Back in business

Whew. I'm finally on the other side of that tonsilitis thing (knock on wood). My voice is slowly coming back -- today I was able to sing for 45 minutes. It's still a far cry from what I'll need for this week, but I'm hoping that I can ease my muscles and vocal cords back into what they're supposed to be doing.

In the meantime, I got to see a few extraordinary events this weekend. Yesterday, one of the voice department professors gave a recital with her sister. She's a mezzo, and her sister is a soprano. Their voices have some timbral similarities, of course, so they blend beautifully. The encore was a delightful piece by Brahms about sisters - how they sleep in the same bed, share clothes, and everything - but when they fall in love with the same man, that's it! No more sharing! These two performers hammed it up and had so much fun that we all did, too.

Then, this morning, I saw a master class by that same professor. It's always interesting to see a true professional teach. She worked on interesting technical problems with two young singers - one a high school senior (tenor) and the other a college sophmore (mezzo/soprano). In both cases, she talked about using your tongue more than your jaw and about proper posture and breath support. With the older singer, she was a little more specific about resonance placement and diction. In both instances, she retained a very focused approach, firing new things at them at a slow enough pace that they could absorb them but a fast enough pace to distract them from the audience or being nervous. The other important trick for a master class? Always end on a positive note. In both cases, she allowed them to sing the last bit of their piece to great acclaim by her and the audience.

This afternoon, I saw another voice teacher's recital. This was a baritone's performance, and it was tremendous. He sang a multifaceted, difficult set that included music in German, French, and English with some contemporary composers -- John Musto, John Duke, and Charles Ives. It was a challenging program, both for the singer and pianist and for the audience. We loved it, though, especially because it was not only beautifully sung but also beautifully acted. He created such a space around him for each song. And his gestures -- well, I find myself studying gestures in professionals when they do recital work. What do you do with those pesky appendages called arms and the things at the end - hands? In opera, you're given other people and props with which to interact. You often have a physical task to accomplish while you sing. But in art song? It's just you and the piano. You can't "mime" the actions - that's too false - but your gestures can't be exactly like they are in speech because each phrase takes longer to sing than it would to say. Somehow, you have to tune into the rhythm of the composer's conception of the character (rather than your own, as it would be with just spoken acting.) And you have to move your arms, elbows, shoulders, hands, fingers, palms, wrists, thumbs, and all in such a way that it "fits". My professor tonight did just that. And his expression - his body changed palpably from when his was playing an old man (stiff, a halting gait) to when he played a little boy talking about his idol - his dad (youthful countenance, wide eyes, quick movements).

It was a great, great weekend for performances.

~Hope