A Singer Must Work
Advice Given by Trivulsi to a Pupil, as Reported by Blanche Roosevelt, In Her Book, “Stage-Struck.”
One day Annabel burst into tears, and declared that she would give up. “Everything goes wrong,” she said. “I seem to sing worse every day; and I know I shall never be a great singer.”
Trivulsi looked affectionately at her: then spoke. “Come and sit beside me, and we will have an oral lesson. Dost thou think that thou hast any talent? And canst thou define the difference in singers, in studying, between a career and a pastime? For an amateur, anyone would consider thee a marvel. As a professional, thou wouldst hardly pass for one.”
She flushed. “Will you tell me what I must do to become a singer, and the difference between an professional and an amateur? I should think that good singing would be good singing the world over.”
“I tell thee what to do when thou art here; but there are many hours of the day when thou must study by thyself and try to apply my teaching. The mischief is done when the pupil studies alone. Before beginning to learn operas, there is the mechanical training required for the voice. The student should sing exercises for an hour each day—half an hour is the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. Sing first a slow scale of eight notes, then one of nine. Agility in the voice can only be acquired in one way. It must be in exact time and measure. For example, we will say that the pupil cannot sing the scale of F perfectly. In a certain tempo it may go all right. A real artist should never say, I can sing this scale but not that. If he possess the mechanical power to do one, he must be able, should his throat have been well trained, to do the other; for the note is born in his head before he gives mechanical expression to the sound by his voice. In fact, the throat is to the singer what the violin is to the violinist, the flute to the flutist and the piano to the pianist. Usually, the moment that a singer attempts to vary the time, the execution falls to pieces. This is wrong. Excellence should not be remarked in one way more than in another. The throat has no right to do one thing better or worse than another, only as it has been taught, it being a perfectly mechanical organ. To acquire vocal agility, a pupil must sing a scale very slowly in the same tempo a week, and on no account go faster the last day than the first. During the second week it must be a little faster; then during the third a little faster—this also for a week; then during a fourth week still faster. At the end of the month the pupil finds that he is able to sing four times as fast as he did in the first week. This is the way to begin to study; but smoothness of execution and perfection are only attained by singing scales and exercises in the different tempos for weeks, and months, and years. No cadenza, or exercise, should be sung without putting in a specific time, accenting it, beating the measure with the exactitude of a metronome; nothing should be left to chance or inspiration. A person may be more disposed some days than others; but the throat, if in proper condition, should be trained so that it cannot go wrong on any day.”
“But, dear maestro, some sing exquisitely although they have studied little; though, in fact, they have never been regularity taught. How is this?”
“I never knew any great singers who did not slave for years in the beginning, and who did not keep up the most vigorous training of exercises, after even the greatest success. Chance may bring one artist to the front by his success in one particular rôle, and he may subsequently fail in all others. He may be bad in every succeeding thing, as he had been in every previous one; but if he be a trained singer, he will show his training in every part he sings, whether he win applause or not. This it is to be an artist; his throat knows no difference, but will go as it has been taught. It is always ready. He takes his part, he portions out each phrase, each measure, and commences to study. If an air comes to him by ear, he reject it and does not pay attention until he learns it in its place, with its proper time and sentiment. Everything is by rule and in order with the professional singers. An amateur may have a better natural voice than a professional; but as he has not by hard study and long practice mechanically reconstructed his throat and converted into a musical instrument, he will never be able to equal the professional; his throat will never be subservient to his talent.
—Blanche Roosevelt, “A Singer Must Work,” The Voice, May 1885, p 69. An excerpt from Stage-Struck, Or She Would be an Opera Singer (1884).
Trivulzi gives great advice, does he not?
Trivulzi’s student? With a beautiful face and modest voice, the American writer misspelled her Italian teacher’s name and mangled Vannuccini and Sangiovani.
She gets the other big guns right—at least somewhat—Roosevelt’s novel being a thinly veiled record of her own life.
If the scene is to be believed, Roosevelt had a lesson with Manuel Garcia; while his sister, Pauline Viardot-Garcia—who we know Roosevelt studied with in Paris—is only mentioned in passing. Roosevelt also sidelines Francesco Lamperti, with whom she had a few lessons before taking her displeasure to the papers—a big blow up. After that, Roosevelt studied with Antonio Trivulzi—a paralytic tenor at the Milan conservatory who had 12-year old Lamperti as his studio accompanist.
The scenes with Trivulzi, which are sprinkled throughout the text, give the reader a sense of what it meant to study with a close friend of Rubini—both Trivulzi and Rubini students with Andrea Nozzari—every man a tenor. You also get the feeling Roosevelt had great ambition but little execution, Trivulzi’s frank appraisal of Annabel’s abilities being her own moment of truth.
(Read more about Roosevelt here. It’s quite the story.)
The reason for this post?
Practice for the amateur versus the professional; the latter getting the work done.
Once a teacher has shown you what to do and how to do it, then it’s your responsibility to do the work. Margaret Harshaw taught me this early on; and it’s the only reason I got into City Opera. I thought about what she told me to do, went over my lesson notes over and over and over again (I still do this), and practiced accordingly.
I drew the future to me by what I did in the present.
Was it hard? No. I just wanted it enough to do it, desire putting the blinders on and nothing else entering the mind.
You can do it too.
