Karen M-
Thanks for nailing the issue, as you usually do. I must tell you that when I
was in grad school, lo these many years ago, I was one of 2 voice majors
(the other was another grad student) who registered at the school of drama
for acting classes. It was practically unheard of for music school students
to take drama school classes, and vice versa.
It wasn't an easy integration for us. Even the faculty had a strong bias
against music majors, and didn't give us the same opportunities she gave the
other students. There was open condescension - almost hostility - from the
drama school students. I'll also admit that if any voice students ever
showed up at a production at the drama school, the attitude was quite
completely returned. This was at a large Univ in Texas.
As an undergrad at Eastman, we didn't have "acting classes" but Richard
Perlman, the opera director, did bring in many great people to work with us.
And Richard himself taught us a great deal about acting, not simply opera
acting.
Susan Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karen Mercedes" <dalila@R...>
To: "Lloyd W. Hanson" <lloyd.hanson@n...>
Cc: <vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: [vocalist] good opera-acting coaching
> I just did a master-class with Ryan Edwards, a Verdi baritone who sang
> frequently at the Met in the '80s. His training at Juilliard included
> acting classes (NOT opera-acting, ACTING acting) with John Houseman, who
> found it remarkable that Edwards and only one other opera major bothered
> to take ACTING classes at Juilliard (one of the best acting schools in the
> country, by the way, along with being one of the best music
> conservatories). But what surprised Houseman even more was that among the
> rest of the class members - all ACTING majors - NOT A SINGLE ONE was
> taking voice lessons at the school. When he asked one of the students
> about this, and was told "Well, I'm not a singer, I'm an actor", Houseman
> asked the student whether his VOICE wasn't absolutely critical and
> integral to his ability to ACT effectively.
>
> Frankly, I think the focus on "acting for the opera" is somewhat
> misguided. Today's audiences are increasingly LESS tolerant of
> non-naturalistic acting in opera. These audiences are conditioned by
> movies, television, and theatre to expect a very high standard of acting,
> not just in non-musical theatre. They expect to see REALISTIC acting in
> opera and in musicals, and even in ballet and modern dance.
>
> The best acting training an opera singer can get is "regular" theatrical
> acting. Indeed, actors have much better memorisation skills than singers
> when it comes to text, because they do not use music AS A CRUTCH (how many
> times have you observed other singers - or yourself - when they forget
> words in a piece; they seldom forget melody, but they often forget words.
> And when they do, how do they then try to remember it? By SINGING the
> passage where the forgotten words are - they can't remember them WITHOUT
> the melody - NOT a good thing, frankly, because as important as the music
> is, it has very little meaning WITHOUT THE WORDS - any meaning it has is
> in light of the way it reinforces what is said BY THE WORDS). The opera
> singer who becomes a master of acting TEXT, and learning how to use
> movement, body language, inflection, etc. to convey the meaning of TEXT,
> will, I am convinced, be a MUCH better operatic actor than one who never
> attempts to learn to act without the musical "crutch".
>
> Of course there are skills of acting that must be ADAPTED for
> singing-acting. But frankly, I don't think the skills are DIFFERENT for
> operatic acting. They are simply used somewhat differently in some cases.
>
> I would suggest that the best acting training for an opera singer is
> probably Shakespearean acting. AN excellent start would be to read
> John Barton's book ACTING SHAKESPEARE - which is the book that was derived
> from his BBC television series that explored this topic with some of the
> greats of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The many points that Barton makes
> about interpretation of Shakespeare - handling of the text, the poetry,
> the rhythms (the "music"), etc. of Shakespeare's plays, as well as
> character development, interaction, etc., are all directly applicable to
> operatic acting. And because Shakespeare is often NOT "naturalistic" in
> his use of language - and yet, in modern times, Shakespeare is being acted
> more, and more naturalistically, because this is what audiences both want
> and, increasingly, expect - the modern techniques for acting Shakespeare
> are quite a good model for how other "non-naturalistic" texts (such as
> opera libretti) should be acted as well.
>
> One of the best things about learning to ACT without music first is that
> one can concentrate completely on the craft of ACTING, on how to interpret
> text, how to make movement, body language, etc. express the meaning (overt
> and implied) of text, etc. All without having to worry about getting the
> music right, vocal technique issues, etc. Not only that, it gives the
> singer very good preparation for dealing with the spoken dialogue of
> operas-comique, Singspiels, and other operas in which the singers must
> both speak and sing. Nothing is more agonising than to have a singer who
> just finished a glorious rendering of an aria open his or her mouth to
> speak, and deliver lines in such a stilted, unbelievable way as to
> totally shatter the audience's suspension of disbelief.
>
>
> Karen Mercedes
> http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
> ______________________________________
> I will sing with the spirit, and I
> will sing with the understanding also.
> 1 Corinthians 14:15
>
>
>
>
>
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