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From:  Cyndee Szymkowicz <cyndeesings@y...>
Cyndee Szymkowicz <cyndeesings@y...>
Date:  Wed May 16, 2001  10:47 am
Subject:  Ensemble opera in Germany



Isabelle B wrote:
"Graham, who has worked in such houses in
Germany, how does the system work in practice? I'm
betting that there is a larger pool of singers than
just two or three sopranos, two or three tenors, etc.,
yes? Big houses fly international singers is because
that's how you get the best voices for one particular
production; you get "the" Amneris of today, and a
soprano who does a killer Aida but would be totally
wrong if she had to sing Donna Anna, Adina, and
Musetta in the same house.

It's not that I think everyone should specialize and
sing only one role brilliantly, but I think that
stretching a voice into too many different fachs (even
if they're all broadly "soprano" or "tenor" roles)
isn't good, especially when you're young. It's
important to choose roles that are just right for your
voice at the time, and if you belong to a repertory
house that decides that roles A, B, C, and D are
what's right for you -- because there's no one else to
sing them, and because that's what will produce a
lovely season for the audiences to appreciate -- I
think you are being done a disservice."

I could write a book in answer to these
statements! I'm the one who sang Mimi and the Fidelio
Leonore in the same season in Flensburg, a "B" house
in Germany. Mimi was a bit too lyric for me, although
the Germans prefer a fuller-voiced Mimi than Americans
seems to, and Fidelio seemed a bit too heavy at the
time. I THOUGHT it would kill me, but actually, my
teacher insisted it would be good for me, and I
developed incredibly during the LONG 6 week rehearsal
phase of Fidelio, during which I occasionally sang a 4
hour Fidelio rehearsal in the morning, and then a
Mimi/Boheme performance that night. At that time, for
women Flensburg had 1 jugendlich-dramatischer sopran
(me), 1 lyric soprano, 1 soubrette, 1 Operetta-Diva, 1
mezzo, 1 spiel-alt. Occasional guests were brought in
on a production basis to fill in whatever we couldn't
cast from the ensemble. For example, for Zauberflöte,
we had to get a guest for the Queen of the Night, I
sang the 1st Lady, the Operetta Diva sang the 2nd
Lady, mezzo the 3rd, the lyric sang Pamina, and the
soubrette sang Papagena. In my two years fest there,
I sang Maddalena in CHENIER 12 times, 1st Lady in
Flute 24 times, Leonore in FORZA 12 times, Mimi 18
times, and Leonore in FIDELIO 12 times. The lyric and
the soubrette each sang two or three times more
productions than I did (I don't remember all the shows
I wasn't in :-)but I do recall Entführung, Gluck's
Orpheus, Turk in Italia, Martha and the operettas were
countless.
This doesn't really begin to answer your
question, but all I can say is that the system has
definite benefits as well as drawbacks. One of the
pluses is getting to do several (or many) performances
of each role, which makes the ability to "jump in" a
little more understandable. In the season after I had
sung CHENIER, I "jumped in" with 4 performances in
Hildesheim. I got to watch a video of the original
dress-rehearsal when I arrived in the town around
1:00, and then had a quick 15 minutes with the bariton
to practice getting thrown onto the ground (the only
staging I got to rehearse), shook hands with the
conductor, and went on. BUT, the year before, I had
rehearsed for 4 weeks, plus sung 12 performances, so
even though the sets, staging, costumes, etc., were
all different, I could do it.
And the point about getting tired of seeing the
same soprano in every piece -- a good singer quickly
develops a following, and these fans take great delite
in discussing which roles were better suited, etc.
Well, before this develops into that book....
Best regards,
Cyndee Szymkowicz
CyndeeSings@o...
CyndeeSings@o...


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