Role Resquisites

Opera is part ballet (movement, gesture and positioning to the music and tempo), part sculpture (the body), part painting (the aura of the face and body), part drama (the gesture that is natural, the inflexion of the line), part sharing with your audience (communication between the character and audience.)

Let's look at some of the things we need to prepare to achieve this effect.

1. Plasticity of body. The music tells us how our character moves, when he/she turns, how he/she walks, glides, runs, bends, draws himself/herself up etc. Listen to the music. Listen to your cues. Choreograph your movements to the music well in advance of performance. Regard every rehearsal as a performance so that you come away learning from your mistakes; so that you can improve upon each rehearsal/performance. If you are walking stiff-legged or stiff-bodied, clumping your heels down on the floor, you are certainly not in the character of Lucia, Gilda, Rigoletto etc. No! You haven't left the straight-jacket of your technique and you have divorced yourself automatically from your audience. You have failed to communicate anything other than the fact that you are a boring, wooden vocalist. You might have a voice of gold but it is lost upon your audience if you are not in character and sharing that character's experience with your audience.

2. Concentrate entirely on the character you are portraying and the voice will follow. It is only when you are truly in the skin and moment of your character that the voice will automatically assume the right nuance and color. Physically producing a moment of tenderness is patently artificial and does not fool the audience. It cheats the audience and a cheated audience will turn away from opera. Let the words sing. Let them speak for themselves because the character feels them and automatically gives each word its due weight and correct inflexion.

3. Balance your voice with your colleagues. If we cannot perfectly cast each voice in an ensemble it is because the voice is still young. We try our best to cast you where your voices shine. Never overpower the voice that sings the main melody line. Give the melody line space to bloom. Balance your volume. You would not like it if a Cello or horn overpowered the violin or piano while either of the latter played the melody line in a concerto. All the great singers of the past were taught this simple principle. That's why the Caruso et al. and the Gigli et al. recordings of the Rigoletto Quartet and Lucia Sextet are so magnificent. Consider you are part of the whole. Your voices have to blend and interact with the whole.

4. Concentrate on the above first and never on your voice. Don't worry about the sound that comes out. You will not be able to do a thing about it on the live stage with full cast and orchestra. Only your complete familiarity with the part, the character and the music will sustain you. You cannot hear your voice on stage nor can you even experience the physical sensations of voice that you experience in a practice environment.

5. And lastly, the golden rule. Leave whomever you are at the entrance door of the rehearsal/performance. We are now going to be other people and other characters and not a single vestige of ourselves must remain. How do we get to that position? By observing and honing the first 4 steps above, over and over again.