March 2010

LEARNING REPERTOIRE

For my Metropolitan Opera debut, I had just one month to learn and prepare Don Carlo in La Forza del Destino, with the Met on tour in Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA, not having known one note of it previously. I had the role eighty percent memorized in eighteen days. From my first debut role at New York City Opera, as Schaunard in La Bohème, I taught myself the roles. I play some piano and my languages were good.

First, I first bought a recording of Robert Merrill singing the role, sat at the piano and made sure that he sang every note as written--he had a couple of ones that were suspect--then I played every phrase until I had both the notes and the Italian, time and again, until I got through the whole opera. That took two days.

(I not only learned most of my roles from his recordings ... I learned to how to sing opera from him, by listening to them. I suspect that fate closed the circle when, on Bob’s last tour with the Met, I was his cover for Un Ballo in Maschera ... another role I learned from his recordings, for my first performances of the role at NYCO.)

The next order of business was to put the role of Don Carlo and all music thereto appertaining, in proper sequence on my cassette recorder. I recorded Bob singing every phrase of the role, scene after scene. If the tempo was a fast lead in, I would usually allow a four to six bar intro and for a slower tempo, one or two bars, so that I had all of the relative music on tape, with the counter numbers listed for each phrase, put at the appropriate phrase in the score. I then sat down in my “lounger” and started at the beginning, singing each phrase, "sotto voce" ... nothing higher than a middle D before taking it down an octave, then reversing when it got too low ... repeating each phrase until I comfortably flowed through it at least twice, before moving on to the next. In the Met’s production, my role started with the juxtaposed "Studente" scene.) I got through the whole opera the first day/night. The next day it only took about six hours, the next four, and so on. (The reason for the “sotto voce” is obvious; I could work on memorizing the opera all day and into the night ... without appreciably tiring my voice.)

I had developed the discipline early on, of learning my roles with a minimum of vocal energy expended, resisting the impulse ‘to hear how it sounded and felt to sing it.’ When you know the words, the notes ... it is so much easier to program the singing of a role than when your attention is divided between those two things.

Early in my career, I was learning four to six operas a year, as well as the one or two Musicals or Operetta’s I would sang in Summer Stock. I never, ever wore myself out, singing music before I knew it! My rule of thumb was to never sing one note of an opera fully, until I had it, arbitrarily eighty percent memorized! That's how I memorized La Forza! When I had the eighty percent, it only took me two/three days to sing it into my voice.

I then went to the Met for a coaching with legendary Alberta Masiello–who smoked a cigarillo through the first fifteen minutes–for my first coaching with a piano. I was a bit amused at the cigarillo and ... missed my first cue with her. That made me laugh-out-loud, so I lamely said, “Hey ... why don’t we try that again.” We easily got through the first two acts in an hour. We were going to have another coaching for the little bit in Act three ... but when I called, I found she had signed me off for the performance. She had no idea I had never sung it before ... nor did anyone at the Met. And ... not incidentally ... It was the best performance of my life!
Oh … not incidentally … I tell all of my Musical Comedy and Pop folk to sit down and learn their songs the same way … I’m afraid it mostly falls on deaf ears … except when they have to do it for money … of a Jury at college.

 

FEBRUARY 10 - THE TIGHT JAW

JANUARY 10 - BALANCING THE VOICE

DECEMBER 09 - LOVE CAN REIGN - LINK

NOVEMBER 09 - ABSENCE OF EXCESSIVE TENSION

OCTOBER 09 - YOUR OTHER BEST FRIEND - YOUR MIRROR

 SEPTEMBER 09 - EVERYONE CAN SING!

AUGUST 09 - LATENT HERNIAS AND OTHER SUPPORT PROBLEMS

JULY 09 - PRINCE IMRAN RAZA STATESMAN/ROCK STAR

 JUNE 09 - ANOTHER NATURAL SINGER - DAVID BURKE

MAY 09 -DISCOVERY OF VOICE

 APRIL 09 - I'M SICK, BUT I HAVE TO PERFORM TONIGHT  Part 2

MARCH 09 - I'M SICK, BUT I HAVE TO PERFORM TONIGHT

FEBRUARY 09 - SINGING IN ENGLISH

JANUARY 09 - GETTING AN AGENT AND/OR MANAGER (Part 4)

DECEMBER 08 - GETTING AN AGENT AND/OR MANAGER (Part 3)

NOVEMBER 08 - GETTING AN AGENT AND/OR MANAGER (Part 2)

OCTOBER 08 - GETTING AN AGENT AND/OR MANAGER (Part 1)

SEPTEMBER 08 - HEAVY BREATHING ADVISED FOR JOCKS
AUGUST 08 -  THE VAGARIES OF AUDITIONS AND AUDITIONING (Part 3)

JULY 08 - THE VAGARIES OF AUDITIONS AND AUDITIONING (Part 2)

JUNE 08 - THE VAGARIES OF AUDITIONS AND AUDITIONING (Part 1)
MAY 08 - ABSENCE OF TENSION

APRIL 08 - THE FLAT TONGUE TECHNIQUE AND HOW DO YOU MAKE A VOWEL

 MARCH 08  - THE VOICE COACHING THAT  MADE MY CAREER
FEBRUARY 08 - WHAT ARE YOU SINGING?

 JANUARY 08 - VIBRATO/WOBBLE

DECEMBER 07 - BREATHING REVISITED
NOVEMBER  07 - HOW TO KILL A COLD IN FIVE DAYS

 OCTOBER 07 - A BIT MORE SUPPORT

 SEPTEMBER 07 - MORE SUPPORT
AUGUST 07 - INTRO & BREATHING/SUPPORT