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Yes, I’m an Opera Singer. No, Not Like Charlotte Church…
A recent conversation with a friend reminded me of something I dealt with frequently in my singer days. For years, after someone found out I was a classical singer, they would say excitedly, “Oh! You sing like Charlotte Church?! She has the voice of an angel.” At this point in the conversation I had three options: 1) Tackle them to the ground and slap them silly, 2) Explain in depth why Charlotte Church and Jackie Evancho are the products of amazing PR, but have been paraded and pushed beyond their vocal limits, ruining their voices in the process, or, 3) Smile and say, “Well, not really…”
I usually opted for number 3, unless I felt the person had the interest and ability to understand my exegesis on the horrors of tween “opera singers.” For the longest time, my mother would always say, “You’re just jealous that she’s so successful.” Of course, every singer wants to be successful, but not like that. So I would like to shed some light on the education and development of young singers in hopes that y’all will never buy a Charlotte Church or Jackie Evancho album every again.
I once heard a violinist say, “Similar to the dolphin, who is not a part of the family of fish, the singer is not a part of the family of musicians.” While it was meant to be a jab at singers, there is some truth to it. Singers are unique among musicians. We don’t start training rigorously at age five the way instrumentalists do. Here’s how the timeline for a singer’s career should look, though some things will vary depending on the voice type:
16 years old: Well after puberty, start taking lessons. This point in a singer’s development is crucial. This is the age when the voice is limber and pliable, best for learning the building blocks of technique. It’s also the age when young singers start listening to greats of the opera world, and start begging their teachers to let them sing things like Puccini, Verdi, and heavy Mozart. What young soprano doesn’t want to sing the “Queen of the Night” or “Madama Butterfly”? Don’t do it!
A good teacher will put the kibosh on that, and if the teacher doesn’t, you probably need a new teacher. Allowing singers at this stage in their development to sing large, beefy repertoire is like allowing a scrawny teenager to try to bench press the same weight as someone that competes in the Crossfit Games.
The voice is a muscle, and needs frequent, healthy conditioning. If that singer starts singing heavy rep, it will literally ruin his or her voice within a few years. Why do you think that Charlotte Church stopped recording after age 17 or 18? Because she got a wobble in her voice you could drive a Mack truck through, and her career as a classical singer was over. Young singers at this age should be singing art song, light Mozart, Handel, and Monteverdi.
18 years old: Get a bachelor’s of music in vocal performance. Finding a good teacher is imperative, so it’s definitely worth the time and expense to visit different schools and take lessons with prospective teachers. Often times, teachers will offer a free 30-minute lesson for potential undergrad students.
Also, don’t let their resume fool you. Often times, the singers with the most performances under their belts are the least well equipped to teach. A lot of these singers are natural-born opera superstars. They can’t explain how they do what they do, and they sure as heck can’t teach it to a young singer.
Most singers are not born with an innately perfect technique. Most of us have to spend hours and hours in the studio and the practice room learning how to breathe, support, and project the sound in a healthy way that will last us throughout our hopefully long careers.
Singers are athletes, training their muscles to produce amazing sounds. Young singers at this point (with the exception of the coloratura soprano) should still be singing light, easy repertoire. Coloraturas are a little different — our voice type is high and agile, and blooms earlier than any other Fach. Because of this early bloom, if a coloratura hasn’t established her career by the time she’s 27, it’s not going to happen. This being said, an 18-year-old coloratura still shouldn’t be singing “Lucia di Lammermoor” or “Queen of the Night”.
22–23 years old: Decide whether to stay in academia or move to New York to try a performance career. Either way, finding a good teacher is of the utmost importance. At this age, singers might start expanding into some weightier rep, but should do so very cautiously.
28–30 years old: At this stage, the muscles of the vocal cords are stronger and less susceptible to being damaged. A solid technique should already be established by this time. As the voice ages, different colors will start to emerge. A soprano that was once a light lyric might find that her voice is now too warm and large for that rep, and she will start exploring some light Puccini and Verdi, as well as Gounod and heavier Mozart.
30s–40s: This is when the voice is in its peak. While singers still have to be protective of their instrument and not push, they can sing bigger, richer repertoire. If a career hasn’t been established by this point, it will never happen. The one caveat to that is the Heldentenor and the dramatic soprano- these are the voices that sing Wagner and Strauss.
50s–60s: Retire and teach.
So the next time you’re tempted to pick up that Jackie Evancho CD, instead might I suggest the selections below.
What a 16-year-old should be singing:
What the college-age performer should be singing:
What I was singing in my mid-late 20s:
For the coloratura in her 30s:
For the lyric soprano in her 30s:
What a dramatic soprano in her mid-late 30s sings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4sAJi4304
Published in General
There is but one requirement for singing in church:
Yeah, male hormones are still a little crazy at that time. Also, we age we gain color in our voices, which makes us sound more mature. Often times, we also gain a little weight in our bellies, and that helps with the breath as well.
So, Charles Ives actually made his career out of composing pieces that highlighted his love of the natural dissonance that comes from untrained church choirs. He loved memaw that sang off pitch, and he would write pieces in which one hand of the piano was playing in one key, and the other hand was playing a different key.
I like some capacity for that “choirboy” sound in adult women’s voices, especially in a choral setting. But I have mixed feelings about it. “Too much” can sound harsh, or hollow… sometimes with a weird, jagged, men-in-falsetto edge.
I love The Sixteen’s repertoire, but every once in a while, the so-called “pure tone” coaxed out of the sopranos on the high notes has me ducking for cover. Other times, it seems to work. Shrug.
For reference. ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZDDxbuKUXI
Hmm… I suspect certain types of weight are less likely to improve things?
Oh. Um. Well… Good to have an explanation for it, at least ;-)
BTW, still my favorite opera singer:
No, I’m not kidding:
Ellen McLain, who performed the GLaDOS role for the first time in, if memory serves me correctly, her fifties.
(“Want You Gone” also happens to be my absolute favorite “[CoC] you!” song, ever.)
I’m so confused right now…
Having some weight around your middle does help with the breath and support. That why so many Wagnerian singers look like…Wagnerian singers. They are just large people, because they have to have large bodies to support that sound. Conversely, light voices are usually housed in smaller bodies. When I was in NYC, I was about 40-45 lbs skinnier than I am now, and my voice teacher said I needed to drop another 20 in order to be competitive.
Even weight in the form of other people? ;-)
Call her Vickie.
Ack! something is on auto-play. I think GG did it.
I like Ellen McLain’s work, distorted or otherwise.
The back story is that she was hired to do the voiceover for GLaDOS in Portal because she’s an opera singer: the developers knew the character would sing, so they cast a singer. The rest, as they say, is history.
She’s a perfect example of someone who probably would have had a great classical voice if she hadn’t ruined it singing pop.
Now that you mention it… The soprano that sang Butterfly and a bunch of other dramatic roles at Nashville Opera when I was there was pregnant during Turandot, and she sang like a beast! I knew her- because I was dating one of the tenors, and he was subletting her apartment in NY while she was on the road- and she said she sang the best she’s ever sung when she was pregnant.
You done messed up, A-a-ron!
Though it’s probably not good for me to pinch my vocal chords to sound like her GLaDOS voice while singing “Still Alive.” :)
Andres Segovia made extensive use of percussive sounds on his guitar. It’s also common is the music of Argentina, especially tango and folk. For example:
What is this thing that you guys are talking about?
Every so often I forget that not all my friends are hard core geeks.
I just finished going through all your samples. Thanks for that tutorial on the development of the soprano. I’d always appreciated Barbara Bonney’s performances of Dowland’s madrigals; I didn’t know about her other work. Also, Lucia Popp’s performance of Der Hölle Rache was quite the barn-burner!
I love Barbara Bonney! If you want to see flawless technique, watch her. Just look at how relaxed her jaw and tongue are. Tension in the jaw and tongue are killers long term.
The first time I heard Lucia Popp sing, I almost fell out I was so in awe. If God has a voice on earth, it’s her’s.
Flawless indeed! She has a beautiful instrument: smooth – no rough edges. That’s my kind of singing, but then again I’ve always been a fan of Mozart. Have you read this piece about her? I like the way she refers to music performed on period instruments as “vegetarian music.” Good sense of humor.
I presume that Charlotte Church earned more before the age of 18 than most opera singers earn in their entire careers?
A “ruined” voice would seem like a small price to pay.
There’s more to life than money. Besides, who knows how much she was able to keep of that. I’d suppose that top-tier opera singers do quite well financially over their careers, and they enjoy the satisfaction of a whole lifetime of performing to adoring fans.
With a metric whack-load of money, one can more easily pursue those things.
(Mayim Bialik and Danica McKellar pursued advance science/math educations, for example. Could they have done that without metric whack-loads of money? Maybe, but the money sure didn’t hurt.)
Then let’s broaden Yer horizon:
“…there is evidence to suggest that climate change was a big factor in how the Syrian conflict came about.” — Charlotte Church, around October 1, 2015
“One of the things that preceded the failure of the nation-state of Syria and the rise of ISIS was the effect of climate change…” — Martin O’Malley, Democrat Party presidential candidate, July 20, 2015
“Experts agreed that the drought, spurred by climate change, was one of many factors that led to the Syrian conflict. O’Malley’s phrasing suggests he understands this… We rate his claim Mostly True.” — politifact.com, September 23rd, 2015
Um, it depends. I’m sure she earned a ton of money, and if you’re ok letting your voice go to the dogs like that, then kumbaya. But there are a lot of singers out there that make very good money, and they do so while maintaining their vocal health.
What I take the most issue with is the fact that the record labels were promoting her as an opera singer, when she really is just a kid singing opera arias. That doesn’t make her an opera singer. It dumbs down our musical culture (in addition to a lot of the other music that is being put out nowadays) into thinking that that is good singing, when it really isn’t.
I sang tenor, at least part of the time, in every choir (church and school), I was in until I started college at Ga Tech….where the ratio of guys to girls was 4:1 at the school and 3:1 in the chorus. It was a unique experience.