A Singer’s Life: Preparation Pt3

I remarked at the end of Preparation, Part 2 that almost all of this time-consuming preparation work is unpaid. When people moan about how much singers are paid, and they do, it is forgotten how much work goes into a single contract before a penny or a cent is paid. When you add in the years of training at music college, often at quite considerable expense, it becomes clear that, except at the very peak of a singer’s success, with, say, a leading role at a major international house, we do not do what we do for the money. As I wrote earlier, we often find ourselves living for up to two months in an expensive foreign city, having to pay up-front for accommodation and food. Things are slightly better in the UK, as we usually receive some living expenses, but not in any way enough to survive without expenditure of our own. As my colleague Beth Taylor explained in the interview I did with her on the EMR, the disaster that is Brexit has made matters worse. Now, in many countries, we have to guarantee that we have funds to live adequately for several weeks of rehearsals before we can even finalise a contract, and this involves providing bank statements and affidavits up front. 

This is why many of us rage against the common idea that some of the most hyped and marketed singers of the present day who are sold to the public as “opera singers”, are nothing of the sort, with no training, no experience and average talent. As I have said before on these Blogs, there is simply no way that anyone can become a successful opera singer without years of training, practice and damned hard work, mostly unpaid. Yes, we can find ourselves reasonably well off in the long run, but it really is true that most of our sense of fulfilment comes from the applause of the audience, the enormous privilege we have to sing some of the greatest music ever written, and the marvellous camaraderie of working together in pursuit of a goal of excellence. Once or twice in a career can we say that we have reached near perfection, and what a feeling that is! I suppose that’s the main reason we do it, since, unlike sport for example, there is really no competitive element. We can strive for that elusive perfection, like a 10 in gymnastics or a world record in athletics, but not at the expense of someone else. There are no winners or losers, and the clichés about “luvvies” and “darlings” are real, to the extent that the best performances are shared triumphs, at the service of the great composers whose music we are interpreting. 

In Part 2 I took you to the point where we singers were beginning to feel comfortable with the vocal lines we were learning. At this stage, we have worked out all the linguistic nuances of the libretto and are feeling ready to move on to the next phase, the mysterious interpretative bit. This is the most difficult time to write about, as each singer will have his or her own method of moving forward. Two elements predominate here: the vocal side and the interpretative side. Each is separate from the other, but they have to be worked on in tandem, as they have to co-exist to produce the finished article. We need to be completely free technically to work on the interpretation, so at this point (and here I am speaking personally, other singers may have different routines) I start to “sing in” the role. In other words, up to this stage, learning the notes has been largely accomplished without full voice being needed. In fact, over-singing at this stage can be damaging vocally, and we have to be constantly aware that our vocal chords are very brittle and easily strained. Here it is worth mentioning that singing is the only sort of music-making which is completely free from any manual dexterity. The whole process of singing takes place unseen, hidden in the folds of our throats. The shape of our heads, the space inside the mouth, the well-honed breathing apparatus in our torso, with lungs and muscles, particularly the diaphragm muscle, working in synch, all of these are the equivalent of fingering, bowing, blowing or scraping for an instrumentalist. The vocal chords are really tiny and apparently insignificant, and yet, utterly crucial. They are capable of frequent use but are enormously fragile. Almost every singer will have some sort of story associated with problems with the chords, and we constantly have to be aware of colds and flu. The common cold can do awful things to the throat and the chords, albeit over a short period, but if you are afflicted, it can ruin a performance or a series of performances. Sometimes we can sing through a cold, and often, surprisingly, it can briefly free us up, but more often it is a serious short-term problem. The general rule, which I was taught right at the beginning of my career, is that when it hurts to swallow, you should not sing, for there is the danger of lasting damage and long-term harm.  This can also be quite traumatic, as cancelling a performance means losing money. To bowdlerise Bob Marley’s “No woman, no cry”, our mantra is “No sing, no pay!” If you have spent 6 weeks rehearsing for two, three or four shows, and you are struck down the night before the first night, you might lose thousands of pounds, as you will have had to pay for accommodation and food for those rehearsal weeks, and you won’t be paid for the shows you miss. Insurance is unrealistic, and managements can’t afford to be social services (even if they were so inclined!). In Britain, at least, and in North America, there is a fully operational understudy system, so if you have to cancel, you will know that someone (hopefully good but not as good as you) will have been rehearsed and prepared to go on in your place. In most European houses, this is not the case, so if you can’t sing, total panic ensues, as the management trawls the agencies for someone to step in. If the opera is a standard repertoire piece, this is not too difficult, especially if you give notice of your ailment. However, if the opera is rarely performed or you are struck down on the day of a show, all hell is let loose. You, as well as feeling ill, feel terrible for letting down your colleagues, but you know yourself when you can get away with struggling on at limited capacity, or simply can’t sing. 

It is actually quite rare, and therefore surprising, that one has to cancel a performance, although there are some famous singers who are more prone to it than others. On the other hand, there are several singers on the circuit who are well-known for their ability to “Jump in” at a moment’s notice. The Germans, inevitably, have a word for this talent - “Einspringen”, and for the person - “Ein Einspringer!” I have never been any good at this. My memorisation technique is such that I can retain one or two roles in the memory bank at any given time, but once a contract is over, I have an unofficial delete button in my brain, which consigns the old role to the “deleted posts” or “trash” section! I need at least a week to recover the information previously stored, and as such am useless for einspringen. 

I must say that I have been incredibly lucky over the 40 plus years of my career, and have rarely had to cancel, but it is a constant worry. Only once have I had a major problem. In the early Noughties, I was rather stressed by the onset of Alzheimer’s in my parents, resulting in them both having to go into a care home, and, almost simultaneously I was making my debut in Germany in the enormous role of Baron Ochs in ‘Der Rosenkavalier’. I was away for some weeks, and I felt I had to sing the role into my voice during rehearsals, which involved singing a lot. It is one of the longest roles in opera, with a huge range and a large orchestra, so I must have overdone it a bit. After one of the shows, I had just returned to Edinburgh, when I got a call to rush to the care home, as my father was nearing the end. Now I had to applaud his timing, because he kept going until I saw him straight from the airport, and he died a few hours later. He also managed to die when I had a couple of weeks before I needed to be back in Germany for the next performance, allowing me, as the only child, time and space to organise the funeral and all the essential legal requirements. Since there was no understudy, I had to go back in time to sing the next show. This whole very stressful episode resulted in me suddenly, a few months later, finding it impossible to sing above middle C, without a buzzing and rattling in my voice.  As I explained earlier, there is almost nothing to see with the vocal chords, except by slipping a wire with a camera attached down your nose into your throat, an experience I don’t recommend. Fortunately, Fran had a private medical insurance scheme from the Bank of Scotland which included me, and I was sent to the best throat specialist in Britain at Blackheath in London for an operation. It transpired that I had polyps on my chords, which were seriously interfering with my voice. The operation was successful, but I had to remain silent for some weeks, and communicate by written notes. Luckily, the diary was free for a couple of months. 

However, towards the end of my Trappist phase, I decided to go up to St Andrew to watch a day’s play in the Dunhill Golf Competition there, expecting a pleasant day in the fresh air, keeping quiet. Unfortunately, as I was strolling along happily, a wayward ball came flying out of the air and landed a glancing blow on my head. Dear reader, my silent period was broken by many an unseemly oath and yell. It transpired that one of the amateurs (it is a pro-am competition), indeed not just any amateur but the secretary of the Royal and Ancient Club, had so sliced his shot that he was miles off-line. He was most grateful to me for stopping his ball landing in a gorse bush. In fact he was more grateful than apologetic! Anyway, my purdah was well and truly over, and I must report that the operation left me even better than before, so some good came from the whole process. 

My enforced break was short-lived and I returned to singing soon after, and I sometimes wonder if there had been some other problem lurking in my throat for some time, as I soon was singing roles which were bigger and higher than those before. Who knows?  Recently, with a heart valve replacement, and then my fractured vertebra. I had to cancel several contracts, and I have decided that my opera career has come to an end, after 40 great years. No regrets! 

I want to explain the final stage of the preparation process now – the memorisation. Having learned the notes and worked out the words, and having decided on the way I want to interpret those words and music, the last piece in the jigsaw is to commit them to memory, in order to be able to act and interact with total freedom in rehearsal and on stage. This bit is the mystery phase and I imagine all singers will have different ways of doing it. I can’t really describe how it works, other than using that funny word ‘osmosis’, as one simply sings over and over with a piano or with a recording, on one’s own, and waits. Wait for what, you ask? Well, for the miracle to occur. For about a week, you think you can never possibly learn this role, especially if it is long, and doubts creep in. Then, one night, you lie in bed and think through the role in your head, and there it is. Memorised! The next day, you go to sing it through, and it is there, stored in the memory bank, for use over the next few weeks and months. It is a thing of wonder and astonishment, and I don’t know whether it is the same for others, but that’s my system.  

This slow assimilation system is also, for me, why the recent vogue for semi-staged concert versions of operas, where you avoid the weeks of rehearsal and simply (simply?) turn up a few days before the concert with the opera fully memorised, is so awful. Managements have no idea how hard it is just to turn up and perform from memory, without the chance to make mistakes away from the public. I suppose it’s all about money, but I hate it.  

Well, there we are. I hope these articles give you some insight into how we go about presenting you, the audience, with the finished product of a fully staged opera. As you can see, it’s a slow, drawn-out process, largely unpaid for a long time, but which we hope will give you something magical at the end.