Offstage, Opera Singers, Like Children, Should Be Seen, Not Heard

The following bit of, um, "expert" criticism and historical comment was forwarded to us by one of our regular readers who pulled it from an online classical music forum. It’s an excerpt from an interview with the famous husband and wife opera singers, soprano Evelyn Lear and the late baritone, Thomas Stewart (Stewart died in 2006).

Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart definitely found Levine to be among the right and Solti to be among the wrong conductors for Wagner, which of course includes the Ring. The way Solti conducts the music simply kills the singers' voices.

Lear: “There are a few conductors who are sensitive enough to have followed Wagner's markings in the score. James Levine was one great conductor who really observed those markings. Others who did not, like Georg Solti, let the orchestra go wild and mad, so he was loud, louder...”[1]

Stewart: “And it's very exciting. It is very exciting but so far as the singers are concerned, it's very hard on the singers."

Lear: “And many voice teachers, of course, are very leery of the fact that Wagner is associated with the term ‘loud and dramatic.’ So they are afraid that the young voices that they are training will be ruined by having to sing that music. But, as you probably know, Wagner was very influenced by the Italian bel canto and he wanted his singers to sing that way.[2] And, as a matter of fact...”

Stewart: “He stated often that he would have preferred Italian singers to sing his operas. But he never could get them because they refused to learn German or sing in German in his day. But he preferred the Italian singers. He wanted them to sing his operas.”[3]

Lear: “You know what his favorite opera was? Norma of Bellini.[4] He stressed the bel canto style. ‘Sing my music as if Italian folk songs.’ You know, that's what he wanted.[5] Not the blasting. So when young singers come to us and audition for us and they start off really blasting [their] voices, we stop that immediately. That's not what it's about." [all bracketed numbers mine]

Yes, well, singers “blasting [their] voices” is not what it’s about in any operatic context. Singers are supposed to sing, not blast, in any opera whatsoever, Wagner’s operas included.

The above comments by Ms. Lear and Mr. Stewart are a perfect example of people understanding in their own rather than in the author’s terms what they read, and understand it as it best suits their prejudices.

Taking the above half-truths and delusional fabrications one by numbered one:

[1] Levine is most certainly a meticulous Wagner conductor, and always has been. But Solti conducts a Wagner score in accordance with Wagner’s own way of conducting — both his own scores, and the scores of other composers — as recorded in Wagner’s brilliant Wagner-length essay, Über das Dirigieren (On Conducting), and as reported by eyewitnesses from firsthand knowledge. And that way of conducting is precisely what makes Solti one of the all-time great Wagner conductors, all possessors of what I’ve called the Wagner Gene. Levine has been getting better as a Wagner conductor with each passing year, but he’s not yet a member of that class of stellar Wagner conductors, and, much as I admire him as a conductor (and, generally, my admiration for Levine as a conductor is quite considerable), I suspect he never will be.

[2] This is absolute absurdity. Wagner admired the Italian way with song — Italian song — but to say he was “influenced” by bel canto in his own work is simply rubbish. He was nothing of the sort as anyone with an informed ear for music can readily and instantly hear for himself. Even more absurd is the contention that Wagner wanted his German singers to sing like Italian bel canto singers. What Wagner wanted was German singers to sing German song the way Italian singers sang Italian song; that is, naturally and with graceful ease as if their native “throat,” to use Wagner’s term, was born to it.

[3] This is flat-out delusional thinking. Better than anyone, Wagner knew that the Italian “throat” was simply not fit to sing German song. Period. Full stop.

[4] No, Wagner’s favorite opera was not Norma. Not by a long shot. Wagner admired Norma because he saw it as a singular anomaly in Italian bel canto opera: it made musico-dramatic sense.

[5] To say that Wagner “stressed the bel canto style” is of course, again, absurd, and saying so betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what Wagner was after which was that he wanted his German singers to sing rather than bark and grunt his German music the way Italian singers sang their Italian music; viz., naturally and with graceful ease. See my answer to #2 above.

All of this is just further proof of what I’ve always said concerning opera singers: pamper them, encourage them, work with them patiently and sympathetically to help them realize their gift to best advantage, but never, ever, grant them the freedom to think for themselves in matters of the operatic art.