly. You have to have patience. I know it’s all very well to say that, but make the most of any opportunity you get. If it’s something that’s not remunerative, it’s still good to keep performing in public. But again, work very carefully. Encourage your voice, don’t beat it out.
Is that your bottom line for a young singer?
I think it has to be. It’s no good getting frantic and depressed about it. It must be very depressing if you feel you’ve got something to give and have no venue in which to give it, but you have to be patient.
I was lucky insofar as I got a good start. I followed my mother around when she sang. She was a mezzo-soprano who sang Lucretia Borgia and things like that. She sang for herself and enjoyed her own singing.
Don’t underestimate the basics of breathing, supporting, and projecting the voice. And never, never try to force yourself to sing if you really feel there is something wrong. If you’re feeling problems in the throat, stop singing, at least for a while. Go to a repertoire specialist [voice teacher] or a doctor to see what’s going on. If you’re having problems, trying to sing out is dangerous.
But on the other hand don’t become tied up in knots and go to the doctor every time you feel a cough or sniffle. Having a balance is important. That’s how I tried to guide my singing.
