Concert Preperation

What distinguishes our concerts from the average is the fact that you are well rehearsed, that you interface well with each other and that you are comfortable with each other. You can tell from the audience's enthusiasm that you are communicating something rather special. You are making your scenes come alive. The audience is getting a touch of reality which is often lacking in major opera houses. We all have different voices. Some are big, some are small, some are pretty, some are full and incredibly rich, some are beautiful reeds. Chaliapin's voice is more like a orchestra as it has so many overtones and Bjoerling's voice is more like a beautiful reed instrument. It does not matter which type of voice we have, the only important thing is how we use that voice. The golden rule for a singer is that he/she should never compare his/her voice with any other singer's voice. Your own voice is unique. The way you communicate with it must also be unique. You do not copy any other singer, but you bring your own mind, your own interpretation, your own feelings to every piece you sing. In an ensemble, you do not just sing your part. You are having a musical conversation with your partners. You do not shout them down in a normal conversation and so you should not do so in a musical conversation. When you are in a room with friends, you balance your voice with theirs. You do the same when you sing ensembles. When you are conversing with friends you are sharing ideas, thoughts or feelings. When you sing with partners in ensembles you are doing exactly the same thing. After a while you get to acquire the knack of balancing and blending for it is no more than having a conversation. Above all, like a conversation, you are sharing topics and so long as you are sharing the "subtext" with your partners, you cannot help but share it with your audience. That is the true art of theatre. No more, no less.

You automatically take friends into your confidence and so why not take your partners and your audience into your confidence? In short, be in the role, be in the character and do not think about the voice or else you cannot perform as intended. You do not think about how you sound in a room with friends when you are talking. If you did, you wouldn't be able to speak fluently as only half or less of your mind would be concentrating on what you wanted to say. You cannot think clearly, or express thoughts clearly when you are consciously thinking about the way you sound. The content and the feeling behind the content is what modulates the sound of your voice. So do not think about the voice in concert or you lose your audience, your partner's attention and your communication goes out the window. Perhaps that is the great difference between the singers of today (with few exceptions) and the singers of the past. The singers on the CDs I gave you were artists. They took the audience into their confidence and shared the thoughts, feelings and "subtext" of the song with them. There is absolutely no hint that they are thinking of their voices. Their minds are on the song itself and conveying all that is in the song to their audience. The technical side of your nature will perhaps compel some of you to analyse the different voices and grade the quality of each. As a technical exercise that's quite OK. I personally, hear a very unhealthy sick voice when I hear Kathleen Ferrier. I thought she had throat cancer or had something radically wrong with her vocal chords when I first heard her and I wasn't surprised, but very sad, to hear that she was diagnosed with throat cancer at a an early age. But one could hear it. That is not what made her unique. It was her own individual sense of each song she sang that made her unique. So, although your analytical nature will occasionally get the better of you, do not let it rob you of the art of listening. It is by listening that we learn. For each singer used the voice that he/she had and communicated in his/her own unique way. On Tuesday night and again at the concert on Thursday, you do that, and you will feel the audience's appreciation.