Read Ebook: Ristiriitoja: Novelleja by Anttila Selma

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The author and composer are then called in to meet the impresario and myself for a final consultation. We now finally criticize our plans, making any alterations which may seem necessary to us. When these alterations are completed the plans are handed over to the carpenter, who immediately starts making his frames and covering them with canvas, working from the scale model. The scenic artist is now able to commence his work in earnest.

The "properties" are our next consideration. Sketches and patterns are made, authorities are consulted, and everything possible is done to aid the Property Master in doing his part of the work.

Unless the opera in question calls for special mechanical effects, or special stage machinery, the scene is adapted to the stage as it is. If anything exceptional has to be achieved, however, special machinery is constructed.

The designing of the costumes is gone over in much the same way as the construction of the scenery. The period in which the opera is laid, the various characters and their station in life, are all well talked over by the composer, author and myself. The costume designer is then called in, and after listening to what every one has to say and reading the libretto, he submits his designs. These, when finished, are criticized by the impresario, the composer, the author and myself, and any suggestion which will improve them is accepted by the designer, and alterations are made until everything is satisfactory. The designs are then sent to the costume maker.

The important matter of lighting and electrical effects is not dealt with until after the scenery has been completed, painted and set up on the stage, except in the case when exceptional effects are demanded. The matter is then carefully discussed and arranged so that the apparatus will be ready by the time the earlier rehearsals are taking place.

The staff required by a Technical Director in such an institution as the Metropolitan Opera House is necessarily a large one. He needs an able scenic artist with his assistants and an efficient carpenter with his assistants to complete the scenic arrangements as indicated in the models. The completed scenery is delivered over to the stage carpenter who has a large body of assistants, and is held responsible for the running of the opera during rehearsals and performances. The stage carpenter has also under his control a body of carpenters who work all night, commencing their duties after the opera is over, removing all the scenery used in the opera just finished from the opera house and bringing from the various storehouses the scenery required for the next performance or rehearsal. The electrician is an important member of my staff, and he, of course, has a number of assistants. The Property Master and his assistants and the Wardrobe Mistress and her assistants also are extremely important. Then the active engineer who is responsible for the heating and ventilating, and also for many of the stage effects, is another necessary and important member. In all, the Opera House, when in full swing, requires for the technical or stage detail work alone about 185 people.

IMPORTANT REHEARSALS

While the head musical director is engaged with the principals and the orchestra, the Chorus-master spends his time training the chorus. If his work is not efficiently done, the entire production is greatly impeded. The assistant conductors undertake the work of rehearsing the soloists prior to their appearance in connection with the orchestra. They must know the Head Director's ideas perfectly, and see that the soloists do not introduce interpretations which are too much at variance with his ideas and the accepted traditions. In all about ten rehearsals are given to a work in a room set aside for that purpose, then there are five stage rehearsals, and finally four full ensemble rehearsals with orchestra. In putting on an old work, such as those in the standard repertoire, no rehearsals are demanded.

The musical forces of the Metropolitan Opera House, for instance, make a company of at least two leading conductors, twelve assistant conductors, about ninety soloists, a chorus numbering at least one hundred and twenty-five singers, thirty musicians for stage music, about twenty stage attendants and an orchestra of from eighty to one hundred performers, to say nothing of the costume, scenic and business staff, making a little industry all in itself.

The General Director, the Stage Manager, and often the Musical Director make innumerable suggestions to the singers regarding the proper histrionic presentation of their r?les. As a rule singers give too little attention to the dramatic side of their work and demand too much of the stage manager. In recent years there has been a great improvement in this. Prior to the time of Gluck, Weber and Wagner, acting in opera was a matter of ridicule.

THE BALLET

At a modern opera house like the Metropolitan in New York City the number of employees will be between six hundred and seven hundred, and the cost of a season will be about one million dollars.

FRANCES ALDA

BIOGRAPHICAL

WHAT THE AMERICAN GIRL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AN OPERATIC CAREER

MME. FRANCES ALDA

REGULARITY AND SUCCESS

To the girl who aspires to have an operatic career, who has the requisite vocal gifts, physical health, stage presence and--most important of all--a high degree of intelligence, the great essential is regular daily work. This implies regular lessons, regular practice, regular exercise, regular sleep, regular meals--in fact, a life of regularity. The daily lesson in most cases seems an imperative necessity. Lessons strung over a series of years merely because it seems more economical to take one lesson a week instead of seven rarely produce the expected results. Marchesi, with her famous wisdom on vocal matters, advised twenty minutes a day and then not more than ten minutes at a time.

For nine months I studied with the great Parisian maestra and in my tenth month I made my d?but. Of course, I had sung a great deal before that time and also could play both the piano and the violin. A thorough musical knowledge is always valuable. The early years of the girl who is destined for an operatic career may be much more safely spent with Czerny exercises for the piano or Kreutzer studies for the violin than with Concone Solfeggios for the voice. Most girls over-exercise their voices during the years when they are too delicate. It always pays to wait and spend the time in developing the purely musical side of study.

MODERATION AND GOOD SENSE

THE PRECIOUS HEAD VOICE

Marchesi laid great stress upon the use of the head voice. This she illustrated to all her pupils herself, at the same time not hesitating to insist that it was impossible for a male teacher to teach the head voice properly. She never let any pupil sing above F on the top line of the treble staff in anything but the head voice. They rarely ever touched their highest notes with full voice. The upper part of the voice was conserved with infinite care to avoid early breakdowns. Even when the pupils sang the top notes they did it with the feeling that there was still something in reserve. In my operatic work at present I feel this to be of greatest importance. The singer who exhausts herself upon the top notes is neither artistic nor effective.

THE AMERICAN GIRL'S CHANCES IN OPERA

The American girl who fancies that she has less chances in opera than her sisters of the European countries is silly. Look at the lists of artists at the Metropolitan, for instance. The list includes twice as many artists of American nationality as of any other nation. This is in no sense the result of pandering to the patriotism of the American public. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. New Yorkers demand the best opera in the world and expect the best voices in the world. The management would accept fine artists with fine voices from China or Africa or the North Pole if they were forthcoming. A diamond is a diamond no matter where it comes from. The management virtually ransacks the musical marts of Europe every year for fine voices. Inevitably the list of American artists remains higher. On the whole, the American girls have better natural voices, more ambition and are willing to study seriously, patiently and energetically. This is due in a measure to better physical conditions in America and in Australia, another free country that has produced unusual singers. What is the result? America is now producing the best and enjoying the best. There is more fine music of all kinds now in New York during one week than one can get in Paris in a month and more than one can get in Milan in six months. This has made New York a great operatic and musical center. It is a wonderful opportunity for Americans who desire to enter opera.

THE NEED FOR SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE

There was a time in the halcyon days of the old coloratura singers when the opera singer was not expected to have very much more intelligence than a parrot. Any singer who could warble away at runs and trills was a great artist. The situation has changed entirely to-day. The modern opera-goer demands great acting as well as great singing. The opera house calls for brains as well as voices. There should properly be great and sincere rivalry among fine singers. The singer must listen to other singers with minute care and patience, and then try to learn how to improve herself by self-study and intelligent comparison. Just as the great actor studies everything that pertains to his r?le, so the great singer knows the history of the epoch of the opera in which he is to appear, he knows the customs, he may know something of the literature of the time. In other words, he must live and think in another atmosphere before he can walk upon the stage and make the audience feel that he is really a part of the picture. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree gave a presentation that was convincing and beautiful, while the mediocre actor, not willing to give as much brain work to his performance, falls far short of an artistic performance.

PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND SINGING

Few singers seem to realize that an operatic career will be determined in its success very largely through physical strength, all other factors being present in the desired degree. That is, the singer must be strong physically in order to succeed in opera. This applies to women as well as to men. No one knows what the physical strain is, how hard the work and study are. In front of you is a sea of highly intelligent, cultured people, who for years have been trained in the best traditions of the opera. They pay the highest prices paid anywhere for entertainment. They are entitled to the best. To face such an audience and maintain the high traditions of the house through three hours of a complicated modern score is a musical, dramatic and intellectual feat that demands, first of all, a superb physical condition. Every day of my life in New York I go for a walk, mostly around the reservoir in Central Park, because it is high and the air is pure and free. As a result I seldom have a cold, even in mid-winter. I have not missed a performance in eight years, and this, of course, is due to the fact that my health is my first daily consideration.

PASQUALE AMATO

BIOGRAPHICAL

MODERN VOCAL METHODS IN ITALY

PASQUALE AMATO

When I was about sixteen years of age my voice was sufficiently settled to encourage my friends and family to believe that I might become a singer. This is a proud discovery for an Italian boy, as singing--especially operatic singing--is held in such high regard in Italy that one naturally looks forward with joy to a career in the great opera houses of one's native country and possibly to those over the sea. At eighteen I was accordingly entered in the conservatory, but not without many conditions, which should be of especial interest to young American vocal students. The teachers did not immediately accept me as good vocal material. I was recognized to have musical inclinations and musical gifts and I was placed under observation so that it might be determined whether the state-supported conservatory should direct my musical education along vocal lines or along other lines.

This is one of the cardinal differences between musical education in America and musical education in Italy. In America a pupil suddenly determines that he is destined to become a great opera singer and forthwith he hires a teacher to make him one. He might have been destined to become a plumber, or a lawyer, or a comedian, but that has little to do with the matter if he has money and can employ a teacher. In Italy such a direction of talents would be considered a waste to the individual and to the state. Of course the system has its very decided faults, for a corps of teachers with poor or biased judgment could do a great deal of damage by discouraging real talent, as was, indeed, the case with the great Verdi, who at the age of eighteen was refused admission to the Milan Conservatory by the director, Basili, on the score of lack of talent.

However, for the most part the judges are experienced and skilful men, and when a pupil has been under surveillance for some time the liability of an error in judgment is very slight. Accordingly, after I had spent some time in getting acquainted with music through the study of Notation, Sight-singing, Theory, Harmony, Piano, etc., I was informed at the end of two years that I had been selected for an operatic career. I can remember the time with great joy. It meant a new life to me, for I was certain that with the help of such conservative masters I should succeed.

On the whole, at this time, I consider the Italian system a very wise one for it does not fool away any time with incompetence. I have met so many young musicians who have shown indications of great study but who seem destitute of talent. It seems like coaxing insignificant shrubs to become great oak trees. No amount of coaxing or study will give them real talent if they do not have it, so why waste the money of the state and the money of the individual upon it. On the other hand, wherever in the world there is real talent, the state should provide money to develop it, just as it provides money to educate the young.

ITALIAN VOCAL TEACHING

So much has been said about the Old Italian Vocal Method that the very name brings ridicule in some quarters. Nothing has been the subject for so much charlatanry. It is something that any teacher, good or bad, can claim in this country. Every Italian is of course very proud indeed of the wonderful vocal traditions of Italy, the centuries of idealism in search of better and better tone production. There are of course certain statements made by great voice teachers of other days that have been put down and may be read in almost any library in large American cities. But that these things make a vocal method that will suit all cases is too absurd to consider. The good sense of the old Italian master would hold such a plan up to ridicule. Singing is first of all an art, and an art can not be circumscribed by any set of rules or principles.

The artist must, first of all, know a very great deal about all possible phases of the technic of his art and must then adjust himself to the particular problem before him. Therefore we might say that the Italian method was a method and then again that it was no method. As a matter of fact it is thousands of methods--one for each case or vocal problem. For instance, if I were to sing by the same means that Mr. Caruso employs it would not at all be the best thing for my voice, yet for Mr. Caruso it is without question the very best method, or his vocal quality would not be in such superb condition after constant years of use. He is the proof of his own method.

I should say that the Italian vocal teacher teaches, first of all, with his ears. He listens with the greatest possible intensity to every shade of tone-color until his ideal tone reveals itself. This often requires months and months of patience. The teacher must recognize the vocal deficiencies and work to correct them. For instance, I never had to work with my high tones. They are to-day produced in the same way in which I produced them when I was a boy. Fortunately I had teachers who recognized this and let it go at that.

Possibly the worst kind of a vocal teacher is the one who has some set plan or device or theory which must be followed "willy-nilly" in order that the teacher's theories may be vindicated. With such a teacher no voice is safe. The very best natural voices have to follow some patent plan just because the teacher has been taught in one way, is inexperienced, and has not good sense enough to let nature's perfect work alone. Both of my teachers knew that my high tones were all right and the practice was directed toward the lower tones. They worked me for over ten months on scales and sustained tones until the break that came at E flat above the Bass Clef was welded from the lower tones to the upper tones so that I could sing up or down with no ugly break audible.

I was drilled at first upon the vowel "ah." I hear American vocal authorities refer to "ah" as in father. That seems to me too flat a sound, one lacking in real resonance. The vowel used in my case in Italy and in hundreds of other cases I have noted is a slightly broader vowel, such as may be found half-way between the vowel "ah" as in father, and the "aw" as in law. It is not a dull sound, yet it is not the sound of "ah" in father. Perhaps the word "doff" or the first syllable of Boston, when properly pronounced, gives the right impression.

When the singer once acquires proficiency, the acquisition of new r?les comes very easy indeed. The main difficulty is the daily need for drilling the voice until it has the same quality every day. It can be done only by incessant attention. Here are some of the exercises I do every day with my accompanist:

DAVID BISPHAM

BIOGRAPHICAL

THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF INTERPRETATION

DAVID BISPHAM

So many things enter into the great problem of interpretation in singing that it is somewhat difficult to state definitely just what the young singer should consider the most important. Generally speaking, the following factors are of prime significance:

Good education has often been responsible for the phenomenal success of American singers in European opera houses. Before the last war, in nearly all of the great operatic centers of the Continent, one found Americans ranking with the greatest artists in Europe. This was a most propitious condition, for it meant that American audiences have been compelled to give the long-delayed recognition to our own singers, and methods of general and vocal education.

In most cases the young people of America who aspire to operatic triumphs come from a somewhat better class than singers do in Europe. They have had, in most cases, better educational, cultural and home advantages than the average European student. Their minds are trained to study intelligently; they are acquainted with the history of the great nations of the world; their tastes are cultivated, and they are filled with the American energy which is one of the marvels of the centuries. More than this, they have had a kind of moral uplift in their homes which is of immense value to them. They have higher ideals in life, they are more businesslike and they keep their purposes very clearly in view. This has created jealousy in some European centers; but it is simply a case of the survival of the fittest, and Europe was compelled to bow in recognition of this. Vocal art in our own land is no longer to be ignored, for our standards are as high as the highest in the world, and we are educating a race of singers of which any country might be proud.

The matter of securing vocal flexibility should not be postponed too long, but may in many instances be taken up in conjunction with the studies in tone production, after the first principles have been learned. Thereafter one enters upon the endless and indescribably interesting field of securing a repertoire. Only a teacher with wide experience and intimacy with the best in the vocal literature of the world can correctly grade and select pieces suitable to the ever-changing needs of the pupil.

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