Los Angeles herald., 1908-04-07

1
career is bad singing.
"Now, how to insure good singing:
OF course, there is only one way tc
sing, and that Is the right way. There
| is only one kind Of person that car
sing, and that is real singer. You may
| talk and write about singers and theiI
work from now until doomsday, and II
will not carry ore iota of weight as
| against a simple song, beautifully
sung; and yet 1t Is necessary to talk
| in order to inculcate Ideas and intill
into the minds of beginners certain
| doctrines-the A, B, G of their art.
The teacher finds that some who try
are not singers. and never will be or
can be. Others have the power, only 1t
needs to be brought out Others have
voices and nothing besides-'Vox ct
practera nihil.'
MANY, indeed most singers, think
they are called, but few find they are
chosen. OF course, voice is necessary.
We all remember Rossini's three essen
tials for a singer: First. voice; Sec
ond, voice, and third, voice. That was
doubtless true then, but more is re-
quired in this day, and in this city, than
ever before in any other part of the
world, with the single exception of Co
vent Garden, London, where the con-
ditions are practically the same.
Besides a beautiful voice, high or
der of intelligence must exist II singer
is to extend his sphere of operations
beyond limited circle of roles. The
same may be said of the necessity for
the acquisition of the various Ian
guages in which song'i is usually heard.
not forgetting our own, while nova
days the singer who is not also a good
actor is almost unwelcome to our au-
diences.
breathing seems to be the especial
stumbling block for both master and
pupil alike. However, 1t is to the singer
what the bow arm is to the violinist-
absolutely essential where any real
work Is expected.
Jenny Lind, whom I personally
knew when she was an aged lady, had
no patience with the new tangled
deep breathing. She said the chest was
made for that purpose, and acted ac-
cordingly, and wonderful in her prime
was her breath control. There was
never a doubt of that; but the public
of fifty or sixty years ago thought lit
tie of those matters. The voice was all
with them, and we have only to take
rapid glance at the condition preva-
lent then to recognize how enormously
our own field of operation has broad
ened. We must act accordingly. Sing
ers were Jenny Linds and Pattis-or
they were not, just as now they are
Melbas and Tetrazzinis, or they are
not; but that was for the one kind of
singing that generally prevailed at that
time. Now there are so many other
kinds, and the requirements of the
stage are so vast that while a Sem
brich will cover a wide space, Lilli
Lehman will overlap g. large part of
that and cover new ground in other di-
rections. Yet. they all must and do,
sing after one fashion or another, to
the great satisfaction of the public,
which admires this or that school of
music in which they prefer to hear
their favorites.
"It would be interesting to know the
vocal process of the voice education of
Caruso. Maybe he just sang. as so
many of his countrymen do. We never
heard Caruso during his years of work
at home, or in st. Petersburg, or In
South America. Yet the same voice
was there, and the illuminating grace
of experience has in these latter days
made for him name by which he
will be remembered for generations.
Even in his case, however, let no pupil
think that it has been all play-all beer
and skittles.
"Tamagno was another type of great
voice which came to its own by its
own methods. No master could teach
him much of voice culture. Vanuccini
said he 'bleated like a goat and told
him so. His musical education, not
withstanding his enormous vogue in
'Otello' and other italian operas,
where volume of voice was the princi-
pal requisite, was so limited that, to
my knowledge, when he was engaged
to sing a performance of Rossinfs
'Stabat Mater in Florence, he not
only did not know the music, but had
never even heard Of 1t before! He sang
it, however. with the greatest success,
no such effect having been created by
any singer in my experience OF ora
torio as in his rendering of the 'CuJus
Amman
"Jean de Reszke was of the stuff that
I would like to see more tenors and all
other singers made of. His career was
the outcome of sheer intelligence.
1.-THE first of the general principles I
take to be breath, which I hold to be
the alpha and omega of song, the mid
die and both ends of the art. By art
mean not only that of singing but of
speaking, whether from the platform
or the pulpit, at the bar or upon the
stage.
"Were we all made alike we would
all sing alike. AS a matter of fact,
we are all made alike only up to a cer-
tain point, and on general principles.
Through ages nature has formed Ital-
ians so that 1t is plain to the eye that
man or woman Is an italian, and
upon hearing an Italian sing without
seeing him you would say: 'Ohl that's
an Italians voice The same is appli-