How to sing opera !
‘What do you do ?’ … ‘Oh I’m an Opera singer!’
A stony silence falls as the questioners’ mind conjures up the image of a large lady bearing her breasts and tonsils whilst bawling Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyrie.
So, how can one answer any other way ? ‘I’m a lieder singer’ or ‘I’m a concert singer’ or ‘I do a bit of all sorts really, depending on who will pay me !’ Fortunately I don’t have that problem anymore, as I now fall into the safe bracket of singing teacher, and everybody understands that one.
But, how do you sing Opera and what sets it apart. It could probably be summed up in one lesson I had with the Spanish tenor Eduardo Asquez, when he pronounced ‘Your voice is like a peacock, do not twist it !’.
So lesson 101 is to sing everything with the same voice. You might be saying, who else’s voice am I going to sing with ? Well it’s quite surprising how some singers change their aural perception and vocal technique when asked to sing an operatic aria. I know, because I was one of those, among many of my contemporaries. We sort of took on these operatic characters and blustered our way through the drama with very little regard to what we were putting our voices through: tight tongue roots, overworked abdominals and contorted facial features !
So I invite the reader to hum a favourite tune. It could be something as simple as ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Amazing Grace’. Catch yourself when you’re doing that shower or bath singing ! Now consider the following:
Is my body showing any tightness ?
Is my breath flowing consistently ?
Does the voice feel relatively free ?
Am I enjoying the process ?
Now switch the tune to a line or two of your favourite operatic aria. We have to assume that it’s probably not going to be the last page with a climactic high Bb. That’s a goal, but definitely not the first step. So for a soprano, you might consider singing the opening bars of ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ or for the tenors, the beginning of ‘Nessun dorma’ and consider the following:
Is my body showing any tightness ?
Is my breath flowing consistently ?
Does the voice feel relatively free ?
Am I enjoying the process ?
So, although we all know that operatic arias pose immense challenges, the first step is never to twist the voice, or think that you have to do something special in order to sing a series of notes in a different order and of varying time values. Sustaining sound is something to build upon. Upward intervals call upon stamina, correct placement and breath flow. High pianissimi notes definitely fall into a special category of practice. But these are all attainable over time when they come from the simplicity of Opera Lesson 101.
Is my body showing any tightness ?
Is my breath flowing consistently ?
Does the voice feel relatively free ?
Am I enjoying the process ?
Now go find your favourite operatic aria !