I hold two recitals every year for my studio. They provide performance opportunities for anyone who needs it, as well as a chance for me to hear my students sing and observe how they respond to a performance situation. Rather than organize a formal dress rehearsal, I offer an informal master class during the week before the recital.
These classes provide a forum for addressing fundamental issues that arise in performance. My singers cover the entire spectrum of experience and musical preferences, so they really bring home the fact that whether they've been singing for two months or two decades, the basic challenges of public performance are common to everyone.
So I will go ahead and share with you a number of the topics that emerged during our class this week. I can't fully address everything in one two-hour class, but drawing attention to these issues at least gets people to consider the challenges and possibilities.
How do you perform an opera aria with piano, out of context?
How do you stay engaged in the performance during the moments that you're not actually singing?
First on the class was Vilja from Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow, performed by a skillful avocational singer. This is a young woman who absolutely loves to perform, and when she sings she is so dramatically committed that even the worst memory slip will do nothing to derail her – I have never heard someone so skilled at making up Italian noises should an aria text elude her! With Vilja, she was clearly also very dramatically engaged, but she performed the entire aria planted in the crook of the piano and her level of dramatic engagement dropped several notches whenever she wasn't singing (e.g. during the sections where in a full production the chorus performs several bars of the refrain).
Where performing arias either on recitals or in auditions is concerned, there's no shortage of opinions on how much movement is too much or too little or whether it's okay to use props. What is important is that you embody the character and the situation as fully as you can, given the limitations of your circumstances. In this case, we have a character who actually is singing a song while entertaining her guests; we also have a fairly intimate room for the performance. So it was not too great a stretch to have her explore moving around and working the room as she would if she really were giving a party, so long as she didn't get too close to the audience or out of range of communication with the pianist. Using the musical interludes to move to a new location gave her something to focus on rather than just counting bars until her next entrance. She will need to keep exploring ways to make her movements more organic and effective, but just having something to help her sustain her focus during these moments made a huge difference.
One of the things singers tend to neglect or only address late in the preparation process is mapping out the whole emotional journey of an aria or song, creating a seamless dramatic experience from the beginning to the end, including - or especially - those moments when you aren't singing, whether it's for one bar or 12. People laugh when I say it, but during those moments, the audience can still see you! You have to continue to express whatever your character is thinking and experiencing, and then we need to witness your decision to start singing again. You may not have as much rehearsal time with an accompanist as you would like, so it's up to you to internalize the musical interludes between your entrances and perform them with as much commitment as you do when you're actually singing.
How much movement is appropriate and effective for an art song performance?
Next up was a tenor performing Schubert's Ständchen, and his instincts went to the other extreme – he really used the entire performing area and all four limbs as he delivered his serenade. It provided a good opportunity to discuss the intimate and collaborative nature of the art song. While Schubert is now performed in large concert halls, his lieder were intended to be shared at small gatherings, often in private homes. When performing these works in a larger room, it's up to the singer to create as inviting and intimate a relationship with the audience as possible, so while some movement can certainly enhance the performance, it's best to allow the drama to come through primarily through your musicianship and facial expressions. Art songs are duets between the singer and pianist, and so physical proximity is much more important here than in performing arias to facilitate the best possible communication between the two performers.
Do you scale back your dynamics when performing an opera aria in a recital hall?
A dramatic coloratura who I know to be capable of filling a sizable room with her voice gave a lovely, compelling performance of Regnava nel silenzio from Lucia di Lamermoor. However, whenever the text evoked something mysterious, not only her dynamics but her vocal energy level dropped significantly. In the recital hall, with piano accompaniment, we could still all hear her, but in an opera house will full orchestra her voice would not have carried.
Unless you're going for some sort of brief "special effect", never sing so softly that you fail to fully engage your instrument. The most expedient way to achieve a pianissimo may seem to be cutting back on your breath and your energy, but you'll also sacrifice quality, resonance and projection. Dynamics and decibels are not the same thing. Do work to cultivate a well-supported pianissimo, but think of dynamics more in terms of musical coloring than actual decibel levels.
How does a performance situation impact your breath management?
I have a couple of students who are performing in a recital setting for the very first time this weekend, and the first was a tenor who offered La donna è mobile (Rigoletto). The guy actually has a serious spinto tenor instrument. While his usual repertoire is rock and metal, he has been working on classical repertoire to build his technique. He can get through this aria very respectably now, and he wanted to perform it. I knew how thoroughly prepared he was and where he had marked breaths into his score, but when he got up to sing it for us he tore through nearly the entire first verse without inhaling!
Performance situations can have an unpredictable impact on your breath management, which makes it even more important that you begin to choreograph and practice your breaths carefully from the moment you begin learning a piece or a role. In this case, my tenor fell prey to the fear that if he stopped singing he wouldn't be able to start again. This is something I have often noticed in less-experienced singers, but I had never seen it effect him before! Observation is often curative, so once he noticed that he was doing this the problem began to resolve, but not completely. His best strategy for the recital will be to commit himself as completely as he can to expressing the text so that brief pauses (i.e. breaths) will naturally occur.
to be continued
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