Great Singers on the Art of Singing Part 19

_BREAKFAST Two or more gla.s.ses of Cold Water (not ice water) Ham and Eggs Coffee Toast._

_MID-DAY DINNER Soup Some Meat Order A Vegetable Plenty of Salad Fruit._

_SUPPER A Sandwich Fruit._

Such a menu I find ample for the heaviest kind of professional work. If I eat more, my work may deteriorate, and I know it.

Fresh air, sunshine, sufficient rest and daily baths in tepid water night and morning are a part of my regular routine. I lay special stress upon the baths. Nothing invigorates the singer as much as this.

Avoid very cold baths, but see to it that you have a good reaction after each bath. There is nothing like such a routine as this to avoid colds.

If you have a cold try the same remedies to try to get rid of it. To me, one day at Atlantic City is better for a cold than all the medicine I can take. I call Atlantic City my cold doctor. Of course, there are many other sh.o.r.e resorts that may be just as helpful, but when I can do so I always make a bee line for Atlantic City the moment I feel a serious cold on the way.

Sensible singers know now that they must avoid alcohol, even in limited quant.i.ties, if they desire to be in the prime of condition and keep the voice for a long, long time. Champagne particularly is poison to the singer just before singing. It seems to irritate the throat and make good vocal work impossible. I am sorry for the singer who feels that some spur like champagne or a cup of strong coffee is desirable before going upon the stage.

It amuses me to hear girls say, "I would give anything to be a great singer"; and then go and lace themselves until they look like Jersey mosquitoes. The breath is the motive power of the voice. Without it under intelligent control nothing can be accomplished. One might as well try to run an automobile without gasoline as sing without breath. How can a girl breathe when she has squeezed her lungs to one-half their normal size?

PREPARATION FOR HEAVY RoLES

The voice can never be kept in prime condition if it is obliged to carry a load that it has not been prepared to carry. Most voices that wear out are voices that have been overburdened. Either the singer does not know how to sing or the role is too heavy. I think that I may be forgiven for pointing out that I have repeatedly sung the heaviest and most exacting roles in opera. My voice would have been shattered years ago if I had not prepared myself for these roles and sung them properly. A man may be able to carry a load of fifty pounds for miles if he carries it on his back, but he will not be able to carry it a quarter of a mile if he holds it out at arm's length from the body, with one arm. Does this not make the point clear?

Some roles demand maturity. It is suicidal for the young singer to attempt them. The composer and the conductor naturally think only of the effect at the performance. The singer's welfare with them is a secondary consideration. I have sung under the great composers and conductors, from Richard Wagner to Richard Strauss. Some of the Strauss roles are even more strenuous than those of Wagner. They call for great energy as well as great vocal ability. Young singers essay these heavy roles and the voices go to pieces. Why not wait a little while? Why not be patient?

The singer is haunted by the delusion that success can only come to her if she sings great roles. If she can not ape Melba in _Traviata_, Emma Eames as Elizabeth in _Tannhauser_ or Geraldine Farrar in _b.u.t.terfly_, she pouts and refuses to do anything. Offer her a small part and she sneers at it. Ha! Ha! All my earliest successes were made in the smallest kinds of parts. I realized that I had only a little to do and only very little time to do it in. Consequently, I gave myself heart and soul to that part. It must be done so artistically, so intelligently, so beautifully that it would command success. Imagine the roles of Erda and Norna, and Marie in _Flying Dutchman_. They are so small that they can hardly be seen. Yet these roles were my first door to success and fame.

Wagner did not think of them as little things. He was a real master and knew that in every art-work a small part is just as important as a great part. It is a part of a beautiful whole. Don't turn up your nose at little things. Take every opportunity, and treat it as though it were the greatest thing in your life. It pays.

Everything that amounts to anything in my entire career has come through struggle. At first a horrible struggle with poverty. No girl student in a hall bedroom to-day (and my heart goes out to them now) endures more than I went through. It was work, work, work, from morning to night, with domestic cares and worries enough all the time to drive a woman mad. Keep up your spirits, girls. If you have the right kind of fight in you, success will surely come. Never think of discouragement, no matter what happens. Keep working every day and always hoping. It will come out all right if you have the gift and the perseverance. Compulsion is the greatest element in the vocalist's success. Poverty has a knout in its hand driving you on. Well, let it,--and remember that under that knout you will travel twice as fast as the rich girl possibly can with her fifty-horse-power automobile. Keep true to the best. _Muss_--"I MUST," "I will," the mere necessity is a help not a hindrance, if you have the right stuff in you. Learn to depend upon yourself, and know that when you have something that the public wants it will not be slow in running after you. Don't ask for help. I never had any help. Tell that to the aspiring geese who think that I have some magic power whereby I can help a mediocre singer to success by the mere twist of the hand.

DAILY EXERCISES OF A PRIMA DONNA

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

Daily vocal exercises are the daily bread of the singer. They should be practiced just as regularly as one sits down to the table to eat, or as one washes one's teeth or as one bathes. As a rule the average professional singer does not resort to complicated exercises and great care is taken to avoid strain. It is perfectly easy for me, a contralto, to sing C in alt but do you suppose I sing it in my daily exercises? It is one of the extreme notes in my range and it might be a strain.

Consequently I avoid it. I also sing most of my exercises _mezza voce_.

There should always be periods of intermission between practice. I often go about my routine work while on tour, walking up and down the room, packing my trunk, etc., and practicing gently at the same time. I enjoy it and it makes my work lighter.

Of course I take great pains to practice carefully. My exercises are for the most part simple scales, arpeggios or trills. For instance, I will start with the following:

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

This I sing in middle voice and very softly. Thereby I do not become tired and I don't bother the neighborhood. If I sang this in the big, full lower tones and sang loud, my voice would be fatigued rather than benefited and the neighbors would hate me. This I continue up to _D_ or _E_ flat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

Above this I invariably use what is termed the head tone. Female singers should always begin the head tone on this degree of the staff and not on _F_ and _F#_, as is sometimes recommended.

I always use the Italian vowel _ah_ in my exercises. It seems best to me. I know that _oo_ and _ue_ are recommended for contraltos, but I have long had the firm conviction that one should first perfect the natural vocal color through securing good tones by means of the most open vowel. After this is done the voice may be further colored by the judicious employment of other vowels. Sopranos, for instance, can help their head tones by singing _ee_ (Italian _i_).

I know nothing better for acquiring a flexible tone than to sing trills like the following:

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation]

and at the same time preserve a gentle, smiling expression. Smile naturally, as though you were genuinely amused at something,--smile until your upper teeth are uncovered. Then, try these exercises with the vowel _ah_. Don't be afraid of getting a trivial, colorless tone. It is easy enough to make the tone sombre by willing it so, when the occasion demands. You will be amazed what this smiling, genial, _liebenswurdig_ expression will do to relieve stiffness and help you in placing your voice right. The old Italians knew about it and advocated it strongly.

There is nothing like it to keep the voice youthful, fresh and in the prime of condition.

THE SINGER MUST RELAX

Probably more voices are ruined by strain than through any other cause.

The singer must relax all the time. This does not mean flabbiness. It does not mean that the singer should collapse before singing. Relaxation in the singer's sense is a delicious condition of buoyancy, of lightness, of freedom, of ease and entire lack of tightening in any part. When I relax I feel as though every atom in my body were floating in s.p.a.ce. There is not one single little nerve on tension. The singer must be particularly careful when approaching a climax in a great work of art. Then the tendency to tighten up is at its greatest. This must be antic.i.p.ated.

Take such a case as the following pa.s.sage from the famous aria from Saint-Saens' _Samson et Delila_, "_Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix_." The climax is obviously on the words "Ah!--verse moi." The climax is the note marked by a star (_f_ on the top line).

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation:

Reponds a ma ten-dres-se, Re-ponds a ma ten-dress-s!

Ah!--ver-se-moi--ver-se-moi.. l-i-vres-se!]

When I am singing the last notes of the previous phrase to the word "tendresse," anyone who has observed me closely will notice that I instinctively let my shoulders drop,--that the facial muscles become relaxed as when one is about to smile or about to yawn. I am then relaxing to meet the great melodic climax and meet it in such a manner that I will have abundant reserve force after it has been sung. When one has to sing before an audience of five or six thousand people such a climax is immensely important and it requires great balance to meet it and triumph in it.

ANTONIO SCOTTI

BIOGRAPHICAL

Antonio Scotti was born at Naples, Jan. 25, 1866, and did much of his vocal study there with Mme. Trifari Paganini. His debut was made at the Teatro Reale, in the Island of Malta, in 1889. The opera was _Martha_.

After touring the Italian opera houses he spent seven seasons in South America at a time when the interest in grand opera on that continent was developing tremendously. He then toured Spain and Russia with great success and made his debut at Covent Garden, London, in 1899. His success was so great that he was immediately engaged for the Metropolitan in New York, where he has sung every season since that time. His most successful roles have been in _La Tosca_, _La Boheme_, _I Pagliacci_, _Carmen_, _Falstaff_, _L'Oracolo_ and _Otello_. His voice is a rich and powerful baritone. He is considered one of the finest actors among the grand opera singers. During recent years he has toured with an opera company of his own, making many successful appearances in some of the smaller as well as the larger American cities.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF ANTONIO SCOTTI IN THE COSTUME OF HIS MOST FAMOUS RoLE, SCARPIA, IN "LA TOSCA," BY PUCCINI.]

ITALIAN OPERA IN AMERICA

ANTONIO SCOTTI

So closely identified is Italy with all that pertains to opera, that the question of the future of Italian opera in America is one that interests me immensely. It has been my privilege to devote a number of the best years of my life to singing in Italian opera in this wonderful country, and one cannot help noticing, first of all, the almost indescribable advance that America has made along all lines. It is so marvelous that those who reside continually in this country do not stop to consider it.

Musicians of Europe who have never visited America can form no conception of it, and when they once have had an opportunity to observe musical conditions in America, the great opera houses, the music schools, the theatres and the bustling, hustling activity, together with the extraordinary casts of world-famous operatic stars presented in our leading cities, they are amazed in the extreme.

It is very gratifying for me to realize that the operatic compositions of my countrymen must play a very important part in the operatic future of America. It has always seemed to me that there is far more variety in the works of the modern Italian composers than in those of other nations. Almost all of the later German operas bear the unmistakable stamp of Wagner. Those which do not, show decided Italian influences.

The operas of Mozart are largely founded on Italian models, although they show a marvelous genius peculiar to the great master who created them.