It is easy enough to shout. Some of the singers in modern opera seem to employ a kind of megaphone method. They stand stock still on the stage and bawl out the phrases as though they were announcing trains in a railroad terminal. Such singers disappear in a few years. Their voices seem torn to shreds. The reason is that they have not given sufficient attention to bel canto in their early training. They seem to forget that voice must first of all be beautiful. Bel canto,—beautiful singing,—not the singing of meaningless Italian phrases, as so many insist, but the glorious bel canto which Bach, Haydn and Mozart demand,—a bel canto that cultivates the musical taste, disciplines the voice and trains the singer technically to do great things. Please understand that I am not disparaging the good and beautiful in Italian masterpieces. The musician will know what I mean. The singer can gain little, however, from music that intellectually and vocally is better suited to a parrot than a human being.
Some of the older singers made bel canto such an art that people came to hear them for their voices alone, and not for their intellectual or emotional interpretations of a rôle. Perhaps you never heard Patti in her prime. Ah! Patti—the wonderful Adelina with the glorious golden voice. It was she who made me ambitious to study breathing until it became an art. To hear her as she trippingly left the stage in Verdi's Traviata singing runs with ease and finish that other singers slur or stumble over,—ah! that was an art!
Volumes have been written on breathing and volumes more could be written. This is not the place to discuss the singer's great fundamental need. Need I say more than that I practice deep breathing every day of my life?
The Age for Starting
It is my opinion that no girl who wishes to keep her voice in the prime of condition all the time in after years should start to study much earlier than seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the case of a man I do not believe that he should start until he is past twenty or even twenty-two. I know that this is contrary to what many singers think, but the period of mutation in both sexes is a much slower process than most teachers realize, and I have given this matter a great deal of serious thought.
Let Everybody Sing!
Can I digress long enough to say that I think that everybody should sing? That is, they should learn to sing under a good singing instructor. This does not mean that they should look forward toward a professional career. God forbid! There are enough half-baked singers in the world now who are striving to become professionals. But the public should know that singing is the healthiest kind of exercise imaginable. When one sings properly one exercises nearly all of the important muscles of the torso. The circulation of the blood is improved, the digestion bettered, the heart promoted to healthy action—in fact, everything is bettered. Singers as a rule are notoriously healthy and often very long lived. The new movement for community singing in the open air is a magnificent one. Let everybody sing!
A great singing teacher with a reputation as big as Napoleon's or George Washington's is not needed. There are thousands and thousands of unknown teachers who are most excellent. Often the advice or the instruction is very much the same. What difference does it make whether I buy Castile soap in a huge Broadway store or a little country store, if the soap is the same? Many people hesitate to study because they can not study with a great teacher. Nonsense! Pick out some sensible, well-drilled teacher and then use your own good judgment to guide yourself. Remember that Schumann-Heink did not study with a world-famed teacher. Whoever hears of Marietta von Leclair in these days? Yet I do not think that I could have done any more with my voice if I had had every famous teacher from Niccolo Antonio Porpora down to the present day. The individual singer must have ideals, and then leave nothing undone to attain those ideals. One of my ideals was to be able to sing pianissimo with the kind of resonance that makes it carry up to the farthest gallery. That is one of the most difficult things I had to learn, and I attained it only after years of faithful practice.