In spoken Drama, a performer may begin his career by playing the youthful lovers, and end it by impersonating the heavy fathers. He may first sigh as Romeo, and later storm as Capulet. Not so in Opera, or lyric Drama, where the line of work to be followed is determined at the outset by the type of voice possessed by the aspirant, and which line (or emploi, as it is termed) he follows of necessity to the end of his professional career.
I know there are some few instances of artists who, later, have successfully adopted rôles demanding another range than the one needed for their earlier efforts. But it is an open question whether the performer’s instrument really changed. It must either have been wrongly classified at one of the two periods, or the vocal keyboard—so to speak—transposed a little higher or lower. The character of the instrument remains the same; a viola strung as a violin would still retain its viola quality of tone.
The case is different where a soprano who may have begun by singing the florid rôles of opera, has so gained in volume of voice and breadth of style as to warrant her devoting these acquisitions to characters requiring more dramatic force than was needed, or could be utilized, in coloratura rôles. Mlle. Emma Calvé, Mesdames Lilli Lehmann and Nordica, are notable examples of this. Each of these distinguished artists began her career by singing what are known as “Princess” rôles, before successfully portraying Carmen or the Brünnhildes. As a rule, it is by singing many different rôles that the lyric artist gains the skill and sureness that may ultimately render him famous in a few. Mlle. Grandjean, now principal first dramatic soprano at the Paris Opéra, began her career there—after a few appearances at the Opéra-Comique—by singing the very small part of the nurse Magdalene in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. Perseverance, if allied to ability, can accomplish much.
When the type of voice and the natural temperament of the singer do not accord—as sometimes happens—he would be unwise not to adhere to the work for which his vocal means, not his preference, are best adapted. To follow the contrary path, and essay rôles requiring for their fitting expression more dramatic fire and intensity than his vocal instrument can supply, would be to shorten his career, owing to the certain deterioration and possible extinction of the voice. There are sufficient voiceless examples to prove, were proof needed, the truth of this assertion; and their atonic condition is due to the cause mentioned.
The first requisite for the aspirant who wishes to follow the operatic career is undoubtedly a voice possessed of the three essential factors of Quality, Power and Compass; what is termed in Italy a “voce di teatro,” or voice for the theatre.
But an opera-singer is actor as well as singer, and in this direction more—much more—is now demanded of him than formerly. But to those possessed of what is known as the Instinct of the Theatre, or Scenic Instinct, the gestures and attitudes of the operatic stage, being largely conventional, are soon acquired. Scenic accomplishments are undoubtedly necessary to the stage-singer, but his mimetic studies should not preclude him from making himself a thorough master of the vocal side of his art. There is a difference between an actor who sings, and a singer who acts.
Besides the mimetic faculty, certain physical gifts are also needed by the opera-singer, according to the requirements of the line of rôles to which he is inevitably assigned by the nature and type of his particular voice. It is true that stage artifice has now reached great perfection; but it has its limits, and cannot accomplish miracles.
It requires much imagination and great generosity on the part of the public to accept a tenor, whose waist-girth would not unfit him for the part of Sir John Falstaff, as a youthful and romantic Romeo, or a half-starved and emaciated Rodolphe. Illusion is rudely shaken, if not absolutely dispelled, in witnessing a soprano, whose age and embonpoint are fully in evidence, impersonate a girlish Gilda or a consumptive Traviata. Such discrepancies may be overlooked by the public in the case of old established favourites, but it would be unfortunate for the débutant to commence with these drawbacks. And yet there have been a few famous artists whose extraordinary vocal talent atoned for other very pronounced defects. Such an one was the Pisaroni, a celebrated contralto, said to have been so ill-favoured that she always forwarded her likeness to any opera director to whom she was personally unknown, who offered her an engagement. But so exceptional were her voice and talent, that certain of her contemporary artists have declared that by the time Pisaroni had reached the end of her first phrase, the public was already conquered.
As personal preference is very often mistaken for aptitude or natural fitness, a lyric artist is not always the best judge as to which of the rôles in his répertoire are really fitted to display his abilities to the best advantage. The singer combines in himself both instrument and performer; therefore he rarely, if ever, hears himself quite as does another person. Until possessed of the ripened judgment gained by experience, he would do well to be guided in this matter by one who, to the knowledge required, adds taste and discernment. That a liking or preference is sometimes mistaken for the aptitude and gifts necessary for the successful carrying out of certain work, is too well known to be even questioned. It is the constantly recurring case of the low comedian who wishes to play Hamlet. A young tenor whose great vocal and physical advantages made him an ideal Duke in Rigoletto, a fascinating Almaviva in Il Barbiere, found but little enjoyment in life because his director refused to allow him to try Otello and Tannhäuser, for which he was vocally unfitted. Never show the public what you cannot do, is the best advice that can be given in such cases. Even the finest and most experienced singers are occasionally liable to make mistakes in the choice of rôles. Madame Patti once sang Carmen, and Madame Melba essayed Brünnhilde; but I am not aware that either of these famous cantatrices repeated the experiment.