Mary Garden. © Mishkin.Mary Garden.© Mishkin.
Mary Garden was born February 20th, 1877, in Aberdeen, Scotland. She came to America with her parents when she was eight years of age and was brought up in Chicopee, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut, and Chicago, Illinois. She studied the violin when she was six and the piano when she was twelve. It was the ambition of her parents to make her an instrumental performer. She studied voice with Mrs. S. R. Duff, who in time took her to Paris and placed her under the instruction of Trabadello and Lucien Fugére. Her operatic début was made in Charpentier'sLouiseat the Opera Comique in 1900. Her success was immediate both as an actress and as a singer. She was chosen by Debussy and others for especially intricate rôles. She created the rôle ofMelisande; also,Fiammettein Laroux'sLa Reine Fiammette. In 1907 she made her American début inThaïsat the Manhattan Opera House in New York City. Later she accepted leading rôles with the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Co. She is considered by many the finest singing actress living—her histrionic gifts being in every way equal to her vocal gifts. In 1921 she was made the manager of the Chicago Opera Company.
The modern opera singer cannot content herself merely with the "know how" of singing. That is, she must be able to know so much more than the mere elemental facts of voice production that it would take volumes to give an intimation of the real requirements.
The girl who wants to sing in opera must have one thought and one thought only—"what will contribute to my musical, histrionic and artistic success?"
Unless the "career" comes first there is not likely to be any "career."
I wonder if the public ever realizes what this sacrifice means to an artiste—to a woman.
Of course, there are great recompenses—the thrill that comes with artistic triumphs—the sensations that accompany achievement—who but the artist can know what this means—the joy of bringing to life some great masterpiece?
Music manifests itself in children at a very early age. It is very rare indeed that it comes to the surface later in life. I was always musical. Only the media changed—one time it was violin, then piano, then voice. The dolls of my sisters only annoyed me because I could not tolerate dolls. They seemed a wasteof time to me, and when they had paper dolls, I would go into the room when nobody was looking and cut the dolls' heads off. I have never been able to account for my delight in doing this.
My father was musical. He wanted me to be a musician, but he had little thought at first of my being a singer. Accordingly, at eight I was possessed of a fiddle. This meant more to me than all the dolls in the world. Oh, how I loved that violin, which I could make speak just by drawing a bow over it! There was something worth while.
I was only as big as a minute, and, of course, as soon as I could play the routine things of de Beriot, variations and the like, I was considered one of those abominable things, "an infant prodigy."
I was brought out to play for friends and any musical person who could stand it. Then I gave a concert, and my father saw the finger of destiny pointing to my career as a great violinist.
To me the finger of destiny pointed the other way; because I immediately sickened of the violin and dropped it forever. Yes, I could play now if I had to, but you probably wouldn't want to hear me.
Ah, but I do play. I play every time I sing. The violin taught me the need for perfect intonation, fluency in execution, ever so many things.
Then came the piano. Here was a new artistic toy. I worked very hard with it. My sister and I went back to Aberdeen for a season of private school, and I kept up my piano until I could play acceptably many of thebest-known compositions, Grieg, Chopin, etc., being my favorites. I was never a very fine pianist, understand me, but the piano unlocked the doors to thousands of musical treasure houses—admitted me to musical literature through the main gate, and has been of invaluable aid to me in my career. See my fingers, how long and thin they are—of course, I was a capable pianist—long, supple fingers, combined with my musical experience gained in violin playing, made that certain.
Then I dropped the piano. Dropped it at once. Its possibilities stood revealed before me, and they were not to be the limit of my ambitions.
For the girl who hopes to be an operatic "star" there could be nothing better than a good drilling in violin or piano. The girl has no business to sing while she is yet a child—and she is that until she is sixteen or over. Better let her work hard getting a good general education and a good musical education. The voice will keep, and it will be sweeter and fresher if it is not overused in childhood.
Once, with my heart set upon becoming a singer, my father fortunately took me to Mrs. Robinson Duff, of Chicago. To her, my mentor to this day, I owe much of my vocal success. I was very young and very emotional, with a long pigtail down my back. At first the work did not enrapture me, for I could not see the use of spending so much time upon breathing. Now I realize what it did for me.
What should the girl starting singing avoid? First,let her avoid an incompetent teacher. There are teachers, for instance, who deliberately teach the "stroke of the glottis" (coup de glotte).
What is the stroke of the glottis? The lips of the vocal cords in the larynx are pressed together so that the air becomes compressed behind them and instead of coming out in a steady, unimpeded stream, it causes a kind of explosion. Say the word "up" in the throat very forcibly and you will get the right idea.
This is a most pernicious habit. Somehow, it crept into some phases of vocal teaching, and has remained. It leads to a constant irritation of the throat and ruin to the vocal organs.
When I went to Paris, Mrs. Duff took me to many of the leading vocal teachers of the city, and said, "Now, Mary, I want you to use your own judgment in picking out a teacher, because if you don't like the teacher you will not succeed."
Thus we went around from studio to studio. One asked me to do this—to hum—to make funny, unnatural noises, anything but sing. Finally, Trabadello, now retired to his country home, really asked me to sing in a normal, natural way, not as a freak. I said to myself, "This is the teacher for me." I could not have had a better one.
Look out for teachers with freak methods—ten to one they are making you one of their experiments. There is nothing that any voice teacher has ever found superior to giving simple scales and exercises sung upon the syllables Lah (ah, as in harbor), Leh (eh, asin they), Lee (ee, as in me). With a good teacher to keep watch over the breathing and the quality, "what more can one have?"
I have always believed in a great many scales and in a great deal of singing florid rôles in Italian. Italian is inimitable for the singer. The dulcet, velvet-like character of the language gives something which nothing else can impart. It does not make any difference whether you purpose singing in French, German, English, Russian or Soudanese, you will gain much from exercising in Italian.
Staccato practice is valuable. Here is an exercise which I take nearly every day of my life:
musical notation
The staccato must be controlled from the diaphragm, however, and this comes only after a great deal of work.
Three-quarters of an hour a day practice suffices me. I find it injurious to practice too long. But I study for hours. Such a rôle asAphroditeI take quietly and sing it over mentally time and time again without making a sound. I study the harmonies, the nuances, the phrasing, the breathing, so that when the time for singing it comes I know it and do not waste my voice by going over it time and again, as some singers do. In the end I find that I know it better for this kind of study.
The study of acting has been a very personal matter with me. I have never been through any courses of study, such as that given in dramatic schools. This may do for some people, but it would have been impossible for me. There must be technic in all forms of art, but it has always seemed to me that acting was one of the arts in which the individual must make his own technic. I have seen many representatives of the schools of acting here and abroad. Sometimes their performances, based upon technical studies of the art, result in superb acting. Again, their work is altogether indifferent. Technic in acting is more likely to suppress than to inspire. If acting is not inspired, it is nothing. I study the human emotions that would naturally underlie the scene in which I am placed—then I think what one would be most likely to do under such conditions. When the actual time of appearance on the stage arrives, I forget all about this and make myself the person of the rôle.
This is the Italian method rather than the French. There are, to my mind, no greater actors living than Duse and Zacchona, and they are both exponents of the natural method that I employ.
Great acting has always impressed me wonderfully. I went from Paris to London repeatedly to see Beerbohm Tree in his best rôles. Sir Herbert was not always uniformly fine, but he was a great actor and I learned much from watching him. Once I induced Debussy to make the trip to see him act. Debussy was delighted.
Debussy! Ah, what a rare genius—my greatest friend in Art! Everything he wrote we went over together. He was a terribly exacting master. Few people in America realize what a transcendent pianist he was. The piano seemed to be thinking, feeling, vibrating while he was at the keyboard. Time and again we went over his principal works, note for note. Now and then he would stop and clasp his hands over his face in sudden silence, repeating, "It is all wrong—it is all wrong." But he was too good a teacher to let it go at that. He could tell me exactly what was wrong and how to remedy it. When I first sang for him, at the time when they were about to producePelleas and Melisandeat the Opera Comique, I thought that I had not pleased him. But I learned later that he had said to M. Carré, the director: "Don't look for anyone else." From that time he and his family became my close friends. The fatalistic side of our meeting seemed to interest him very much. "To think," he used to say, "that you were born in Aberdeen, Scotland, lived in America all those years and should come to Paris to create myMelisande!"
As I have said, Debussy was a gorgeous pianist. He could play with the greatest delicacy and could play in the leonine fashion of Rubinstein. He was familiar with Beethoven, Bach, Handel and the classics, and was devoted to them. Wagner he could not abide. He called him a "griffe papier"—a scribbler. He thought that he had no importance in the world ofmusic, and to mention Wagner to him was like waving a red flag before a bull.
It is difficult to account for such an opinion. Wagner, to me, is the great tone colorist, the master of orchestral wealth and dramatic intensity. Sometimes I have been so Wagner-hungry that I have not known what to do. For years I went every year to Munich to see the wonderful performances at the Prinzregenten Theater.
In closing let me say that it seems to me a great deal of the failure among young singers is that they are too impatient to acquire the "know how." They want to blossom out on the first night as great prima donnas, without any previous experience. How ridiculous this is! I worked for a whole year at the Opera Comique, at $100 a month, singing such a trying opera asLouisetwo and three times a week. When they raised me to $175 a month I thought that I was rich, and when $400 a month came, my fortune had surely been made! All this time I was gaining precious experience. It could not have come to me in any other way. As I have said, the natural school—the natural school, like that of the Italians—stuffed as it is with glorious red blood instead of the white bones of technic in the misunderstood sense, was the only possible school for me. If our girls would only stop hoping to make a début at $1,000 a night and get down to real hard work, the results would come much quicker and there would be fewer broken hearts.
Mme. Alma Gluck was born at Jassy, Roumania. Her father played the violin, but was not a professional musician. At the age of six she was brought to America. She was taught the piano and sang naturally, but had no idea of becoming a singer. Her vocal training was not begun until she was twenty years of age. Her teacher, at that time, was Signor Buzzi-Peccia, with whom she remained for three years, going directly from his studio to the Metropolitan Opera House of New York. She remained there for three years, when the immense success of her concert work drew her away from opera. She then studied with Jean de Reszke, and later with Mme. Sembrich for four or five years. Since then she has appeared in all parts of the United States with unvarying success. Her records have been among the most popular of any ever issued. Together with her husband, Efrem Zimbalist, the distinguished violinist, she has appeared before immense audiences in joint recitals.
Mme. Alma Gluck. © Mishkin.Mme. Alma Gluck.© Mishkin.
Many seem surprised when I tell them that my vocal training did not begin until I was twenty years of age. It seems to me that it is a very great mistake for any girl to begin the serious study of singing before that age, as the feminine voice, in most instances, is hardly settled until then. Vocal study before that time is likely to be injurious, though some survive it in the hands of very careful and understanding teachers.
The first kind of a repertoire that the student should acquire is a repertoire of solfeggios. I am a great believer in the solfeggio. Using that for a basis, one is assured of acquiring facility and musical accuracy. The experienced listener can tell at once the voice that has had such training. Always remember that musicianship carries one much further than a good natural voice. The voice, even more than the hands, needs a kind of exhaustive technical drill. This is because in this training you are really building the instrument itself. In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed and sometimesmadeby study. When the pupil is practicing, tones grow in volume, richness and fluency.
There are exercises by Bordogni, Concone, Vaccai,Lamperti, Marchesi, Panofka, Panserson and many others with which I am not familiar, which are marvelously beneficial when intelligently studied. These I sang on the syllable "Ah," and not with the customary syllable names. It has been said that the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, etc., aid one in reading. To my mind, they are often confusing.
After a thorough drilling in solfeggios and technical exercises, I would have the student work on the operatic arias of Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and others. These men knew how to write for the human voice! Their arias are so vocal that the voice develops under them and the student gains vocal assurance. They were written before modern philosophy entered into music—when music was intended for the ear rather than for the mind. I cannot lay too much stress on the importance of using these arias. They are a tonic for the voice, and bring back the elasticity which the more subdued singing of songs taxes.
When one is painting pictures through words, and trying to create atmosphere in songs, so much repression is brought into play that the voice must have a safety-valve, and that one finds in the bravura arias. Here one sings for about fifty bars, "The sky is clouded for me," "I have been betrayed," or "Joy abounds"—the words being simply a vehicle for the ever-moving melody.
When hearing an artist like John McCormack sing apopular ballad it all seems so easy, but in reality songs of that type are the very hardest to sing and must have back of them years of hard training or they fall to banality. They are far more difficult than the limpid operatic arias, and are actually dangerous for the insufficiently trained voice.
Then when the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are! The works of the lighter French composers, Hahn, Massenet, Chaminade, Gounod, and others. Then Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Löwe, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. Later the student will continue with Strauss, Wolf, Reger, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mousorgsky, Borodin and Rachmaninoff. Then the modern French composers, Ravel, Debussy, Georges, Köchlin, Hue, Chausson, and others. I leave French for the last because it is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels that it requires the utmost subtlety to overcome these difficulties and still retain clarity in diction. For that reason the student should have the advice of a native French coach.
When one has traveled this long road, then he is qualified to sing English songs and ballads.
In this country we are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something. Commercialism overwhelms our composers. They approach their work with the question, "Will this go?" The spirit in which a work is conceived is that in which it will be executed. Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every-day American publishers. This does not mean that a song should be queer or ugly to be novel or immortal. It means that the sincerity of the art worker must permeate it as naturally as the green leaves break through the dead branches in springtime. Of the vast number of new American composers, there are hardly more than a dozen who seem to approach their work in the proper spirit of artistic reverence.
Nothing annoys me quite so much as the hysterical hypocrites who are forever prating about "art for art's sake." What nonsense! The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism. Art for art's sake is just as iniquitous an attitude in its way as art for money's sake. The real artist has no ideathat he is sacrificing himself for art. He does what he does for one reason and one reason only—he can't help doing it. Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.
Time and again a student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests, saying that if the student could give up her work on my advice she had better give it up without it. One does not study for a goal. One sings because one can't help it! The "goal" nine times out of ten is a mere accident.
Art for art's sake is the mask of studio idlers. The task of acquiring a repertoire in these days, when the vocal literature is so immense, is so overwhelming, that the student with sense will devote all his energies to work, and not imagine himself a martyr to art.
Emilio Edoardo de Gogorza was born in Brooklyn, New York, May 29th, 1874, of Spanish parents. His boyhood was spent in Spain, France and England. In the last named country he became a boy soprano and sang with much success. Part of his education was received at Oxford. He returned to America, where his vocal teachers were C. Moderati and E. Agramonte. His début was made in 1897 in a concert with Mme. Marcella Sembrich. His rich fluent baritone voice made him a great favorite at musical festivals in America. He has sung with nearly all of the leading American orchestras. The peculiar quality of his voice is especially adapted to record making and his records have been immensely popular. He married Emma Eames, July 13th, 1911.
Emilio de Gogorza. © DupontEmilio de Gogorza.© Dupont
There has never been a time or a country presenting more inviting opportunities to the concert and the oratorio singer than the America of to-day. As a corollary to this statement there is the obvious fact that the American public, taken as a whole, is now the most discriminating public to be found anywhere in the world. Every concert is adequately reviewed by able writers; and singers are continually on their mettle. It therefore follows that while there are opportunities for concert and oratorio singers, there is no room for the inefficient, the talentless, brainless aspirants who imagine that a great vocal career awaits them simply because they have a few good tones and a pleasing stage presence.
This is the age of the brain. In singing, the voice is only a detail. It is the mentality, the artistic feeling, the skill in interpretation that counts. Some of the greatest artists are vocally inferior to singers of lesser reputation. Why? Because they read, because they study, because they broaden their intellects and extend their culture until their appreciation of the beautiful is so comprehensive that every degree of human emotion may be effectively portrayed. In a word theybecome artists. Take the case of Victor Maurel, for instance. If he were ninety years old and had only the shred of a voice but still retained his artistic grasp, I would rather hear him than any living singer. I have learned more from hearing him sing than from any other singer. Verdi chose him to sing inOtelloagainst the advice of several friends, saying: "He has more brain than any five singers I know."
Some people imagine that when an artist is embarked upon his professional work study ceases. It is a great mistake. No one works harder than I do to broaden my culture and interpretative skill. I am constantly studying and trust that I may never cease. The greater the artist the more incessant the study. It is one of the secrets of large success.
People imagine that the opera requires a higher kind of vocal preparation than the concert or oratorio stage. This is also a great misconception. The operatic singers who have been successful as concert singers at once admit that concert singing is much more difficult. Comparatively few opera singers succeed as concert singers. Why? Because in opera the voice needs to be concentrated and more or less uniform. An opera house is really two buildings, the auditorium and the stage. The stage with its tall scene-loft is frequently as large from the standpoint of cubic feet as the auditorium. Sometimes it is larger. To fill these two immense buildings the voice must be strong and continuallyconcentrated,dans le Masque. The delicate little effects that the concert singer is obliged to produce would not be heard over the footlights. In order to retain interest without the assistance of scenery and action the concert singer's interpretative work must be marked by an attention to details that the opera singer rarely considers. The voice, therefore, requires a different treatment. It must be so finely trained that it becomes susceptible to the most delicate change of thought in the singer's mind. This demands a really enormous amount of work.
The successful concert singer must also have an endurance that enables her to undergo strains that the opera singer rarely knows. The grand opera singer in the great opera houses of the world rarely sings more than two or three times a week. The concert singer is often obliged to sing every night for weeks. They must learn how to relax and save the voice at all times, otherwise they will lose elasticity and sweetness.
A young woman vocal student, with talent, a good natural voice, intelligence, industry, sufficient practice time, a high school education, and a knowledge of the rudiments of music, might complete a course of study leading to a successful concert début in three years. More frequently four or five years may be required. With a bungling teacher she may spend six or seven. The cost of her instruction, with a good teacher in a great metropolis, will be more per year than if she went to almost any one of the leading universities admitting women. She will have to work harder than ifshe took a regular college course. Progress depends upon the individual. One girl will accomplish more in two years than another will accomplish in five years. Again, the rate of progress depends upon personal development. Sometimes a course of study with a good teacher will awaken a latent energy and mental condition that will enable the student to make great strides.
My most important work has been done by self-study with the assistance and advice of many singers and teachers who have been my friends. No pupil who depends entirely upon a teacher will succeed. She must work out her own salvation. It is the private thought, incessant effort and individual attitude that lead to success.
I honestly believe that the young vocal student can do far better by studying in America than by studying abroad. European residence and travel are very desirable, but the study may be done to better advantage right here in our own country. Americans want the best and they get it. In Europe they have no conception whatever of the extent of musical culture in America. It is a continual source of amazement to me. In the West and Northwest I find audiences just as intelligent and as appreciative as in Boston. There is the greatest imaginable catholicity of taste. Just at present the tendency is away from the old German classics and is leading to the modern works of French,German and American composers. Still I find that I can sing a song like Schumann's "Widmung" in Western cities that only a few years ago were mere collections of frontier huts and shacks, and discover that the genius of Schumann is just as potent there as in New York City. I have recently been all over Europe, and I have seen no such condition anywhere as that I have just described. It is especially gratifying to note in America a tremendous demand for the best vocal works of the American composers.
The young concert singer must have a very comprehensive repertoire. Every new work properly mastered is an asset. In oratorio she should first of all learn those works that are most in demand, like theMessiah, theElijah, theCreationand theRedemption. Then attention may be given to the modern works and works more rarely performed, like those of Elgar, Perosi and others. After the young singer has proven her worth with the public she may expect an income of from $10,000.00 to $15,000.00 a year. That is what our first-class singers have received for high-class concert work. Some European prima donnas like Schumann-Heink and others have commanded much higher figures.
You ask me what influence the sound reproducing machines have had upon the demand for good vocal music in America. They have unquestionably increased the demand very greatly. They have even been known to make reputations for singers entirely without any other road to publicity. Take the case ofMadame Michaelowa, a Russian prima donna who has never visited America. Thousands of records of her voice have been sold in America, and now the demand for her appearance in this country has been so great that she has been offered huge sums for an American tour. I believe that if used intelligently the sound reproducing machine may become a great help to the teacher and student. It is used in many of the great opera houses of the world as an aid in determining the engagement of new singers who cannot be personally heard. Some of the records of my own voice have been so excellent that they seem positively uncanny to me when I hear them reproduced.
I have no patent exercises to offer to singing students. There are a thousand ways of learning to breathe properly and they all lead to one end. Breathing may best be studied when it is made coincident with the requirements of singing. I have no fantastic technical studies to offer. My daily work simply consists of scales, arpeggios and the simplest kind of exercises, the simpler the better. I always make it a point to commence practicing very softly, slowly and surely. I never sing notes outside my most comfortable range at the start. Taking notes too high or too low is an extremely bad plan at first. Many young students make this fault. They also sing much too loud. The voice should be exercised for some considerable time on soft exercises before loud notes are even attempted. It is precisely the same as with physical exercises. The athlete who exerts himself to his fullest extent at firstis working toward ultimate exhaustion. I have known students who sang "at the top of their lungs" and called it practice. The next day they grew hoarse and wondered why the hoarseness came.
Never sing when out of sorts, tired or when the throat is sore. It is all very well to try to throw such a condition off as if it were a state of mind. My advice is, DON'T. I have known singers to try to sing off a sore throat and secure as a result a loss of voice for several days.
Our American climate is very bad for singers. The dust of our manufacturing cities gets in the throat and irritates it badly. The noise is very nerve racking, and I have a theory that the electricity in the air is injurious.
As I have said, the chances in the concert and operatic field are unlimited for those who deserve to be there. Don't be misled. Thousands of people are trying to become concert and oratorio singers who have not talent, temperament, magnetism, the right kind of intelligence nor the true musical feeling. It is pitiful to watch them. They are often deluded by teachers who are biased by pecuniary necessity. It is safe to say that at the end of a year's good instruction the teacher may safely tell what the pupil's chances are. Some teachers are brutally frank. Their opinions are worth those of a thousand teachers who consider their own interests first. Secure the opinions of asmany artists as possible before you determine upon a professional career. The artist is not biased. He does not want you for a pupil and has nothing to gain in praising you. If he gives you an unfavorable report, thank him, because he is probably thinking of your best interests.
As I have said, progress depends upon the individual. One man can go into a steel foundry and learn more in two years than another can in five. If you do not become conscious of audible results at the end of one or two years' study do some serious thinking. You are either on the wrong track or you have not the natural qualifications which lead to success on the concert and oratorio stage.
Mme. Frieda Hempel. © MitziMme. Frieda Hempel.© Mitzi
Frieda Hempel was born at Leipzig, June 26, 1885. She studied piano for a considerable time at the Leipzig Conservatory and the Stern Conservatory. Later she studied singing with Mme. Nicklass Kempner, to whom she is indebted for her entire vocal education up to the time of her début in opera. Her first appearance was in theMerry Wives of Windsor, at the Royal Opera in Berlin. After many very successful appearances in leading European Opera Houses she was engaged for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where she immediately became very popular in stellar rôles. Her repertoire runs from theMarriage of FigarotoDie Meistersinger. Her voice is a clear, pure, sweet soprano; and, like Mme. Sembrich and Mme. Galli-Curci, she clearly shows the value of her instrumental training in the accuracy, precision and clarity of her coloratura work. She has made many successful concert tours of the United States. In addition to being a brilliant singer she is an excellent actress. She is now an American citizen and the wife of an American business man.
In every thousand girls who aspire to Grand Opera probably not more than one ever succeeds. This is by no means because of lack of good voices. There are great numbers of good voices; although many girls who want to be opera singers either deceive themselves or are deceived by others (often charlatan teachers) into believing that they have fine natural voices when they have not. There is nothing more glorious than a beautiful human voice—a voice strong, resonant, if necessary, but velvety and luscious if needs be. There are many girls with really beautiful natural voices who have lost their chances in Grand Opera largely because they have either not had the personal persistence necessary to carry them to the point where their services are in demand by the public or they have had the misfortune not to have the right kind of a vocal or musical drill master—a really good teacher.
Teachers in these days waste a fearful amount of time in what they consider to be their methods. They tell you to sing in the back, or on the side or through the mask or what not, instead of getting right down to the real work. My teacher in Berlin, at the Conservatory,insisted first of all upon having me sing tones and scales—mostly long sustained tones—for at least one entire year. These were sung very softly, very evenly, until I could employ every tone in my voice with sureness and certainty. I don't see how it could possibly have been accomplished in less time. Try that on the American girl and she will think that she is being cheated out of something. Why should she wait a whole year with silly tones when she knows that she can sing a great aria with only a little more difficulty?
The basis of all fine singing, whether in the opera house or on the concert stage, is a good legato. My teacher (Nicklass Kempner) was very insistent upon this. In working with such studies as those of Concone, Bordogni, Lütgen, Marchesi or Garcia—the best part of the attention of the teacher was given to the simple yet difficult matter of a beautiful legato. After one has been through a mass of such material, the matter of legato singing becomes more or less automatic. The tendency to slide from one tone to another is done away with. The connection between one tone and another in good legato is so clean, so free from blurs that there is nothing to compare it with. One tone takes the place of another just as though one coin or disk were placed directly on top of another without any of the edges showing. The change is instantaneous and imperceptible. If one were to gradually slide one coin over another coin you would have a graphic illustration of what mostpeople think is legato. The result is that they sound like steam sirens, never quite definitely upon any tone of the scale.
A good legato can only be acquired after an enormous amount of thorough training. The tendency to be careless is human. Habits of carefulness come only after much drill. The object of the student and the teacher should be to make a singer—not to acquire a scanty repertoire of a few arias. Very few of the operas I now sing were learned in my student days. That was not the object of my teacher. The object was to prepare me to take up anything fromMarthatoRosenkavalierand know how to study it myself in the quickest and most thorough manner. Woe be to the pupil of the teacher who spends most of the time in teaching songs, arias, etc., before the pupil is really ready to study such things.
Everything is in a good foundation. If you expect a building to last only a few weeks you might put up a foundation in a day or so—but if you watch the builders of the great edifices here in American cities you will find that more time is often spent upon the foundation than upon the building itself. They dig right down to the bed rock and pile on so much stone, concrete and steel that even great earthquakes are often withstood.
With such a thorough foundation as I had it has not been difficult to acquire a repertoire of some seventy-five operas. That is, by learning one at a time and working continually over a number of years the operas come easily. In learning a new work I first read the work through as a whole several times to get the character well fixed in my mind. Then I play the music through several times until I am very familiar with it. Then I learn the voice part, never studying it as a voice part by itself, but always in relation to the orchestra and the other rôles. Finally, I learn the interpretation—the dramatic presentation. One gets so little help from the orchestra in modern works that many rehearsals are necessary. In some passages it is just like walking in a dark night. Only a true ear and thorough training can serve to keep one on the key or anywhere near the key. It is therefore highly necessary that vocal students should have a good musical training in addition to the vocal training. In most European conservatories the study of piano and harmony are compulsory for all vocal students. Not to have had this musical training that the study of the piano brings about, not to have had a good course in theory or in training for sight-singing (ear training) is to leave out important pillars in a thorough musical foundation.
It would be a great gratification for all who are interested in opera to see more fine opera houses erected in America with more opportunities for the people. The performances at the Metropolitan are exceedingly fine, but only a comparatively few people can possibly hear them and there is little opportunity for the performance of a wide variety of operas. The opera singer naturally gets tired of singing a few rôles over and over again. The American people should develop a taste for more and more different operas. There is such a wonderful field that it should not be confined to the performance of a very few works that happen to be in fashion. This is not at all the case in Europe—there the repertoires are very much more extensive—more interesting for the public and the artists alike.
Opera has always seemed to me a very necessary thing in the State. It has a strong educational value in that it develops the musical taste of the public as well as teaching lessons in history and the humanities in a very forceful manner. Children should be taken to opera as a regular part of their education. Opera makes a wonderful impression upon the child's imagination—the romance, the color, the music, the action are rarely forgotten. Many of the operas are beautiful big fairy stories and the little folks gloryin them. Parents who desire to develop the taste of their children and at the same time stimulate their minds along broader lines can do no better than to take them to opera. Little towns in Europe often have fine opera houses, while many American cities several times their size have to put up with moving picture theatre houses. Why does not some enthusiastic American leader take up a campaign for more opera in America? With the taste of the public educated through countless talking machine records, it should not prove a bad business venture if it is gone about in a sensible manner.
Dame Nellie Melba (stage name for Mrs. Nellie Porter Armstrong, née Mitchell) is described in Grove's Dictionary as "the first singer of British birth to attain such an exalted position upon the lyric stage as well as upon the concert platform." Dame Melba was born at Burnley near Melbourne, May 19, 1861, of Scotch ancestry. She sang at the Town Hall at Richmond when she was six years of age. She studied piano, harmony, composition and violin very thoroughly. At one time she was considered the finest amateur pianist in Melbourne. She also played the church organ in the local church with much success. In 1882 she married Captain Charles Armstrong, son of Sir Andrew Armstrong, Baronet (of Kings County, Ireland). In 1886 she sang at Queens Hall in London. After studying with Mme. Marchesi for twelve months she made her début as Gilda (Rigoletto) at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Her success was instantaneous. Her London début was made inLuciain 1888. One year later she made her Parisian début in Thomas'Hamlet. In 1894 she created the rôle of Nedda inI Pagliacci. Petrograd "went wild" over her in 1892. In 1892 she repeated her successes and in 1893 she began her long series of American triumphs. The fact that her voice, like that of Patti, has remained astonishingly fresh and silvery despite the enormous amount of singing she has done attests better than anything else to the excellence of her method of singing. In the following conference she gives the secret of preserving the voice.
Dame Nellie Melba.Dame Nellie Melba.
The young singer's first anxiety is usually to learn whether her voice is sufficiently good to make it worth while to go through the enormous work of preparing herself for the operatic stage. How is she to determine this? Surely not upon the advice of her immediate friends, nor upon that of those to whom she would naturally turn for spiritual advice, medical advice or legal advice. But this is usually just what she does. Because of the honored positions held by her rector, her physician, or her family lawyer, their services are all brought to bear upon her, and after an examination of her musical ability their unskilled opinion is given a weight it obviously does not deserve. The only one to judge is a skilled musician, with good artistic taste and some experience in voice matters. It is sometimes difficult to approach a singing teacher for this advice, as even the most honest could not fail to be somewhat influenced where there is a prospect of a pupil. I do not mean to malign the thousands of worthy teachers, but such a position is a delicate one, and the pupil should avoid consulting with any adviser except one who is absolutely disinterested.
In any event the mere possession of a voice that issweet and strong by no means indicates that the owner has the additional equipment which the singer must possess. Musical intelligence is quite as great an asset as the possession of a fine voice. By musical intelligence I mean something quite different from general intelligence. People seem to expect that the young person who desires to become a fine pianist or a fine violinist, or a fine composer, should possess certain musical talents. That is, they should experience a certain quickness in grasping musical problems and executing them. The singer, however, by some peculiar popular ruling seems to be exempted from this. No greater mistake could possibly be made. Very few people are musically gifted. When one of these people happens to possess a good voice, great industry, a love for vocal art, physical strength, patience, good sense, good taste and abundant faith in her possibilities, the chances of making a good singer are excellent. I lay great stress upon great determination and good health. I am often obliged to sing one night, then travel a thousand miles to sing the next night. Notwithstanding such journeys, the singer is expected to be in prime condition, look nice, and please a veritable multitude of comparative strangers all expecting wonderful things from her. Do you wonder that I lay stress upon good health?
The youthful training of the singer should be confined quite strictly to that of obtaining a good general and musical education. That is, the vocal training may be safely postponed until the singer is seventeenor eighteen years of age. Of course there have been cases of famous singers who have sung during their childhood, but they are exceptions to all rules. The study of singing demands the direction of an intelligent, well-ordered mind. It is by no means wholly a matter of imitation. In fact, without some cultivation of the taste, that is, the sense of discriminating between what is good and bad, one may imitate with disastrous results.
I remember well an incident in my own youth. I once went to a concert and heard a much lauded singer render an aria that was in turn vociferously applauded by the audience. This singer possessed a most wonderful tremolo. Every tone went up and down like the teeth of a saw. It was impossible for her to sing a pure even tone without wobbling up and down. But the untrained audience, hungry to applaud anything musical, had cheered the singer despite the tremolo. Consequently I went home and after a few minutes' work I found that it was possible for me to produce a very wonderful tremolo. I went proudly to my teacher and gave an exhibition of my new acquirement. "Who on earth have you been listening to?" exclaimed my teacher. I confessed and was admonished not to imitate.
The voice in childhood is a very delicate organ despite the wear and tear which children give it by unnecessary howling and screaming. More than this,the child-mind is so susceptible to impressions and these impressions become so firmly fixed that the best vocal training for the child should be that of taking the little one to hear great singers. All that the juvenile mind hears is not lost, although much will be forgotten. However, the better part will be unconsciously stowed away in the subconscious mind, to burst forth later in beautiful song through no different process than that by which the little birds store away the song of the older birds. Dealers in singing birds place them in rooms with older and highly developed singing birds to train them. This is not exactly a process of imitation, but rather one of subconscious assimilation. The bird develops his own song later on, but has the advantage of the stored-up impressions of the trained birds.
I have known many singers to fail dismally because they were simply singers. The idea that all the singer needs to know is how to produce tones resonantly and sweetly, how to run scales, make gestures and smile prettily is a perfectly ridiculous one. Success, particularly operatic success, depends upon a knowledge of a great many things. The general education of the singer should be as well rounded as possible. Nothing the singer ever learns in the public schools, or the high schools, is ever lost. History and languages are most important. I studied Italian and French in my childhood and this knowledge was of immense help to me in my later work. When I first went to Paris I hadto acquire a colloquial knowledge of the language, but in all cases I found that the drill in French verbs I had gone through virtually saved me years of work. The French pronunciation is extremely difficult to acquire and some are obliged to reside in France for years before a fluent pronunciation can be counted on.
I cannot speak too emphatically upon the necessity for a thorough musical education. A smattering is only an aggravation. Fortunately, my parents saw to it that I was taught the piano, the organ, the violin and thoroughbass. At first it was thought that I would become a professional pianist; and many were good enough to declare that I was the finest amateur pianist in Melbourne. My Scotch-Presbyterian parents would have been horrified if they had had any idea that they were helping me to a career that was in any way related to the footlights. Fortunately, my splendid father, who is now eighty-five years old, has long since recovered from his prejudices and is the proudest of all over my achievements. But I can not be too grateful to him for his great interest in seeing that my early musical training was comprehensive. Aside from giving me a more musicianly insight into my work, it has proved an immense convenience. I can play any score through. I learn all my operas myself. This enables me to form my own conception, that is, to create it, instead of being unconsciously influenced by the tempos and expression of some other individual. The times that I have depended upon arepititeurhave been so few that I can hardly remember them. So there,little girl, when you get on your mother's long train and sing to an imaginary audience of thousands, you will do better to run to the keyboard and practice scales or study your études.
The first vocal practice should be very simple. There should be nothing in the way of an exercise that would encourage forcing of any kind. In fact the young singer should always avoid doing anything beyond the normal. Remember that a sick body means a sick voice. Again, don't forget your daily outdoor exercise. Horseback riding, golf and tennis are my favorites. An hour's walk on a lovely country road is as good for a singer as an hour's practice. I mean that.
In avoiding strain the pupil must above all things learn to sing the upper notes without effort or rather strain. While it is desirable that a pupil should practice all her notes every day, she should begin with the lower notes, then take the middle notes and then the so-called upper notes or head notes which are generally described as beginning with the F sharp on the top line of the treble staff. This line may be regarded as a danger line for singers young and old. It is imperative that when the soprano sings her head notes, beginning with F sharp and upward, they shall proceed very softly and entirely without strain as they ascend. I can not emphasize this too strongly.
Let me give you one of my greatest secrets. Like all secrets, it is perfectly simple and entirely rational.Never give the public all you have.That is, the singer owes it to herself never to go beyond the boundaries of her vocal possibilities. The singer who sings to the utmost every time is like the athlete who exhausts himself to the state of collapse. This is the only way in which I can account for what the critics term "the remarkable preservation" of my own voice. I have been singing for years in all parts of the musical world, growing richer in musical and human experience and yet my voice to-day feels as fresh and as dear as when I was in my teens. I have never strained, I have never continued rôles that proved unsuited to me, I have never sung when I have not been in good voice.
This leads to another very important point. I have often had students ask me how they can determine whether their teachers are giving them the kind of method or instruction they should have. I have always replied, "If you feel tired after a lesson, if your throat is strained after a little singing, if you feel exhausted, your teacher is on the wrong track, no matter what he labels his method or how wonderful his credentials are."
Isn't that very simple? I have known young girls to go on practicing until they couldn't speak. Let them go to a physician and have the doctor show them by means of a laryngoscope just how tender and delicatetheir vocal organs are. I call them my "little bits of cotton"; they seem so frail and so tiny. Do you wonder that I guard them carefully? This practice consists of the simplest imaginable exercises—sustained scales, chromatic scales and trills. It is not so muchwhatone practices, buthowone practices.
We continually hear critics complain that the art of singing is dying. It is easy enough to be a pessimist, and I do not want to class myself with the pessimists; but I can safely say that, unless more attention is paid to the real art of singing, there must be a decadence in a short time. By this I mean that the voice seems to demand a kind of exercise leading to flexibility and fluent tone production that is not found in the ultra-dramatic music of any of the modern composers. Young singers begin with good voices and, after an altogether inadequate term of preparation, they essay the works of Strauss and Wagner. In two years the first sign of a breakup occurs. Their voices become rough,—the velvet vanishes and note after note "breaks" disagreeably. The music of the older Italian composers, from Scarlatti or Carissimi to Donizetti and Bellini, despite the absurd libretti of their operas, demanded first of all dulcet tones and limpid fluency. The singers who turned their noses up at the florid arabesques of old Italy for the more rugged pageantry of modern Germany are destined to suffer the consequences. Let us have the masterpieces of the heroicTeutons, by all means, but let them be sung by vocalists trained as vocalists and not merely by actors who have only taken a few steps in vocal art.
The main point of all operatic work must be observed if opera is to continue successfully. Delibes chose me to sing a performance of hisLakméat Brussels. It was to be my début in French. I had not then mastered the French pronunciation so that I could sing acceptably at the Paris Grand Opera, the scene of my later triumphs. Consequently I was permitted to sing in Brussels. There the directors objected to my pronunciation, calling it "abominable." Delibes replied, "Qu'elle chante en chinois, si elle veut, mais qu'elle chante mon opera" ("Even if she sang in Chinese, I would be glad to have her sing my opera").
I am asked what has been my greatest incentive. I can think of nothing greater than opposition. The early opposition from my family made me more and more determined to prove to them that I would be successful. If I heard some singer who sang successfully the rôles I essayed, then I would immediately make up my mind to excel that singer. This is a human trait I know; but I always profited by it. Never be afraid of competition or opposition. The more you overcome, the greater will be your ultimate triumph.
Mme. Bernice de Pasquali, who succeeded Marcella Sembrich as coloratura soprano at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, is not an Italian, as her name suggests, but an American. She was born in Boston and is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Practically all of her musical training was received in New York City where she became a pupil of Oscar Saenger. Her successes, however, are not limited to America as she has appeared in Mexico, Cuba, South Africa and Europe, in many places receiving great ovations. Her voice is a clear, high, flexible soprano, equally fine for concert or opera. Her husband, Signor Pasquali, made a lifetime study of the principles of the "Bel Canto" school of singing, and the following conference is the result of long experiment and study in the esthetic, philosophical and physiological factors in the most significant of the so-called methods of voice training.