Isabelle wrote:
>Opera and lieder technique certainly aren't exclusive
>like rock&roll and opera are (you can switch back and
>forth), but at some point does an artist have to
>specialize, in order to avoid being mediocre in both
>but spectacular in neither?
I don't think it's a question of ability so much as a question of
temperament, as Karen says. As singers mature, they start to home in on
what music really WORKS for them: what gets them excited to go to the piano
every morning and practice, and what deeply occupies their minds and hearts
when they're away from the piano. Voice technique is essentially the same,
although I suppose you might say that an operatic singer paints with a
broader brush than a song singer. (I'm not sure I really buy that, but
it's the stereotype anyway. The operatic singers I prefer are those who
don't just bathe me in sound but rather also employ dramatic subtlety.)
>Why does the typical bankable
>opera singer not make an equal share in lieder -- the
>ratio of the typical opera star's performanes of
>lieder is probably less than 20%. Why are "bankable"
>lieder singers so often associated with small voices
>and those who have met with limited onstage success in
>opera? Why aren't the operatic superstars singing as
>much lieder as opera?
It's hard to make money as a recital singer unless you are already famous
as an operatic singer. The recital genre is even less "popular" ($$$$)
than opera. Although it's cheaper to produce, it's harder to sell. It
requires more from the audience than opera, in my opinion.
Small voices have more literature to choose from in the art song
repertoire. The operas that are most frequently produced are not
particularly suited to smaller voices, the Mozart-DaPonte operas
notwithstanding. The trend in opera is toward big, bigger, biggest, which
sort of squeezes the smaller voices further and further into the operatic
margins.
Some operatic singers DO sing recitals, of course, particularly those who
have families and choose to be away from them for, say, a few days rather
than a few months at a time. (Renee Fleming has publicly stated a desire
to do less opera and travel less so that she can spend more time with her
daughters. I'm not enough of a career-watcher to know whether this hope is
becoming a reality.) But you're probably right that such cases are the
exceptions rather than the rule. I guess when you're a superstar you can
do what you want -- and these folks want to do opera.
>Is there a stigma associating lieder with "easy"
>singing and operatic music with more advanced
>technique?
Easy? HA! Art song is so intimate that technical flaws are easily
exposed. Attention to detail is critical in art song because there is
nothing to hide behind. An operatic performance can succeed despite vocal
technical flaws, on the strength of dramatic thrust, production cleverness,
sheer visceral thrill, or the absolute perfection of the music. Not so for
song recitals. It's not that a song singer has to be technically perfect,
but s/he should be accomplished enough to be able to mine the detail of the
song and communicate it to an audience. (I just heard a singer with deep
technical flaws do Schumann's "Kennst du das Land?" yesterday and while the
song itself is sublime, it was not pleasant to hear it sung by someone
whose technique is not ready for it. On the other hand, I've heard college
productions of DON GIOVANNI where the students were very much "in progress"
technically but because Mozart is indestructible, the thing worked
artistically.)
>It might also be that opera pays better than lieder --
>but many opera singers show no interest in lieder. Is
>it due to performing traditions, and the fact that we
>"expect" French melodie to sound like that
>mosquito-voiced Ameling, while we expect Italian opera
>to have the tone quality of a Tebaldi?
Mosquito voiced? What does THAT mean?! Small voices are small voices;
what's the big deal? Nobody calls bigger voices elephant voices now, do
they?! ; ) Elly Ameling wouldn't be heard over a Puccini orchestra;
Renata Tebaldi might feel constrained by the specificity of song singing.
I personally am glad that each of these ladies found what she did best and
did it gloriously and generously over long careers. : )
>Is it thus a
>self-perpetuating cycle, broken only momentarily by
>singer who are not afraid to bring a full-voiced tone
>into lieder (like Norman), but quickly swallowed up
>again by the McNairs and Upshaws and Bonneys with the
>accepted vocal sound for art song?
But Isabelle, McNair, Upshaw and Bonney ALL have thriving careers in many
genres, just like Norman. (Are they not also gifts from heaven, then?!)
The distinctions you set up are perhaps useful for generating discussion,
but the bottom line (for me anyway) is that peoples' careers are influenced
and shaped by too many factors to codify, including: the opportunities
presented to them, their individual abilities, their individual
temperaments, the age at which their voices start to function in a reliable
way, family and lifestyle choices, luck, and yes, voice size.
Naomi Gurt Lind
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