Choosing

Always be off book with works that you initiate yourselves otherwise you are simply using the time for a coaching lesson which is not fair to your colleagues as you deprive them of valuable rehearsal time and it is not the purpose of the group. It is different, if we initiate the work because you might not have any idea of the piece in question and it's best to start on the right track.

As for initiating work yourself:

There are three purposes among many.

You love the piece. You want to be heard and critiqued. That's fine but all the more reason why you should bring 2 copies. You are preparing a specific piece for a specific audition for a specific role. In that case, say so, and we will work along those lines so that you give the best audition possible. Again we can't help you without having a copy of the music in front of us, no matter how well we know the piece. You are preparing the piece as a show piece for general audition because it shows off the best part of your artistry and voice. As for 1.

If it is for concert work, choose a key that suits the voice. Many singers, male and female, in the past would sing Wagner's "Die Abend Stern" in a key suitable for the voice. The original key is for a baritone, and a lyric baritone at that. Bass voices often sang it transposed down and I remember Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Erna Berger and Susan Danco doing it great justice in a higher key. If you really love a piece, do not let the fact that it wasn't written for your voice impede you from singing it. Just change the key. Music, primarily belongs to everyone. It therefore belongs to your audience who have every right to hear a piece that you can sing well. If it is for an operatic role, it is either in your key and very, very comfortable or you just don't audition with it. You have all heard singers audition for us with a piece that did not vocally suit them and sometimes you must have asked yourselves, "why did he/she choose that piece?"

As for 2.

Many lyric sopranos can sing Cio Cio San's "Un bel di". Many true bassos can sing Don Giovanni's "Fin ch'han dal vino", Italo Tajo was one such basso, but they can do their voices enormous harm if they sing the entire roles. Also they do not build their true reputations on such roles but rather hinder their reputations. They build their careers on singing appropriate roles for their voices. The former would be better off with roles like Manon, Mimi (or if the voice is slightly higher placed, Musetta) and the latter would be better off, and should be auditioning for the roles of Leporello or Masetto or the Commendatore. These one-off arias from roles that the voice should not be tackling should be confined to concert work and should not be used for any audition purposes because one can easily be miscast and hence destined for inferior reviews and much vocal reconstruction later.

As for 3.

I have never seen anyone win any competition or be selected for a role because they sang a piece from "Trouble in Tahiti" or any other such work that needs the entire coating of the opera to give it meaning. Certainly the melody doesn't give it meaning if melody exists to any degree. It is not that the adjudicator or director has anything against such works, it simply because it is impossible to judge the quality of the voice in such pieces no matter how well they are sung. Anyone who chooses such works for general auditioning purposes is sorely misled. Furthermore, unless you are auditioning for a specific role that necessitates such a work, you are antagonizing the adjudicator/director who believes you are intruding on his/her valuable time. The adjudicator/director expects you to know where your voice shines and stands apart from the others and he expects you to choose a piece that shows of both vocal mastery and artistry. Therefore never audition with pieces that do not immediately: demonstrate the quality of the voice, demonstrate the technical aspects of your voice. For instance, some singers have a beautiful legato line but stumble on the rapid delivery of a Rossini piece. The clear implication is that such a voice must not choose the latter type of music for auditioning purposes. Sing where your voice and your present technique is at its very best, demonstrate your artistry. You cannot bring artistry to the piece if you do not know the character you are portraying. You cannot inflect your words properly if you do not portray the emotion that the character is experiencing. You must feel the weight of each of the character's words or else you are simply singing notes and you will be passed over. Therefore, I would like each of you to really choose a role that you know your voice can sing. It must be a role where you can obtain plenty of work on a regular basis. I will make an exception if you are specifically preparing a role in a current opera even if that opera is seldom performed. For instance, a Basso or bass-baritone can work non-stop as Ramfis, Figaro, Leporello, Colline, Masetto, Dr. Bartolo, Don Basilio, etc. So each of you choose just one character in an opera where you know you will always obtain work. Prepare that role as follows:

Define, your character (age, appearance, social position [serf, factory worker, kept woman or man, nobleman or woman, clown, actor, poet, artist etc.] experience of life, emotional temperament, ability to handle unexpected crisis etc.)

Define your relationship with the characters who are important in your life (what it is that attracts you, or repulses you, melts you, hurts you or frightens you etc.) Know every word that they are singing as well as you know your own. Define your reactions to those words.

Define the period in which the opera is set. Go to the library and look at concise history books which generally give a good thumb-nail sketch. Let's say it's Louise by Charpentier ( a good Louise can work non-stop in France, Belgium and Geneva). Look up the Franco-Prussian war and the period after the war of the young peoples revolt generally known as the Communes Revolt (les Miserables) and you get the feel and atmosphere of the period. Try to get a novel on which a libretto is based. If not, get a novel that expressses life at the time and in the country in which the opera is set. It's amazing what you can find on the internet. If it's La Boheme, look up Paris, 1840 to 1890. If it's a fairy tale, look for the story the opera is based upon. Let's say it is Russalka. One could say that in Czechoslovakia (Bohemia) at the time Dvorjak wrote his opera, there was Prague and then nothing but country villages and houses in dark woods. One could describe the woods as a mass of green velvet and in fact, even today, they are virtual rain forests. There was no electric light and the stars and moon gave the woods an opaque silver appearance at night. Spirits hovered in the silver mist and dark shapes of knarled trees broke the fog as if they were darker beings. Such surroundings give rise to myths and legends and in Bohemia, the water nymphs seemed very, very real.

Prepare well. Some of you will pick the same characters. So much the better. We will take just one character from one singer for 15 minutes per week. We will return to each singer over time to see the development of that character. We will have that singer perform that character in a concert either in an aria or ensemble. The aim of this exercise is to get you to create for yoursleves and not wait to be handed down someone else's interpretation of a role. Once you can create your own characters, you are on your way to conquering the world. BUT REMEMBER, START NOW. I and Chloe will call upon you on Tuesday to state the characters you are choosing to study in depth.