IF MUSIC WERE FABRIC, opera would be velvet — a deep purple velvet that envelops the listener in poetry, tradition, drama and incomparable, beautiful sound.
Opera is the musical embodiment of drama and romance: the colourful costumes; the poetry; the heroes and heroines brought to life by consummate professionals who memorize music, movements, gestures and lyrics in foreign languages for somebody else’s listening pleasure.
It is perhaps the most difficult of all musical professions. The path to success is long and fraught with hardships. What challenges do aspiring opera singers face? What motivates them to take on such an impossible dream, to be on stage for more than two hours without a microphone?
“When you play a trumpet,” says Kennedy, “the shape of the instrument won’t change; its length won’t change. But whatever you do to your body affects your sound.” He means that the tongue, cheeks, lips and teeth shape the sound and the lungs project it outwards. “When you put this all together, you have a tremendous number of things to synchronize.”
“Because your body is your instrument,” says Cara Gilbertson, a master’s student in the Department of Music’s voice program, “you have to lead a balanced life. Even if there are still hours of music to learn, you can’t fall into the trap of saying ‘I don’t have time to work out. I don’t have time to plan healthy meals.’ If you have a long rehearsal coming up, you have to make sure that you give your voice a rest the previous day. As soon as you stop taking care of yourself, everything else starts to crumble.”
Unlike musicians who reach into their cases for their instruments and start playing, singers must spend many years developing their voices. The heavier, more dramatic the voice, the longer it takes to mature — and if singers take on demanding roles and push their voices too early, they can do irreparable damage. Women’s voices fully develop in their late 20s, and reach their peak at around 40 years of age. Men must wait until they are about 30 for their voices to mature, which peak about 20 years later. Sandra Graham, a voice professor in the department, says this delay gives instrumental musicians a 10-year head start on singers.
Young singers also face a delay in “placing” their voices. A teenage or an early-20-something voice hasn’t settled enough into a specific range. “Voice development is an individual matter,” says Professor Ingemar Korjus, head of the vocal program. “Singers have to experiment to find their range and timbre, which in turn determines which roles they can sing.” The Germans created a codified system for placing voices called “Fach.” The number of classifications is dizzying. A soprano may be a coloratura soprano, a dramatic coloratura soprano, a soubrette, a lyric soprano, a light dramatic soprano, a full dramatic soprano, or a Wagnerian soprano — and that’s just the top of the list. Once singers determine their Fach, they can look up roles in the standard repertoire to find the ones best suited to their voices. “Even so,” says Korjus, “you have to try out the repertoire and rely on your teacher’s advice to make sure that you have the right Fach.”
Opera is drama set to music. It is only natural, therefore, that University of Ottawa’s Opera Workshop productions should turn to the Department of Theatre for assistance. According to Margaret Coderre-Williams, chair of the Department of Theatre, this assistance comes in different forms.“Sometimes we lend props, costumes, furniture or pieces for sets. At other times, we arrange for our students to work on the operas as stage managers, acting coaches, assistants to the director, lighting designers or stage crew. Occasionally, we provide actors.” In the recent production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium, a theatre student, Colin Tierney, played the role of Toby, a deaf-mute.
Is there much difference between being in a stage play and being in an opera? Tierney doesn't think so.''Though seeing an opera and seeing a stage play are different,being in either is quite similar. Directors still go through the same process of rehearsing scenes, making sure actors know their blocking(physical movements of the actor on stage)and lines (or music).''In both cases, so much depends on the director,says Tierney.
It’s one thing to sing — and quite another to sing in a foreign language. The audience must be able to understand the lyrics, making diction a big part of an opera singer’s development. Vocal students take courses in German, French, Italian and English diction and learn how the rules of lyric diction differ from those of ordinary speech. “Mistakes in diction can cost a singer a role,” says Korjus. “If a singer is auditioning in Italian for an Italian conductor, the diction has to be perfect. Nothing less will be acceptable to the maestro.”
Jean-Sébastien points out that to attract audiences, opera productions have come closer to theatre and cinema, especially with the incorporation of multimedia staging techniques. And fitness, co-ordination and agility are even more essential for operatic performances. Case in point: a 2006 production of The Barber of Seville by Ottawa’s Opera Lyra required extremely fast singing while acting in slow motion.
According to Korjus, the days of the prima donna are over. Temper tantrums? Not prepared for a role? Good way to get fired from a production! Worse, they can ruin a singer’s reputation. In the small world of opera, successful singers are known for their professionalism and collegiality. A director or conductor would rather choose a lesser voice if the singer who comes with it is easy to work with and knows the music.
Money can be another problem. According to Professor Korjus, “Opera is a profession that consumes all 24 hours of a singer’s day.” Many, however, have part-time jobs to sustain themselves. At the same time, if they get a role, they must goes to New York twice a year to attend performances and take lessons with a teacher who is well-connected to musical centres in the United States and Europe.
For students in the University of Ottawa’s voice program, the best opportunities for exposure are with Opera Lyra’s Young Artists Training Programme, and with the two opera workshops that Professor Graham stages and directs each year. Last winter’s workshop production was Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, a challenging work of emotional and psychological complexity. It tells the story of Blanche de la Force, a fragile young woman who escapes the terrible world of the French Revolution by joining an order of Carmelite nuns. Blanche struggles with martyrdom when the nuns are condemned to death. To provide opportunities for all her singers, Graham rotated three different casts of the principals through six performances. This year’s workshop production was Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium, performed on the weekend before Halloween. For opera lovers, at $10 a ticket the productions represent one of Ottawa’s great musical bargains. And singers gain the kind of experience that only performing in a full opera can give.
Students with the University’s Opera Workshop regularly stage operas for the Ottawa and University communities. Both Dialogues des Carmélites (above) by Francis Poulenc and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (photo opposite page) were performed in 2007 and 2006 respectively.
So … back to the question of motivation. What compels these young singers to make the enormous effort, the personal sacrifices and the commitment to years of training to pursue a career in opera?
April Babey, a first-year student in the program, sees singing opera as part of something greater than herself. “For a start, you’re part of a great tradition — a 500-year-old tradition. You’re preserving the history. But you’re also part of a co-operative effort. Everyone in the production is working together to make something wonderful.”
For Cara Gilbertson, it has to do with a circle of communication and the magic it creates. “When you have the audience in the palm of your hand, when you see that they’ve been affected by what you do, that’s really exciting.” She feels the electricity flow back and forth between her and the audience, and balloon every time it goes around.
The University of Ottawa’s Opera Workshop will give four performances of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte on February 2 and 3, 2008, in Alumni Auditorium. Professor Sandra Graham, herself an internationally renowned mezzo-soprano, is the stage and music director.
Cosi fan tutte is from opera’s “standard” repertoire — the operas that are performed most often. Three other Mozart operas are included in the repertoire: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute (all have been performed by the University’s Opera Workshop), as well as Puccini’s La Bohème and Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata and Bizet’s Carmen, among others.
For more information about upcoming performances, visit www.music.uOttawa.ca.
Bonnie Cooper, a third-year voice student, says that opera is more than just the singer. “How can I communicate with this composer? What did he feel about this piece? How can I be true to him? How can I use all my gifts as a singer and my craft to help people experience the feeling?” she asks. “It’s as if you’re channelling all this music and making it something the audience can understand.” For her, singing opera is the only thing that makes sense. “This is what I’m meant to do.”
Korjus believes the main reason singers willingly put the work into it and make the necessary sacrifices is because they really, really love it. “You have to love singing, because it’s not a nine-to-five endeavour.”
However, he draws a line between amateurs and professionals. “Singers have to be clear about whether they love singing for its own sake — for the experience of singing music and giving vent to their own passion and soul — or whether they’re motivated to communicate the passion and feelings to their audience.” The first group, Korjus says, are amateurs. Professionals, on the other hand, know how they feel about the music. “Their main goal is to move the audience so that it can share that experience. And that is what motivates them to continue perfecting their art. It’s a never-ending job, really.”
Peter Moskos is a writer and editor based in Vancouver. A life-long opera lover, he took up opera singing late in life.