The Future of Opera

Hey gang!  I’m exhausted.  I’ve spent the last 12 hours on campus studying for a boat load of tests and practical exams.  But before I retire, I thought I’d stop by for a quick rant that has absolutely nothing to do with medicine.

I love opera.  I love classical music.  It has been a love of mine for many years.  I’ve spent more than a decade devoting my time and energy to perfecting and cementing techniques that take years to comprehend, let alone practically apply.  I no longer sing for a living, but I am a singer.  I no longer create music for others to enjoy, but I am a musician.  My body was my instrument, and I took great pride in producing  the type of sound that did not depend on a microphone for amplification.   I did my best to become the character I was portraying.  I knew every word of every language I sang in.  The emotion I conveyed stayed true to the lyrics and the music.  More importantly, I listened and studied the great artists.  I watched them and emulated them (sometimes to the detriment of my own technique).  More importantly still, I had a one of a kind vocal coach/teacher (the combination is quite rare) who was  master and teaching the Swedish/Italian school of classical singing.  Moreover, she was a master at teaching me.  She gave me what I could handle at the time.  She never pushed my voice.  She always encouraged me to ease into heavier repertoire.  She never hesitated to steer me clear from things that would hinder my progress.  She believed in me and my talent.

The title opera singer is being tossed around a lot these days.  Let’s be clear:  dressing up in fancy costumes and expensive clothing and singing song from operatic works does not make you an opera singer;  being young and cute and charming does not make you an opera singer; sounding like an adult singer (even though the sound is being manufactured) when you are only ten years old does not make you an opera singer.  It boggles my mind that people who have never stepped foot inside an opera theater, or couldn’t name one member of the Bel Canto Trio, or name the principal characters in Die Zauberflote (or the composer for that matter…and this is one of the easy ones) are judging the talent, or lack thereof, of these “opera singers.”  Are these performers singers?  Absolutely!  Are they opera singers?  Not in the least.

History lesson, folks!  The great opera singers-Caballe, Callas, Di Stefano, Nilsson, Gigli, Bjorling, Ludwig, Fischer-Dieskau, de los Angeles, Verrett, Sutherland, Carerras, Flagstad, Milanov, Gedda, Ghiaurov, Caruso, Galli-Curci, Pons, Grist, Horne, Sills, Corelli, et al (notice I did not mention Pavarotti’s name…he’s great, but there are so many others that are overlooked)- these are opera singers.  Study them.  Listen to them.  Watch them.  This is what the classically trained voice sounds like.  Now, compare and contrast.  Put any of the above in a concert hall, and they would rip the paint off of the walls with no microphone.  Put today’s “opera singers” next to any one of the above, and you wouldn’t even know they were singing.  Theatrics are great.  A cute face and a smile is great, but it does little to mask the fact that you’re simply going through the motions, and playing on the emotions of an ignorant audience. 

Now, I’m not referring to the vocal talent of these “opera singers.”  In fact, I think they are talented.  They would do well in amateur competitions, karaoke nights at the local bar, and Christmas sing-a-longs.  There are many people who have good voices.  There are very few who have operatic voices.  This takes training…and from what I hear, every single “opera singer” today lacks the training.  If your ear is trained to hear it, you will pick up on a myriad of things:  chest breathing with a closed pharynx, pulled down pharyngeal posture which creates a low soft palate, flat/retracted tongue posture, and poor breath management.  Simply put, you have bad crooning!  What’s worse is many of these things can shorten the life of the singing voice.  This is horrible to think of when you consider some of these “opera singers” have barely begun to live life.

The future of opera is bleak.  It’s full of watered down singers who shove mics down their throats.  It lacks the grandeur of the old days when you could walk into the theater one way, and walk out of the theater a changed human being.  Life changing performances are still occurring.  I recall my account of a concertized version of Dr. Atomic that I entered here a few years ago…changed my life!  It’s these emotional journeys that make music so precious.  Taking a score written 2 centuries ago, performed a million times, and transforming it into something brand new!  I get chills just thinking about it.  I fear these kinds of performances are becoming more extinct as time goes on.  It’s ok!  Go ahead and cheer on these “opera singers.”  I’ll keep listening to the legends!