A Singer’s Life Pt32

There is a famous sporting axiom: ‘Form is temporary, Class is permanent’. It suggests that while a sportsman can have a run of bad form, his true class will always shine through. He/she may not score goals, win titles, run superfast all the time, but at the end of a career, the best will always reveal superiority by their results. A sportsperson will often go on a hot streak but even the best will lose or fail many times. It is in the nature of sport. 

The same cannot be said for singers. We may have the odd off-night when we are under the weather, or we may get a throat ailment and have to cancel, or we may have a crisis in our lives which will cause us to take time off. However, our training and technique are such that we can rely on our instrument to function in the way it is meant to practically every time. Observing some of the best singers in the world over a long career of 40 years, it never ceases to amaze me how extraordinarily consistent they/we are. Some performances are naturally slightly better than others – the audience are extra -reactive, the conductor maybe takes a marginally different course which creates more space for the singers, or you just feel fresher or more vibrant vocally, or perhaps you have met someone extraordinary the day before and feel happier in yourself. Whatever the reason, it’s a special night, but, in general, our standards never fall below the very good. People have paid a lot of money to hear us sing, and by and large, they get their money’s worth, especially from the great stars. Perhaps it is because, apart from the odd singing competition, we are not competing with our colleagues in the opera, and in fact, when a show is great, the opposite is the case. The performance works best when everyone is working together to create something magical on stage. 

We all have huge egos (!?), but these egos are subservient to the whole and singing and acting together make our individual success all the more delightful. We all love our solo bows at the end, but we actually need to be told by managements not to clap our colleagues. Such is our respect for our friends that we often want to celebrate their brilliance, but in reality, it looks self-indulgent and a bit naff. Only if an understudy has stepped up to a major role will the cast applaud him/her at the end. Unless we really hate other singers, and in my experience, I could count colleagues I have particularly disliked on the fingers of one (okay, maybe two) hands, we love to see our friends’ successes as much as our own. I can never understand why actors in straight plays seem to avoid taking individual bows and often seem desperate to get off stage at the end, as if they are embarrassed to have pleased the audience! Similarly, biographies in theatre programmes are supremely tedious in their structure (plays they have appeared in, films they have made, TV they have done) and tell us nothing about the actors themselves, whereas singers’ biogs are usually a decent read. Mind you, I draw the line at some biographies describing the singers as the “best in their generation” or “one of the foremost sopranos (it’s usually sopranos) in the universe” or whatever! How can you write that about yourself and send it to be printed?  

However, we could slightly alter the axiom and say: ‘Celebrity is temporary, while Class is permanent’. This might be more accurate, particularly in the bewildering world of popular classical music, where superstars are made and destroyed by the media, regardless of quality. 

There is a terrible desire now to popularise classical music with people who we, as serious artists, cannot accept. I write, for example, without naming names, about certain Welsh mezzos, Italian blind tenors and double acts of singers with names beginning with B. These persons are good performers, and hugely popular, but would be lucky to get work in a professional opera chorus. Wonderful marketing and sympathetic personalities have turned these singers into a) Stars and b) Very Rich People! However, most of them have never been near an operatic stage in their lives and would be struggling to cope with the pressures of singing full belt while acting convincingly, all without the comfort of a microphone. However, this is sold to the public as ‘Classical Music and Opera’ and is almost impossible to fight against. 

I offer an example: recently, I noticed on my Facebook page a post about one of these ‘classical artists’, extolling their virtue. I assumed, because most of my Facebook friends are proper opera singers, that this post was ironic and meant to give us a bit of a laugh at the way this person was being written about, so I posted a comment in a light-hearted but perhaps slightly sarcastic way, agreeing with the irony. Unfortunately, it had crept on to my stream from a serious believer, and, for about an hour, my page was filled with vitriol about pompous elitists, ignorant over-educated, upper class snobs and more along the same lines. How dare I sneer at their favourites, from my Olympian heights of privilege, when these heroic singers were bringing art to the masses? It is enormously difficult to answer these accusations without appearing to conform to their models, and yet, they are wrong;  we are the serious professionals, and these people are good performers but limited singers, who, by the way, earn thousands more than I or any of my colleagues have earned in a lifetime. I really don’t know how to combat this, particularly in Britain or America. In Europe, there is more cultural awareness, even at school level. Music and art are integrated into the continental psyche, whereas here, we have to fight for every extra pound for the arts, against a constant cry of elitism. In Europe, during the recent Coronavirus pandemic, governments have poured money into the Arts. Here, every penny is begrudged, music tuition is seen as an extra to be paid for rather than an integral part of education, and High Art is seen as highbrow frivolity. It really does not need to be like this. 

For example, when I sang Falstaff in the eponymous opera in Victoria in Canada, the company opened the dress rehearsal to High School kids only. In this case, since the opera was both Verdi’s masterpiece and based on Shakespeare, the local schools were able to prepare the children both musically and in their English classes, so that when they came to the theatre, they were ready to cope with the demands of a romantic opera sung in Italian. They dressed up specially to make an occasion of it, and they absolutely loved it. Luckily, the singer in the title role was a consummate artist at the top of his game...er, er! Anyway, it was greeted by huge cheers and bravos, and everyone left happy. We got a chance to speak to the kids afterwards to show that we were real people. I wish that were possible here in Britain. I took part in a performance of ‘Gianni Schicchi’ at Covent Garden with an audience of schoolchildren, which was also a great success, but these children were upper Primary or early Secondary pupils, selected because they were open to new things. The idea of playing to 16, 17 and 18-year olds would have filled the management with fear, but, actually, this is the age when they should be most receptive, if properly prepared. An opportunity missed, I fear. Similarly, a lot of British opera companies’ outreach programmes involve what I would describe as dumbing down. Jolly 20s and 30s types go into schools and play and sing with children and expect this to lead to an interest in opera. What is needed, in my opinion, is for real opera singers to go into schools and show what we do. We need to show the kids that we are just like their parents, can joke about and have fun, but also are serious artists with big voices and big personalities, who are not dissimilar from their favourite film and TV stars. The old days of Fat Ladies are gone. Most of us look normal and can act as well as many actors, and we need to show this to the kids, dispelling the elitist tag. 

Mind you, as you will have gathered from the preceding articles in ‘A Singer’s Life’, I have been lucky and privileged enough over these 40 years to have met, studied with, worked with and socialised with some of the greatest singers of the past and the present. This is, for me, real celebrity. Wonderful artists who have built their careers over many years, learning as they go along, and gaining experience and wisdom in the process. Performers who have devoted their whole lives to entertaining the public with their fabulous voices and deeply committed acting. These are the genuine article, and sadly, really only known to insiders and their colleagues. Some have been rewarded with honours- Knighthoods and Damehoods in Britain, French chivalric titles, Kammersänger in Germany- but most are simply known and respected by their peers. This is the sort of celebrity that we treasure. 

The famous ‘Three Tenors’ who came to the fore at the 1990 World Cup were genuine superstars, but in a way, Pavarotti’s ubiquity in the media was a huge drawback, as the public was offered a preening, overweight singer in Edwardian costume as ‘The Opera Singer’. He had the most beautiful and perfect voice, but the sight of this oldish figure with a ludicrous handkerchief led the public to think that was the model to look for, and set back our task of bringing real opera to the people. It is a bit like giving top earners in industry even more money, in the hope that they will pay more tax and employ more workers. Instead, they find more ways to keep the money! 

Gwynne Howell

In my own bass niche, I have heard Boris Christoff, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Kurt Moll, Hans Sotin, Ruggiero Raimondi, David Ward, and Forbes Robinson from the audience. As colleagues, I treasure working with Robert Lloyd, John Tomlinson, Ain Anger, Richard van Allen, Brindley Sherratt and my personal favourite, the great Welsh bass, Gwynne Howell. Apart from possessing the most beautiful bass voice I know, Gwynne was a genuinely supportive colleague and friend and, now over 80, I trust he is enjoying a well-earned retirement. Why he is not Sir Gwynne is one of the mysteries of the British Honours system! 

So, there we have the weird world of celebrity in singing in a nutshell. On the one hand, there are the over-hyped and over-paid ‘stars’, most of whom have never been near an operatic stage, all over the media, and then there are the real stars, going about their business of entertaining and interpreting great music, but largely working under the radar.