The Reason for the Lack of Well-Trained Voices
There are abundant opportunities just now for finely trained singers. In fact there is a real dearth of "well-equipped" voices. Managers are scouring the world for singers with ability as well as the natural voice. Why does this dearth exist? Simply because the trend of modern musical work is far too rapid. Results are expected in an impossible space of time. The pupil and the maestro work for a few months and, lo and behold! a prima donna! Can any one who knows anything about the art of singing fail to realize how absurd this is? More voices are ruined by this haste than by anything else. It is like expecting the child to do the feats of the athlete without the athlete's training. There are singers in opera now who have barely passed the, what might be called, rudimentary stage.
With the decline of the older operas, singers evidently came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to study for the perfection of tone-quality, evenness of execution and vocal agility. The modern writers did not write such fioratura passages, then why should it be necessary for the student to bother himself with years of study upon exercises and vocalises designed to prepare him for the operas of Bellini, Rossini, Spontini, Donizetti, Scarlatti, Carissimi or other masters of the florid school? What a fatuous reasoning. Are we to obliterate the lessons of history which indicate that voices trained in such a school as that of Patti, Jenny Lind, Sembrich, Lehmann, Malibran, Rubini and others, have phenomenal endurance, and are able to retain their freshness long after other voices have faded? No, if we would have the wonderful vitality and longevity of the voices of the past we must employ the methods of the past.