TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050691/0506440.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.0 KB | 180 lines

                                                                                MUSIC, Page 74

Why Golden Voices Fade


Restraint is the key to a long reign at the top

By MARTHA DUFFY -- With reporting by Nancy Newman/New York


    Soprano Mirella Freni, 56, will not sing Madama Butterfly
onstage. The part is so heavily emotional that she feels it
could upset the vocal balance she has spent a lifetime
achieving. Luciano Pavarotti has just won acclaim for his first
Otello, and most musical experts think he was right to wait
until age 55 to try the heroic role. The list of parts that
tenor Alfredo Kraus, 63, will not touch reads almost like a
chart of opera's greatest hits, including Cavaradossi in Tosca
and Rodolfo in La Boheme. Kraus sticks strictly to lighter parts
that do not strain his pure, lyric voice.

    These artists have enjoyed long careers, and their voices
still have the glow that sells out major opera houses. Other
voices, once equally remarkable, do not retain their beauty,
whether because of physical setbacks or misuse. Marilyn Horne,
57, has lost none of her taste or technique, but the nap is off
that mezzo velvet. Hildegard Behrens, 54, an inspired dramatic
actress, is now far easier to look at than listen to in the
arduous roles she favors. A dozen years ago, handsome Peter
Hofmann, 46, was a Wagnerian's dream of a heldentenor; today he
mostly sings pop.

    Nowadays opera audiences are finding healthy voices rarer.
It may be that young singers are expanding into heavy but
popular roles without the kind of seasoning that the small
repertory opera house used to provide. A rested voice is
lustrous and secure. A frayed voice has loopholes, swoops or
worse.

    Each voice is as unique as a fingerprint, and the whole
aural setup is not exactly fair. An artist like Freni yearns to
play grand heroines like Norma or La Gioconda but must obey the
dictates of her two vocal cords. Yet Birgit Nilsson could
prevail over waves of punishing orchestration for hours. Her
explanation: "I was a healthy girl with a healthy voice."

    The initial years onstage are crucial, and according to
their elders, many of today's young singers are in too much of
a rush. Leonie Rysanek, 64 and still a shimmering soprano, says,
"The first word to learn is no, if you want a career." Says
Pavarotti: "Go easy. One new role a year is plenty." Before his
Otello, sung in a concert version with the Chicago Symphony,
music fans speculated that he lacked the declamatory heft for
the part. But Pavarotti not only had it; he was able to sing
three out of four performances with a bad cough.

    Armen Boyajian, a respected voice coach, says he tries to
prepare his students for what he calls "the ordeal of a career.
You hope that after the young singer gets out into the world,
he will encounter conductors who understand the voice. Some are
ruthless -- to them the voice is just another percussion
instrument."

    Conductors get considerable blame for young talent's
biggest hurdle: the temptation to learn roles that are wrong for
the individual voice. It could be a too-high tessitura, the
range of notes where most of a part lies, or too heavy a
dramatic role. Especially in his later years, Herbert von
Karajan was a great seducer of semiformed talent because he
sought a clear, pure voice in almost any female role. Freni,
offered the declamatory Turandot, and Rysanek, the taxing
Salome, resisted. The maestro never called again.

    Some performers jump into peril with their eyes open. In
an era that has no natural heroic tenors, there are intense
pressures on any reasonably ample-size tenor to sing Wagner.
Some are willing to face a foreshortened career to sing such
lucrative roles. Beverly Sills wanted some adventure in her
career. Blessed with a light, lyric coloratura, she tinkled her
way through the standard repertory and then embraced Donizetti's
"three queens": Elizabeth in Roberto Devereux, Anna Bolena and
Maria Stuarda, all roles that demand stamina and the brawn to
negotiate the stage wearing 55-lb. costumes for hours. "I knew
it meant hanging up my vocal cords earlier, but it was worth
it," she says.

    Every seasoned singer has a notion about what sustains a
career. But each acknowledges the importance of a solid
technique, a way of producing sound that is comfortable and does
not fray the voice. "Vocalize, vocalize," preaches Pavarotti.
"Ten minutes, seven or eight times a day." Phyllis Curtin, dean
of Boston University's School for the Arts and a soprano with
a long career of her own, believes nothing is mysterious about
producing beautiful sounds: "It's like knowing how to use your
Bible."

    Proper technique is essential because singing opera is a
major athletic enterprise. Says Curtin: "It's a very physical
process, but it must be the servant of the phrase, the
expression." A strong body and erect carriage are crucial. Bass
Nicolai Ghiaurov, 61, emphasizes psychic well-being and "loving
what you're doing." He is right; stage fright is lethal because
fear closes up the throat. Many a singer with a ringing high C
fights to get roles transposed into lower keys because he or she
cannot face the buildup of tension.

    It would appear that patience and the ability to turn down
inappropriate roles (often ones that companies are willing to
pay very well for) help a singer survive until the age of 45 or
so -- usually regarded as vocal prime time. But other potential
liabilities exist. One is a severe personal crisis. Some experts
believe soprano Renata Tebaldi never really recovered her silken
voice after her mother died. In fact, emotion, real or
counterfeit, is the enemy of vocal endurance. One reason a
soprano like Freni avoids Butterfly is that the character must
continually project raw passion, rage, despair. "If you sing
with your heart at the beginning," counsels Nilsson, "your voice
will go before the end."

    A sick voice can often be treated. Boyajian likes to speak
of his repair shop, "where people in midcareer, about to be
crippled, flock to fix up their technique while remaining in the
limelight." He starts them out with the basics, the five Italian
vowels, and begins a relearning process. He says most artists,
once they start retraining, are quick to recognize their own
bad habits.

    Many operagoers think that the jet plane has done more to
ravel the thread of lovely sound than any other factor. A
popular artist can sing in Brussels on Monday, Paris on Tuesday
and Chicago on Thursday, and by the time Chicago rolls around,
audiences often feel they are presented with a raspy voice and
an unfocused characterization. Many veterans monitor their
travel schedules as closely as their repertory. Rysanek arrives
in a city two weeks before she is scheduled to sing. Kraus warns
that if you sing in two cities on successive days, "your
subconscious is working in both places, and it's too busy."

    Maybe Polonius' advice holds for singers: to thine own
self be true. Nilsson feels that "there almost has to be
another you, standing at your side, in full control." To
Pavarotti, long success depends on "remaining a student all your
life. Remember the first lesson you ever took and believe it."
Oh, and a couple of other things. Freni recommends pasta on
performance days. Rysanek warns against after-performance
partying. And Nilsson decrees, at all cost, wear comfortable
shoes.


________________________________________________________________
SIGNS OF TROUBLE

    -- The aiming of weak high notes into the wings rather than
       straight out into the audience in order to diffuse the
       sound.

    -- The inability to sing softly, caused by too much pushing.

    -- Noticeable breaks between vocal registers. These always
       exist, but a healthy technique can cover them.

    -- Wobbles, which come from insufficient breath support.

    -- Pitch problems. The result of frazzled vocal cords that
       can no longer close tightly.