DRAMATIC TRAINING FOR THE SINGER

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Thesis for the Degree of M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
PHYLLIS M. THOMPSON
1975

 

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ABSTRACT
DRAMATIC TRAINING FOR THE SINGER
BY

Phyllis M. Thompson

This study proposes to examine the present state of
dramatic training for the singer. Its purpose is to outline
current practices for training the singer to act, to examine
such practices as affective techniques and to suggest possi-
ble alternatives to practices that have proven unsuccessful
in providing the singer with adequate dramatic training.

In this study the subject of dramatic training for the
singer is examined from three aspects. First, a historical
review of dramatic training practices since the development
of musical drama to establish traditions affecting current
practices. Opera is used as the model of musical drama in
this study because it is the oldest form of musical drama
and it is the form generally studied in voice programs. This
review begins with the development of Opera by the Camerata
in the seventeenth century, continues through the reform
efforts of Christopher Gluck in the eighteenth century and
ends at the early part of this century with the attempts to
develop specific programs for training the singer in acting
techniques. It includes social influences, musical develop-

ments, training policies by music educators over the generations,

 

 

 

 

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Phyllis M. Thompson

the ideal of musical drama, composers' concepts of this ideal,

and other pertinent material geared towards revealing the pre-
cedent for dramatic training over a period of more than three
hundred years.

Second, the author will examine the "ideal" of musical
drama envisioned by the composer and the performer's contri-
bution in achieving this ideal. The ideal behind musical
drama's development is compared to the actual standards of
acting in performance achieved by the singer to reveal the
anti—factors which prevent the singer's attainment of the
ideal. Furthermore, the examination of the nature of musical
drama identifies a different criteria for training the singer
to perform in the genre and for creating a new type of singer,
the acting-singer.

Third, a questionnaire sent to music schools or depart-
ments with accredited degree programs is analyzed to establish
an overview of the present state of dramatic training in such
programs. The vocal educator is asked to identify his/her
department's requirements, hours allotted and means available
for dramatic training within the voice program. Furthermore,
the survey examines the educator's view on the school's pre-
sent program, the program's requirements for dramatic training

and specific changes to improve such training.

DRAMATIC TRAINING FOR THE SINGER

BY

Phyllis M. Thompson

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Theatre

1975

AC KNOWLE DGMENT S

The author of this thesis wishes to express her apprecia-
tion to all those people who helped to make this study pos-
sible. Her gratitude is extended to Mr. Jon Baisch, Mr.

Frank Rutledge and Dr. John Baldwin for their helpful criti-

cisms of the subject material included in this thesis.

ii

Chapter

II

III

IV

V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DRAMATIC TRAINING IN THE PAST . . . . . .

Opera in the 17th Century . . . . . .
Opera in the 18th Century . . . . . .
Opera in the 19th Century . . . . . .

THE PROBLEM: ACTING WHILE SINGING . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
The "Ideal" and the Performer's
Fulfillment of It . . . . . . . . . .
The Anti-Factors: The Dilemma of
Concepts and Training . . . . . . . .

THE STUDY SURVEY: WHAT CONSTITUTES ADEQUATE
MUSICAL DRAMA TRAINING? . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Survey Purpose . . . . . . . . .
The Survey Sample . . . . . . L . . .
The Survey Results . . . . . . . . .

CONCLUSION O I O O O I O O O O O O O O I O

BIBLIOGRAPHY O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

APPENDICES

A
B
C
D

E

QUESTIONNAIRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS . . . . . . . . .
PRIVATE MUSICAL SCHOOLS WITH DEGREE

PROGRAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MUSIC SCHOOLS INCORPORATED INTO UNIVERSITY
OR COLLEGE PROGRAMS . . . . . .
MUSIC DEPARTMENTS WITHIN UNIVERSITIES. . .

iii

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85

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

This study proposes to examine the present state of
dramatic training for the singer. Its purpose is to outline
current practices for training the singer to act, to examine
such practices as affective techniques, and to suggest pos—
sible alternatives to practices that have proven unsuccess-
ful in providing the singer with adequate dramatic training.

In this study the subject of dramatic training for the
singer is examined from three aspects. Authors on the vocal
art, such as Boris Goldovsky, Victor Feechs and J. H. Duval,
have stated that many current practices in the singer's
training date back more than two hundred years. Thus, the
author will first examine the historical precedents of drama-
tic training for the singer beginning in the seventeenth
century with the development of opera. Second, once the
historical precedents are stated, the author will examine the
"ideal" composers strove to create in musical drama, the
performer's contribution to this ideal and the anti-factors
which have deterred the singer from making this contribution.
Third, the author will analyze the results of a questionnaire
sent to seventy-three voice educators in various types of

voice programs. Through the questionnaire, the author wants

to establish general procedures for training the student
singer in acting in current programs and voice educators'
opinions of these programs.

Musical drama may be defined in the broadest sense as
any form of theatrical production in which a drama is set to
music. It is constructed from drama, a prose or verse com-
position written for or as if for performance by acting;1
the music, the art of organizing tones to produce a coherent
sequence of sounds, is intended to elicit an aesthetic re-

sponse in a listener,2

and therefore requires the performer
to act while singing. It can include both spoken and sung
dialogue and covers a spectrum of forms including opera,
ballad opera, singspiel, grand opera, comic opera, operetta
and musical comedy. The basic form of musical drama is the
song, a short composition for solo voice, usually accompanied
by the piano, based on a poetic text and composed in such a
way as to enhance the text.3 The performer of musical drama
should be both an actor and a singer. The singer's usual

form of performance is in the concert style, the dramatic

performance of a song with varying degrees of characterization

 

1William Morris, ed. The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language (New York: The American Heritage
Publishing Co., Inc., 1969), p. 396.

2

 

Ibid., p. 864.

3Willi Apel and Ralph T. Daniel, The Harvard Brief
Dictionary of Music (New York: Washington Square Press, 1970),
p. 278. Musical explanations indicated by page number only
are taken from this book.

 

 

in which the singer is usually in a stationary position and
uses few or no gestures. This style emphasizes vocal inter-
pretation through the music rather than the text. On the
other hand, the actor is required in his performance to
create a characterization and related text images through

the use of his voice and body. This characterization must

be sustained throughout the presentation of the drama's
story, which often takes two hours or more. The goal of the
actor and the singer is to convey the author's or the com-
poser's meaning and create a theatrical experience for the
audience. Both the actor and the singer should have a natural
talent that is responsive to images and capable of creating
and prejecting them. Certain qualities and skills necessary
to facilitate this talent are common to both performers: a
clear, resonant voice, intelligence, a sensitivity to rhythm
and tempo, a controlled body, good articulation, a retentive
memory, firm breath control, etc. The actor's and the singer's
development and use of these qualities and skills are often
different because of the requirements of the two arts in
which they perform. For example, the actor must be sensitive
to the intrinsic rhythms of a drama but he can alter these
rhythms according to changing performance variables he per-
ceives, audience reaction or a partner's tempo change. The
singer, on the other hand, must follow the measured rhythms
set by the composer and if there is a conductor, his inter-

pretation of these rhythms. Furthermore, the neglected

development of a skill such as movement that could hamper the
actor's performance would not affect the concert singer's
performance at all.

Opera was chosen to exemplify the types of influences
which affected the dramatic training of singers since the
seventeenth century. Although there are more popular forms of
musical drama today such as musical comedy, opera offers the
most material for examination because of its long history and
volumes of critical analysis from a variety of sources. It
is the one musical drama form that most voice educators
recognize as a special area of study and will incorporate
into a vocal training program. Therefore, the greatest number
of musical drama training programs are geared to train the
student to perform opera.

The impetus for this study developed from the lack of
material when the author tried to find answers to the question:
what is the status of dramatic training within vocal programs
for student singers, particularly those aspiring to a career
in musical drama which requires a performer capable of acting
and singing. The need to find answers to this question
developed from the author's personal experience as a voice
student interested in such training and confronted with
frustrated efforts to obtain it.- After receiving encourage-
ment from a high school voice teacher to obtain further vocal
training at college and passing admittance auditions, the
author began study in a music school within a private uni-

versity with two voice curricula, applied and operatic. Two

years of study in the applied voice program failed to pro-
vide a foundation in basic acting skills to facilitate the
author's interest in a career in musical drama, particularly
"lighter" forms. Hence, a transfer to a public university
with a music department followed.

The university music department's vocal program
required the same core of music courses as the private
school, but allowed more elective credits; a student could
take theatre courses oriented to performance (voice and dic-
tion, acting, etc.) through less specialization in upper
level music courses such as counterpoint, music history, etc.
However, even this foundation in basic acting skills proved
to be only a partial solution to the problem. Musical per-
formances, particularly in musical drama, fell far short of
the level achieved in nonmusical presentations. This was
not an atypical situation; within both vocal programs the
question of how to train the singer to perform in musical
drama was a common problem. It was usually solved by drama-
tic training on the level of stage presence, diction and
minimal text interpretation. Thus, personal experience
directed the author to find information about dramatic
training for the singer. Research did not reveal any source
that contained an overview of contemporary policies and
practice of such training in vocal education. Furthermore,
there was a lack of historical information of traditional

methods and ideas on training the singer to act which could

establish precedents for modern practices. Therefore, the
premise for this study was developed from personal experi-
ence and initial research for materials to answer questions

raised by this experience.

CHAPTER II

DRAMATIC TRAINING IN THE PAST

Opera in the 17th Century1

 

The core of vocal music in Italy at the opening of the
sixteenth century was constructed from a combination of
polyphony, Flemish counterpoint and the madrigal. In Italy
this polyphonic madrigal had been refined and embellished
until it was composed of as many as five texted melodic lines.
The intertwining of several vocal parts and lines of text
was aimed at creating a composite sound in which the indi-
vidual part became indistinguishable within the whole. It
was in dissatisfaction with this countrapuntal music and its
negation of the text that the Florentine Camerata, an Italian
"academia" group, began to search for a form of music which
was devoid of counterpoint, was simpler in nature and would

0 O O O C 2
combine in harmonious union With a text. The Camerata's

 

1Albert Gehring, The Basis of Musical Pleasure (New York
and London: GP Putnam's Sons, 1910). p. 144.

 

2Training to improve the singer's acting in performance
of musical drama did not become a consideration until late in
the seventeenth century. However, traditions which later con-
tributed to the singer's rejection of such training began
almost with the earliest works. It should be noted that the
Church's influences in training singers to perform in musical
drama diminished rapidly in the seventeenth century because

efforts resulted in the theory that the ancient Greeks had
used monophonic music to heighten their drama in performance.
This theory was based on evidence procured from various
studies of Greek verse, ancient theological writings and
three monodical song fragments of antiquity.

Vincenzo Galilei published the Camerata's theory under

the title Dialogue About Ancient and Modern Music in 1581.

 

Galilei, however, was not satisfied with only a theoretical
revolt against the polyphonic music of his day and hence,
produced concrete examples of the Camerata's theory. He
wrote two monophonic pieces for voice and theorbo3 accompani-

ment with texts from the Divine Comedy and The Bible. Cri-

 

 

tics of the new theory objected because they felt that the
composer who followed it would be forced to imitate the
patterns of speech and, therefore, these would become impor-
tant considerations in the composition of the music. Never-
theless, the Camerata continued to experiment despite such

criticism, and in 1597 Jacapo Peri composed a dramma per

 

musica,4 or drama with music entitled Dafne (libretto by the
poet Rinuccini). Although Dafne's music no longer exists,
evidence of its contemporary effect is the commission Peri

received from his patron, the Duke of Medici, to compose a

 

of her ban on castration, on public performance by women and
soon on the public theatre.

3Instrument of the lute family, p. 300.

4The term opera was not applied to the genre until the
end of the 17th century.

second work of this style for the important celebration of
Marie Medici's marriage to Henry IV of France. This second
work, entitled Eurydice with libretto by Rinuccini, was pre-
sented in 1600 before an audience which contained much of
Italy's nobility. Upon their return home, this nobility
demanded and/or encouraged the presentation of the new style
within their own courts, thus expanding the potential for

experimentation and development of dramma per musica.

 

Claudio Monteverdi: a renowned composer of experimental
polyphonic madrigals,5 was commissioned by his patron to

compose a dramma_per musica in 1607 and under his pen the new

 

genre took on a concrete form. Monteverdi chose the same
legend of Orpheus and EurydiCe used by Peri, but with a new
libretto entitled ngeg by Alessandro Striggio. In his 1i-
brettos Striggio attempted to overcome the inherent weakness
of earlier librettos by strengthening characterizations

and expanding the action and emotional ranges of the story.
Monteverdi applied all that he had learned in his various
madrigal writings and used the music to expand and express
all the dramatic elements within the libretto. Moreover, the
composer increased dramatic tension by alternating solo,
chorus and instrumental sections and by utilizing harmonic-

rhythmic tensions against carefully chosen dramatic events.

 

5Monteverdi worked with new internal patterns of rhythm
or placed one texted vocal line against four lines of
accompaniment.

10

Monteverdi also used the declarative recitative6 but added
to it short sections of more melodic music to express the
most emotional moments of Striggio's characters.7 Thus,

the embryonic form of still universally used operatic pro-
cedures, utilized by Monteverdi and Striggio to increase the

dramatic effectiveness of their dramma per musica, marks this

 

work as an important developmental step.
Monteverdi continued to experiment with more expres-
sive combinations of music and drama within the genre between

1607 and 1642 when he wrote his last dramma_per musica,

 

L'Incornazione di Poppea (libretto by G. F. Busenello).

 

This last work was the fruition of all Monteverdi's study
of the nature of music and drama in combination and once

again reflected the direction that dramma per musica was to

 

follow in the future. Early librettos were derived from
Biblical tales, myths or legends and concentrated mainly on
the personification of virtues such as courage and wisdom.
However, the libretto for Poppea revolved around the actions
of historical figures whose passions of love, hate and ambi-

tion caused the events of the play.9 Recitative was still

 

6A vocal style designed for speechlike declamation of
narrative episodes developed from the work of early composers
in the genre such as Peri, p. 241.

7This is the beginning of the recitative ariso or
accompagnato which has a lyrical, expressive quality rather
than a declamatory one, p. 16.

8Wallace Brockway, The Opera (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1941), p. 6.

9

 

It tells the story of Emperor Nero's love for the

11

used to reveal the dialogue, but to this Monteverdi added
the aria,10 a song form which was utilized as a means of
revealing the character's inner thoughts or emotions about
his situation or events occurring around him and which
caused a complete halt in the dramatic action of the play.11
The aria quickly became the essential form within opera for
the composer, the performer and the audience. It is out of
Monteverdi's attempts to unite music and drama in a common
expressive end that the patterns of opera were established,
patterns soon to become rigid conventions far removed from
the goals of the Camerata.12
The work of composers and librettists like Monteverdi
and Busenello established the format for the internal struc-
ture of opera, but it was the external force of the public
audience that jelled this structure into trite conventions

and disrupted the musical-dramatic balance. The novelty of

the dramma per musica won favor with the Italian nobility,

 

and it quickly became a popular entertainment within their

courts. The poets, composers, singers, musicians, etc. who

 

Roman matron Poppea and the events leading to her corona-
tion.

10A composition for solo voice with instrumental
accompaniment which is characterized by a complex vocal
part, p. 16.

11R. G. Pauly, Music and the Theatre (New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970). pp. 66-67.

12

 

Brockway, p. 10.

12

were instrumental in the development of the new genre and
involved in its performance were affiliated with these courts.
In fact, the impetus for a new work by a composer and li-
brettist was usually a commission from a noble patron for
entertainment at a court celebration, and rivalry between
various courts allowed them the freedom of experimentation.
The audience attending these early presentations of the genre
was composed of educated members of the court by birth or
association who could appreciate not only the novelty but
also the theoretical aspects of it.13 The performers were
either members of the court, the court musicians, a singer-
composer like Peri or family of the composer, such as Giulio
Caccini's daughter.14
Thus, for the first thirty-five years of opera's
history, it was performed for and by a select segment of
society. However, the opening of the first public opera
house 15 in 1637 led to a change in the nature of the audi-
ence and performers by the end of the century. The nobility
financed or owned these first public opera theatres and
assured themselves continued segregation and privacy while

attending performances by arranging the seating in two levels.

The wall was lined with several tiers of boxes, usually well

 

13Edward Dent, Music and Drama, contained in New Oxford
History of Music, G. Abraham, ed. (New York: Oxford UnIVer—
sity Press, 1968), p. 827.

14

 

 

 

Brockway, p. 3.

15Teatro San Cassino.

13

decorated and furnished, which were rented by the noble
families for a season or longer. The main floor, furnished
at best with plain wooden benches, was open to general

admission.16

Anyone able to pay the price of admission
could view the new entertainment, and the main floor of the
opera theatre became a social melting pot. These theatres
became important points of social or business contacts because
of the enormous popularity of the genre; indeed often watch-
ing the performance was secondary to these other interests.
Opera's popularity also turned it into a "business"
regulated by the wishes of the paying public. This public
favored the singer who could provide new and difficult vocal
ornamentations. Thus, the technical art of the singer took
prominence over all other considerations in the performance
of the genre. Further, the female singer's transfer from
private to public theatres was hindered by two factors,
and the castratol7 quickly rose as the prevailing figure in
opera.18 First, a papal proclamation banned women from
appearing on the public stage because of the moral implica-

tions, and many ladies of the court refused to appear because

of the boisterous atmosphere within these public theatres.

 

16Pauly, p. 62.

17A male soprano or alto who has been castrated in order
to preserve the youthful range and character of his voice.
Their voices were greatly admired in the 17th and 18th cen-
turies for their unusually wide range combined with great
power and a peculiar, youthful tone color, p. 47.

18Pauly, p. 75.

14

Second, the singing style19 of many female singers of the
private theatre did not transfer effectively to the enlarged

20 Thus, the need for a

space within the public theatre.
performer capable of singing the high range of female roles
while projecting into the space of the public theatre was
filled by the castrati. The castrati became instantly popu-
lar because they were able to fulfill the demands of the
audience for vocal acrobatics and by the century's end, when
they ruled supreme in opera, all dramatic considerations were

buried under the requirements and dazzle of the vocal art.21

Opera in the 18th Century

 

The conventions which emerged from the public perfor-
mance of opera in the late 17th century became unchangeable
criteria that measured the success or failure of an opera by
the early 18th century. The singer and his vocal art were
the foremost items of this criteria, and the castrati set the
performance standard for singers. The papal ban22 on women
appearing on stage was generally ignored by this time, and
the prima donna rapidly became the audience's second favorite.

Aspiring singers tried to take lessons from a castrato, whose

 

19Angus Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (London: Secher
and Warburg, 1956), p. 24.

20

 

Ibid., p. 25.

21Henry Edward Krehbiel, Studies in Wagnerian Drama
(New York and London: Harper Brothers Publishers, 1902),
p. 13.
22This ban remained an official decree in Rome until
1798.

15

vocal techniques were emulated by all singers of Italian opera.
In fact, these techniques and the castrati's whole manner of
singing became the standard of correct singing throughout the

23

western world. It is from this standard that the first

half of the eighteenth century became known as the age of Bel
Canto.24

The Bel Canto style originated as a vocal technique aimed
at increasing the dramatic expression of the singer. It grew
out of the belief that the singer's finely developed musical
instinct would lend itself naturally to the composer's ulti-
mate goal of musical drama, and his vocal art would increase

its expressive possibilities. Pleasante describes these aims

in his book, The Great Singers:

 

Brilliant roulades, or "divisions'lent themselves
to the expression of fury, rage, vengeance and
resolve, or, given the requisite harmony and
figuration, jubilance and satisfaction. Trills
and turns served to give emphasis to closes and
cadences. Appoggeaturas brought dignity and
gravity and sustenance to a long melodic line.
Slurs, portamenti and rapid scale passages, dia-
tonic and chromatic, ascending and descending,
could give weight and pathos to a climatic note.
And embellishments could be fashioned according
to situation and personality, thus becoming a
constituent element of characterization.25

However, as the vocal techniques and virtuosity necessary

to execute them became the center of interest to operatic

 

23Heriot, p. 30.

24Beautiful singing.

25Henry Pleasante, The Great Singers: Dawn of Opera to
Present (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), p. 21.

l6

audiences, these dramatic aims became a nebulous end. The
audience's relentless demands compelled many operatic com-
posers and librettists to relinquish the creative credibility

of their musical drama and, thus, their music and poetry

became nothing but an excuse for the display of vocal orna-
mentation by the singer. Once this pattern was established,

the singer was not expected to have any more intelligence

than a parrot, and as long as he could "warble away at runs

and trills," he was considered a great artist by the audience.26
In fact, the castrati gained their enormous popularity because
they were the most proficient performers of the Bel Canto
style by the early 18th century.

The act of castration not only preserved the high timbre
of a boy's voice but, as he matured, it often caused a physi-
cal growth beyond that of the normal male. His enlarged size,
combined with a highly developed breathing and vocal mechanism,
enabled the castrato to achieve power and control beyond that
of any rival, male or female. Giovanni Bontempi, in Historia
Musica, describes the art of a castrato in the late seventeenth
century:

There was, to begin with, the purity of his voice
and his success with every kind of passage, the
impact of the trills and the ease and grace with
which he achieved every note. But beyond all that,

after a very long, sustained and lovely passage
beyond the lung capacity of any other singer, he

 

26James Frances Cooke,Great Singers on the Art of
Singing (Philadelphia: Theo Presser Co., 1921), p. 34.

17

would, without taking a breath, go into a very
long and lovely trill and then into still another
passage, more brilliant and beautiful than the
first.27

Such vocal abilities as described by Bontempi were

developed through rigorous training of a castrato from an

28

early age. Numerous schools were fostered in Italy for the

29

sole purpose of training young singers, and each day the

student was put through a complete regimen of musical study:

In the morning:

1 hour singing passages of difficult execution,

1 hour study of letters,30

1 hour singing exercises 'in front of a mirror,’
to practice deportment and gesture, and to
guard against ugly grimaces while singing, etc.

In the afternoon:

1/2 hour theoretical work,
1/2 hour of counterpoint on a "canto fermo" (in
other words, practice in improvisations),
1 hour studying counterpoint with the 'cartella,
1 hour studying letters.

.31

The rest of the day was spent in exercise at the harp-
sichord, and in the composition of psalms, motets,
etc.

 

27Pleasante, p. 55.

28Many schools originated as charitable institutions
for poor children and slowly turned to training students
musically and hiring them out to churches and theatres.
Heriot, p. 42.

29Venice was known for training female singers and
Naples for male.

30The study of word values and their pronunciation.

31Cartella: a glazed tile with music-staves, on which
exercises could be written, and then erased at will.

32Heriot, p. 48.

18

Thus, the student was trained not only in voice but also in
the theoretical elements of the song, while his "dramatic"
training consisted almost solely of the negation of unsightly
movements and gestures. The young singer was expected to
make a debut between the ages of fifteen and twenty. Indeed,
the castrati were placed on stage at the earliest age possi-
ble so that their youthful figures would be more appropriate
for the impersonation of a female.33
Singers won or lost favor with the audience through
their execution of vocal acrobatics, and rivalry was fierce
among singers to gain a place of prominence. The audience
often was divided in its opinion as to which singer was best,
and many performances were disrupted as the opposing factions
would applaud their own favorite and boo the rival. A singer
was given recognition by the number of songs he was assigned
in an opera and the prima donna, both female and male, got
the largest number. The performance centered on the singer
and his art and all other elements of the production bowed
to his desires and demands. Benadetto Marcello describes an

opera performance in 1721 in his pamphlet The Theatre in High

Style:

Singing the aria, he may well decide that he will
pause where and when he pleases; in the cadenzas
improvising such passages and embellishments that
the orchestra director lifts his hand from the
harpsichord and takes a pinch of snuff while he

 

33As their figures and voices matured with age, the
castrati were assigned leading male roles.

l9

waits the pleasure of the divo. He will treat
the dramatic action according to his own caprice,
since the modern artist need not understand the
sentiment expressed in his own words, nor trouble
himself to co-operate by gestures or movements.
Singing the da ca 034 he will change the whole
aria to suit h1mse1f, even though his changes
have no connection whatever with the harmony

of the author, or the convenience of the orches-
tra players, and though these variations may even
include a change of tempo no one cares, since

the composer of the music is resigned to anything.35

Under the performance conditions Marcello discusses, the

dramatic action within opera would be completely destroyed

 

by continued interruptions and disregard for dramatic ele-
ments such as characterization. Thus, musical drama had
become a virtual concert piece of vocal arts by the singer
under the thin veneer of costume, scenery and plot.

The second half of the 18th century saw a major
critical revolt against the dramatic absurdities within the
opera fostered by the singer's vocal style. The roots of
this revolt started as early as the mid 1600's with such
critics as Boileau, Saint-Evermond and Algarotte, and con—
tinued in the early part of the 19th century with the
writings of Addison and Marcello. Much of the criticism
was directed at the singer, particularly the castrato, and

by mid-century he was being admonished for his unrestrained

 

34An aria with two sections, the first of which is
repeated after the second, thus producing the form ABA.
p. 16.

35Cornelius L. Rude, Bel Canto: Principles and
Practices (New York: Coleman Ross, 1950), p. 9.

 

 

20

vocal embellishments and generally poor stage deportment,
which had heretofore been accepted or at least tolerated in
deference to his vocal art. Critics would no longer toler-
ate the general deportment of singers exemplified by "the
twisting of one's head, the rolling of one's eyes, the
shaking of one's head, the shifting and noise with the feet,

the placing of one's hand behind one's ear, the touching of

 

one's mouth with the hand, the shaking of one's hands at

36

trills, etc.,' and through their writings they tried to

 

encourage various methods of, ideally, improving the singer's
dramatic expressiveness, but, more practically, his stage
deportment. The negative style of training given in Italian
music schools, while removing unsightly gestures, developed
tendencies in the singer which proved as anti-dramatic as

the unceasing movement described above. As early as 1715

an impressario wrote of the castrato Sinesino's stage deport-
ment: "he stands like a statue and when occasionally he

does make a gesture he makes one directly the opposite of

d."37

what is wante The idea of training a singer like an

actor seems to have had its beginning during this time, and
many critics suggested that the singer copy the methods of

renowned actors of the day by observing them in performance.38

 

36Ibid., p. 23.

37Heriot, p. 94.

38Duey, p. 63.

21

Italian audiences continued to adulate operatic
singers for their technical vocal feats, and by mid—century
the castrati reached the pinacle of their popularity despite
criticism. However, the tide of criticism did take hold in
other countries and culminated in the reform efforts of
Christopher Gluck. Gluck echoed the Camerata's beliefs that
the music should be subject to the drama and insisted that
there had to be at least a balance of the two elements within

opera. To achieve this end, Gluck believed that the tyranny

 

‘“.'_1"l'l"t

of the singer's vocal art, which he saw as a central cause
of the musical-dramatic imbalance, had to be broken by re-
instating the composer's credibility and forcing the singer
to comply to the written score. Thus, his reform efforts
stemmed from an attempt "To avoid all those abuses which the
misapplied vanity of singers and the excessive complaisance
of composers had introduced into the Italian opera, and which
had converted one of the finest and most imposing of spec-
tacles into one of the most wearisome and most ridiculous."39
In 1776 Gluck described several of his methods of achieving
such reforms in his opera Alceste:

So I have avoided interrupting an actor in the

warmth of dialogue, to make him wait for a weari-

some ritornello, or stopping him in the midst of

his discourse, in order that on some suitable vowel

he may exhibit the agility of his fine voice in a
long passage, or that the orchestra may give him

 

9Ernest Newman, Gluck and the Opera (London:
Victor Gollanoy Ltd., 1964), p. 238.

 

22

time to take breath again, I have not thought it
my duty to hasten through the second part of the
aria when this second part was the words of the
first part four times; nor to finish the aria when
the sense is not complete, in order to give the
singer the opportunity of showing in how many ways
he can vary a passage. In a word, I have sought
to banish from music all the abuses against which
good sense and good taste have so long protested E
in va1n.

Gluck's reforms,then, called for an opera quite dif-
ferent from the musically lush/dramatically bare Bel Canto

opera, and while his ideas became the target for sharp

 

criticism, the debate that followed spurred a re-examination
of the genre.41 As a composer, Gluck often fell short of
his own goals, but the impact of his ideas, while not causing
immediate modification of Italian opera, laid the ground
work for many changes in musical drama. Italian opera would
no longer hold the exclusive place it had had for nearly two
hundred years, and such forms as singspiel, grand opera,

and comedic opera were used by composers in the last quarter
of the century into the eighteen hundred51fi1rgreater drama-
tic effect. The singer would no longer be able to conceal
his dramatic insufficiencies with the dazzle of his vocal
art in works written for his select needs. And his lack of

dramatic training would slowly become more evident with the

developments of the 19th century.

 

4OIbid., p. 239.

41Newman, pp. 240-241.

23

gpera in the 19th Century

 

Musical drama is constructed from many variables, and
some of these underwent change in the new century. AHereto-
fore, the basic financing of the opera house was obtained
from the aristocracy. However, a shift in European society

greatly depreciated this support as the economic power became

controlled by the rising middle class.42 Managers of opera
houses now had to rely almost solely on box office receipts

to maintain the theatres, and thus, the size of the opera

 

house steadily increased to insure a revenue via the seating
capacity with the public's taste remaining the main guide
line for production. Instruments had undergone many develop-
ments in two hundred years which culminated in a magnified
but more accurate sound individually and in combination.
The singer had to maintain his vocal autonomy over an en-
larged orchestra and in an enlarged theatre. The castrati
had lost considerable favor everywhere save Italy, and they
were rapidly being replaced in popularity by the soprano and
the tenor. However, initially there was little change of
emphasis in presentation (music before drama) as this transi-
tion occurred because the new favorites were usually trained
by the castrati or their pupils.

The greatest change to affect the singer and his art

was the reestablishment of the artistic authority of the

 

42Pauly, p. 129.

24

operatic composer which was set in motion by Gluck and gained
momentum at the beginning of the 19th century through
Beethoven. During the previous century the operatic com-
poser had been submissive to the whims and wishes of his
patron, the audience, and the singer, and he often worked
under adverse conditions in short allotments of time. Gluck
tried to increase the operatic composer's control over the
form and presentation of his work.

Beethoven, a recognized genius in his own lifetime,
also helped to assert the composer's independence by his
attitude of equality towards the nobility, wealthy patrons
and anyone else who would relegate him to a position of

43 His artistic contribution was sufficient in

itself to warrant the support and respect of others.44 He

servitude.

had a more direct effect on opera through his lifetime
interest in the expressive possibilities of musical drama.
Indeed,he was one of the first synphonic composers to utilize
combined text and music within his work. He kept records of
ideas for operas he hoped to write, although he only com-
pleted one in his life, and he campaigned throughout his life
against the frivolous nature of Italian opera, while he
championed opera as a vehicle of moral instruction for the

audience. He blamed the work of'popular Italian opera

 

43Alice M. Diehl, The Life of Beethoven (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, MCMVIII), p. 38.

44

 

Ibid., p. 39.

 

25

composers, such as Rossini, for the "corruption" of the audi-
ence so that they were unable to appreciate the more mature
subjects of his works. Even opera composers Beethoven greatly
admired, such as Mozart, were criticized for their use of

frivolous or improper material within their operatic work.45

 

Beethoven continually reworked his own opera in

attempts to strengthen the musical-dramatic effect. Fidelio,

third revision completed in 1814, was a "horror and rescue"46

 

opera which is technically classified as a German singspiel '5
because of its spoken dialogue. Beethoven insisted that his
singers strictly adhere to the written notes and dynamic

47 He was also vehement about refus-

markings of the score.
ing to change a single note and thus alter the total effect
because it might be difficult for a particular singer. In
the musical drama envisioned by Beethoven the art of orna-
mentation had no place, and the drama was given increased
importance within the genre.

The transition from Classic to Romantic style in the
early 19th century accented the attempts by some operatic

composers to renew the exploration of the expressive possi-

bilities in musical drama, and many contrasting ideas on the

 

451bid., p. 44.

46Pauly, p. 130. Operas in which courage, love and
devotion overcome injustice and villany.

47Diehl, p. 188.

26

internal form and external presentation were afoot as a

result. The premier of Der Freishfitz by Weber in 1821 marked

 

the use of early Romantic elements48 in musical drama and

49 The

the trend away from the use of Italian opera form.
works of the most popular Italian composer, Gioacchino
Rossini, reflected change even within the Italian opera from
the technical displays of the singer to the melodic line of

the composer. Although the best works of Rossini dealt with

light subject matter, his music was supreme, and the singer,

 

though not directed to dramatic considerations, was limited
to the written score even in this former haven of the Bel
Canto style.

The most controversial champion for the development
of musical drama and the reevaluation of the singer in terms
of dramatic as well as musical abilities was Richard Wagner.
Wagner analyzed the state of contemporary musical drama50
and the ideas of previous reformers before determining his

own direction. He saw the theatre audience as a conglomerate

of the vulgar and genteel who continually flung confused

 

48It included such elements as dark forests, moods
of nature, religious sentiments and medieval superstitions
woven into the plot (Pauly, p. 151).

49Pauly, p. 151.

50Wagner often referred to the genre as musical drama
rather than a form name such as opera, singspiel, etc.,
Albert Goldman and E. Sprenchorn, Editors, ngner on Music
and Drama Translated by H. Ashton Ellis (New York: E. P.
Dutton and Co., 1964), p. 43.

 

27

demands at the theatre manager.51 Further, the whole manner
of presentation that contributed to the anti-dramatic nature
of musical drama Wagner saw as an all too common occurrence

in the theatre of this day.

It would be impossible to name a single perfor-
mance in which end and means had been in thorough
harmony. In which the lack of talent, the faulty
training, or the unfit employment of individual
singers, insufficient preparation and consequent
uncertainty of others, raw and spiritless delivery
of the choruses, gross blunders in the staging, and
almost total want of balance in the dramatic action,
clumsy and senseless by-play on the part of in-
dividuals; and finally, grave faults and negligences
in the reading and rendering of the music itself,
carelessness in its nuancing, want of harmony be-
tween the phrasing of the orchestra and that of

the singers, had not made themselves felt somewhere
or other in a more or less disturbing and even an
offensive manner.52

Wagner believed reforms were absolutely necessary if
the integrity of musical drama was to be recaptured, and he
examined the work of past composers to determine what form
it should take. Mozart was able to create truly expressive
music for a text when the text was sufficient to spur his
instinctive responses. Thus, Wagner felt the true importance
of the poet and his art within musical drama was revealed

through Mozart's example.53

Rossini, through his elaborate
melodies, exposed what Wagner believed remained within

Italian Opera of musical drama: the music.54 In Der

 

51Goldman and Sprenchorn, p. 42.

52Goldman and Sprenchorn, p. 44.

53Ibid., p. 100.

54Ibid., p. 104.

 

28

Freishfitz, Weber pointed in the wrong direction for satis-

 

factory reform because he attempted "to construct drama from

55 while

absolute melody" and tyrannized the poet with it,
Wagner called Gluck's efforts a "conscious speaking out and
firm conviction" for the composer's need to revolt against
the willfulness of the singer. Indeed, many of Gluck's ideas
were used by Wagner as a basis for his own reforms.56
Once Wagner had developed his ideas and produced them
artistically, he was faced with the problem of acquiring
singers to perform his works. Singers' training, despite
increasing criticism of Singers' nondramatic style of presen-
tation since Gluck, had remained virtually unchanged for
over one hundred and fifty years. Traditions passed through
a long line of teacher-pupil exchanges was the basic method
which had incorporated little more than clear diction and
proper stage posture in reference to "dramatic" training.
Wagner was warned early in his career of the problems he
would encounter when contemporary singers performed his
works: "Singers will heartily abuse your work and however
much it has to be altered it will always be difficult for
them, but whoever has the brains to understand it will be

"57

able to get a great effect with it. Wagner tried to

 

551bid., p. 108.

56An example of Wagner's reforms is his restructure
of the internal movement of opera away from the strict divi-
sion of aria and recitative to a more continuous action.

57Wilhelm Altmann, ed. Letters of Richard Wagner,
Trans. M. M. Bozman, 2 vols. (New York: E. P. Dutton and
Co., 1927), 1:14.

 

 

29

instill this understanding in his singers through private
coaching in the dramatic elements of their art and directed
their attention to the importance of these elements by con-
tinually referring to them as actors. Further, he instructed
his singers to "put aside the affected pathos" they assumed I;
when producing their "song-voice" and to "approach the pro- I
duction of the pitched text as naturally and unconstrainedly

as they would if it were spoken dialogue rather than sung."58

 

However, singers unfamiliar with the most basic acting skills,
were usually unwilling to abandon or alter their traditional
methods of presentation for the suggestions of a controver-
sial composer such as Wagner. Joseph Tichalschek, for

example, contracted to appear in the premier of Tannhauser,

 

became indignant at Wagner's demand that "he should express

"59

in his acting the meaning of the text. Nevertheless,

Wagner occasionally had the opportunity to work with a per-

60 who was able to understand

former such as Ludwig Schoor
his ideas, was capable of achieving them with little drama-
tic training except Wagner's coaching and, most important,
was willing to attempt new methods. In fact, Schoor was

able to perform certain passages he had considered impossible

in Wagner's works after his sessions with the composer on

 

58Krehbiel, p. 12.

59Geoffrey Shelton, Wagner at Bayreuth (London:
Barrie and Rockliff, 1965), p. 37.
60

Tristan.

 

Schoor was chosen by Wagner to play the role of

30

the dramatic essence of the musical material. Wagner's

concept of the singing actor for musical drama was thus

reinforced when he discovered that a singer who understood

and utilized the emotions and energy of the drama could per-

form the demands of the music written to reflect them: F»
One feature has remained as unforgettable as I
instructive: the utmost physical exertion lost
all its fatiguingness, owing to the singer's
having grasped the'right expression of the words; I;

the spiritual understanding gave forthwith the
strength to overcome the material difficulty.61

 

“T. .1

1

However, Wagner's achievements in the dramatic presentation
of his musical dramas was limited to a handful of singers
because most of his performers were unwilling to accept his
ideas, and their performances fell short of his goals. Many
singers were reluctant to even attempt working with Wagner
because of the persistent rumor that the singing he demanded
would ruin not only the singer's voice but his health.

After Wagner, the "ideal" for the musical drama per—
former slowly changed from a beautiful voice to an excellent
singer-actor. ‘Other composers followed Wagner's lead, even
those opposed to the form of his musical drama, and strove
to build their works on a more concrete dramatic structure.
Even the last stronghold of the "old style", i.e., Italian

opera seria, reflected this change in such works as Verdi's

 

La Traviata and Othello, Bizet's Carmen, Leoncavallo's

 

 

61Goldman and Sprenchorn, p. 338.

31

I Pagliacci and Puccini's Tosca. Thus, increasing demands
were made of the singer to express the full depth of the
musical and dramatic elements in his presentation of musical
drama.

By the beginning of the 20th century such demands had

‘ ‘fl

brought to the fore the whole question of how to train a

a" 8" INA-IE",

singer in the techniques of acting while singing in order
to perform the combined elements of musical drama. Attempts

to answer this question came from many diverse sources such

 

as the Opera Studio of Moscow. This institution was founded

by Stanislavsky in 1918 with the idea of placing the dramatic

side of opera on a "higher footing."62

However, the results
of the Studio never matured past the discussion stage of
methods and theses for the training of the singing-actor

and a few experimental productions under Stanislavsky's

63

direction. Vladimir Nemirovitch-Danchenko, a colleague of

Stanislavsky, sought answers through the expressionistic

 

62Walter R. Volback, Problems of Opera Production
(Fort Worth, Texas: Christian United Press, 1953), p. 37.

63The methods Stanislavsky used at the Studio were
basically those that he had developed in connection with the
production of the drama. In an article in the New York Times
("Stanislavsky--He made Singers Act" (July 13, 1975), pp. 1
and 13), Harold Schonberg talks of the work Stanislavsky
did with the singers of the Bolshio Opera. Stanislavsky
worked with the singers on diction to insure that each word
would be heard by the audience and movement to create a
natural and unaffected means of expression for the singer.
Realism was the goal Stanislavsky wanted to obtain in per-
formance of opera and he battled with chorus masters and
singers about his staging, tried to abolish the star system
and even changed sections within the opera to achieve his
end.

 

 

32

64

movement and developed The Synthetic Theatre. The basic

 

principles of Nemirovitch-Danchenko's groups were that
theatre should be THEATRE and not a concert stage in a
theatre, to introduce genuine art into the lyric drama start-

ing with the art of the actor and finally to create a theatre

65

of the musical actor. The work of this group was acknow-

ledged for its dramatic impact in production, but criticized

for its inferior musical presentation, particularly for the

66

lack of first class singers. This problem plagued

 

'rl"’

Nemirovitch-Danchenko throughout his work because he had to
rely on young unknown singers when more established ones
refused to become but "one" member of an ensemble or to
attempt new methods.

The Opera Studio of Moscow and The Synthetic Theatre.

 

 

are but two examples of the many attempts in this century

to find the answer to the question of how to train the musi-
cal drama performer. In America the basic training ground
for the young singer has become in the last thirty years the
conservatory or the music department at universities.
Teachers have developed increasing interest in methods of
quickly and easily producing an artist capable of balancing

the elements of musical drama. If it is accepted that the

 

64This new style required the singer to become part
of the rhythm that embraced and involved everyone and
everything on the stage.

65Oliver M. Sayler, Inside the Moscow Art Theatre
(New York: Brentano, 1925), Quoted in Volback, Problems,
p. 30.

65Vo1back, p. 40.

 

33

acting-singer is essential to the full expression of musical
drama in all forms, then the means of training such a per-
former is an important and, at the present, still an open
question.

Over the course of opera's history composers have had
different concepts of the original idea fostered by the
Camerata of combining drama with music. ‘It was the concept
of composers like Caccini that established the trend in

which music was the central element of dramma per musica.

 

 

The audience of the public opera house found this manner of
performing the genre pleasurable and increasingly demanded
that it be expanded through the vocal ornamentation of the
singer. Thus, the vocal tradition of musical interpretation
in opera evolved throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Although reforms of opera were attempted in the
eighteenth century by Gluck and the nineteenth century by
Wagner, the singer continued to be trained in the same methods
of musical interpretation because audience demand still
centered on the music. However, the effects of these reform-
ers slowly brought about the reexamination of musical drama
as a combined form and exposed the problem of the singer's
lack of training in acting techniques. At the beginning of
the twentieth century solutions were sought for the problem
of how to prepare the singer to act as well as sing in the

performance of musical drama.

CHAPTER III
THE PROBLEM: ACTING WHILE SINGING

Introduction

 

The basic problem that has confronted the opera

singer for over three hundred years is ultimately the same

V 32‘ .

one inherent in all forms of musical drama for the performer:

 

‘Hl‘j": }

how to give necessary emphasis to the elements of drama and
music simultaneously in performance. The singer is faced
with this problem in musical drama because as an artist he
is concerned with achieving the "ideal" presentation of his
art. However, since the earliest attempts by the Camerata
to achieve the "ideal" of musical drama,there have been
contradicting concepts of how this should be achieved. These
varying concepts have acted as negative forces on the
singer's ability to accomplish such an ideal, particularly
in the area of his training. This chapter, therefore, will
examine the basic principles of musical drama's ideal, what
the performer's contribution should be to its achievement,
and why the singer so often is incapable of making this

contribution.

The "Ideal" and the Performer's Fulfillment of It

 

Art, music and drama have within their individual

modes an intrinsic set of variables which define their

34

35

possibilities of expression. The ideal of musical drama is
the combination of two different artistic elements into a
form in which each element is adjusted to and augmented by
the variables of the partner element. Thus, in essence,
musical drama is a hybrid form with the promise of different,
if not greater expressive possibilities than the two parent
forms. In the ideal combination both drama and music, while
losing their individual autonomy, should acquire a greater

expressiveness. Both drama and music require the presence

 

of an audience to complete their presentation, yet each
affects this audience in a different manner. Drama achieves
its transformation from the author-poet to the recipient-
audience as a three dimensional enactment. Further, drama
stimulates ideas and images and conveys a story, character
identity, etc., both visually, through the stage movement,
and aurally,by means of the text. Music, on the other hand,
transfers the composer's notation into sound waves via the
musician and primarily stimulates the audience aurally.

In addition, music has no dimensionality like drama; hence,
it is not necessary to view the performer to comprehend the
full nature of the composer's work. Music is capable,too,
of reaching the innermost being of the auditor and explod-
ing images, sensations or moods within him, but it cannot
delineate specifics such as a plot.

In Music and the Art of Theatre, Adolphe Appia states

 

that "by means of dramatic representation, music is

36

transported into space and there achieves a material form."l

Thus, Appia accredits musical drama with giving music the
additions of visual stimuli and "specifics" through dramatic
action to enhance its intrinsic expressiveness. Drama, then,
receives from music the variable of energy through rhythm,
and thus a more instantaneous, instinctive response from the

audience to its words and action images. William Harris

\ ‘ I'Y'fi.“

discusses the benefits of musical drama in his publication

A Discourse on Music, Paintipg and Poetry:2

 

 

From.what has been said it is evident that these
two arts can never be so powerful singly, as when
they are properly united. For poetry, when alone,
must be necessarily forced to waste many of its
richest ideas, in the mere raising of affections,
when, to have been properly relished, it should
have found those affections in their highest
energy. And music, when alone, can only raise
affections which soon languish and decay, if

not maintained and fed by the nutritive images
of poetry.3

The durability of this theoretical concept of mutual benefits
in the ideal of musical drama is illustrated in the words of

Clara Rodgers, two hundred years after Harris wrote the

 

1Adolphe Appia, Music and the Art of Theatre, trans.
by R. D. Corrigan (Coral Gables, Florida: University of
Miami Press, 1962), p. 18.

 

2 I O I O 0

Vocal mu31c 11: super1or to instrumental mus1c to
Harris, even when music and drama are combined in the
simplest song, because of the duo nature of sounds and word.

3William Harris, A Discourse on Music, Painting and
Poetgy in Works, vol. 1801, pp. 58, 59. Cited by Newman,
Gluck and the Opera, p. 260.

 

 

37

Discourse, when she says: "the music in itself, has no

 

definite meaning, it can only suggest the mood of the poet,
it cannot tell his story. It is the words that illustrate
the music, while the music magnifies the words, investing
them with an added eloquence which embraces their emotional

.4 A ‘ I"'

However, the union of these two different arts also

value.

creates the need for adjustments to certain inflexible vari-

ables within one or both parts. The element of time is

 

important to both music and drama, but is essential to music.
Time is part of the internal foundation of music and is
expressed as both the rhythm creating a relationship between
the individual notes and the tempo creating an overall time
relationship. Drama's internal rhythms, on the other hand,
are not as defined and restricting as music's and therefore,
the music's rhythms are used in a musical drama. In Epipg

Opera to Life, Boris Goldovsky observes, "When theatre,

 

dealing mainly with thoughts, words, characteristics and
visual images,becomes associated with music, it has to
relinquish to its new partner full control over the timing

"5 However, the more restrictive

of almost all activities.
time structure of music is not unlike the regulation of

poetic meter when poetry is used in partnership with drama,

 

4Clara Kathleen Rodgers, Clearcut Speech in Song
(New York: CLH. Ditson and Co., 1927), p. 2.

5Boris Goldovsky, Bring Opera to Life - Acting and
Directipg (New York: Appleton-Centry-Crofts, 1968), p. 86.

 

38

which has proven that such a regulation of time need not be

a detriment to the imaginative function of one to the other.6

Thus, over the length of musical drama's history the under-

lying "ideal" of creating a new form from two distinctive

arts to yield greater expressive potential for each part,

despite necessary adjustments, has remained constant. 8
The performance of musical drama requires a performer

capable of displaying the full expressiveness of the genre

through the possession of sufficient talents in the arts

 

1%

of both drama and music. Such a performer must be able to
understand and exhibit the inherent expressiveness of each
art. Even more importantly, he must be proficient in all
the means of utilizing each art to augment the other while
avoiding the nondramatic/musical snares intrinsic to their
union. If the performer doesn't possess these basic abili-
ties he is destined to fail in the performance of musical
drama. The singer is able to execute the musical aspects

of the genre, but usually fails to maintain characterization,
word images, or dramatic tension due to faulty acting tech-
niques. 0n the other hand, the actor not endowed with a
singing voice may learn to understand the nature of music,
but will never be able to perform it in its full possibility

because of a faulty instrument..

 

6J. Merrill Knapp, The Magic of Opera (New York:
Harper Row, 1972), p. 13.

 

39

The Anti-Factors: The Dilemma of
Concepts and Training

 

 

Since the ultimate goal of writers and performers
of musical drama is the achievement of its "ideal" form
and presentation, even a brief examination of musical drama's
history raises a question about the apparent discrepancy F“
between this ideal and the product. Two words describe
the reasons for this discrepancy and indicate the basic

problems: concepts and traditions. Since the seventeenth I

 

century this disagreement has centered around three concepts 1
of a music-drama combination; music as subservient to drama,
drama as subservient to music, and drama and music as equal
parts. The delineation of these concepts began with the
works of Jacapo Peri and Giulio Caccini, members of the
Camerata. Music was considered subordinate to dramatic
interests in Peri's theories and compositions, and his
melodic lines always remained simple throughdut his career
as a composer. Caccini, on the other hand, believed that
the musical line was the initial and essential consideration
of the genre, and he incorporated the first vocal ornamen-
tations within his works that became such a prominent part
of opera.7 Gluck and Wagner, champions of reform, wanted

to achieve a balance between the two arts. Many composers

have been criticized for failing to achieve their concept

 

7Brockway, p. 5.

40

in the practical application of composition. Appia says of

Wagner's work:

As I delved deeper, the evidence forced upon me
the realization that an inescapable contradiction
exists within the Wagnerian drama itself, that
during performance, there is a continual com- _
promise between the music and the actor, between F-
the art of sound and rhythm and the art of plastic
and dramatic movement.8

The emphasis of one element in musical drama has often 3

caused a weakening of the genre's potential expressiveness,

1.

 

particularly the expressive possibilities of the song, the
basic form of the genre.9 The emphasis of music has been
the dominant concept of the ideal throughout musical drama's
history. Such emphasis has often caused the genre to be
constructed around weak librettos with trite situations and
cardboard characters. Furthermore, the emphasis of music
did not create a need for singers to develop their dramatic
expressiveness because audiences were satisfied with musical
presentations and composers often had little power to ini-
tiate a change. Thus, from the dominance of the concept of
drama as subservient to music developed the tradition of singer
training based on musical understanding, vocal dexterity,
and good posture. Dramatic techniques were not only absent

from the singer's training but also deemed totally unnecessary.

 

8Appia, p. 2.

9Charles K. Scott, The Fundamentals of Singipg
(London: Cassell, 1954), p. XXVIII.

 

41

This basic tradition of training remained unchallenged until
this century, and even today many singers are trained in
methods based on this same tradition which has been passed
through a long line of teachers and pupils.10 Thus, the echo
of presentation styles dating back to the age of Bel Canto e
is heard from modern singing teachers: The singer should
aim at singing so well that he can persuade his audience
purely by vocal means, as though he were not seen. Though,

if he can use action without spoiling the appeal of the song,
11

 

v.- x——

he is entitled to do so.
The tradition described above has foisted upon the

singer a reputation of being devoid of acting abilities.

It is not uncommon to hear negative remarks about the singer

in terms of his acting: "One evening at the opera will

convince even the neophyte of the low estate of the singer's

acting ability,"12

or "It is a happy coincidence when opera
singers have acting talent: generally what happens is that
they acquire sufficient stage experience to execute the
necessary minimum, or make do with the essential arm move-
ments, like swimmers in a clumsy effort to satisfy the stage

13

direction!" Yet such a reputation is warranted in view

of the singer's history of nonacting in the performance of

 

10Goldovsky, p. 2.

11Scott, p. 401.

12Duey, p. 57.

13Victor Feeches, The Art of Singing and Voice Tech-
niques (New York: Grown Publishers, 1941), p. 176.

42

musical drama, though it must be recognized as due to a lack
of proper preparation to assume the dual demands of the genre
for most singers rather than to a general absence of ability
in dramatic presentation.-

Victor Mauriel, a recognized singing-actor of the

14

late 19th century, believed that most singers had the

.u .!TYC“1'_AR? P41
‘!

instinct to sing expressively and with energy and, therefore,

15

could act IF directed to proper study. This is an impor-

tant point, for the singer has been constantly directed

 

away from the "prOper study." The time consuming process

of developing a singer's musical and vocal abilities has
taken precedence over dramatic training particularly during
periods when no demands were made for the presentation of
musical drama's full nature either by the audience, who

were satisfied with "beautiful tone, the intoning of melodic

sequences by the voice,"16

or by the composer, who bent to
the audience's will. Even today, when the full expression
of musical drama is usually sought after, the singer is

encumbered by a training program deficient in comprehensive

acting preparation.

 

14"His singing and acting were so perfectly combined
that we do not know if it were a certain tone of the voice
or the gesture that accompanied it which affected us most."
J. H. Duval, Svenggli's Secrets and Memoirs of the Golden
Agg (New York: Robert spiller and Sons, Publishers, Inc.,
1958), p. 29.

15

 

Ibid., p. 114.

16W. J. Henderson, The Art of Singing (New York:
The Deal Press, MCMXXXIII), p. 5.

 

43

In Bring Opera to Life, Goldovsky remarks that all

 

too often in contemporary voice programs the singer‘s act-
ing instruction is deferred in the early years of study in
the belief that the student should not combine the two arts
in his study until his vocal apparatus has been firmly
developed.17 However, such an approach has proven dis-
astrous to the dramatic training of the singing student for
two reasons: first, the student is required to perform

continuously during this period and is shown "temporary"

 

I.

methods of presentation and often assumes individual habits
which become second nature to his performance style; and
second, this style usually becomes his acting method because
when the time arrives for the student to begin his acting
studies he is required to take on secondary or major roles
in musical drama productions leaving little time to learn
acting techniques other than those gleaned from a production

18

situation or related coaching sessions. These temporary

methods, which include graceful movement, good posture, vocal
interpretation of text and cliché movements and gestures to

19

reflect the emotions of a character, become the age old

anti-dramatic veneer of musical drama whenrmnzredirected by

 

l7Goldovsky, p. 131.

18Duey, p. 57.

19Goldovsky tells the story of a leading tenor who
had phlem in his throat and took the earliest opportunity
to spit it out through an upstage window at the first
orchestral interlude; thus, "looking out the window" became
the standard stage direction during this section of the song,
p. 4.

44

a more complete acting technique. Furthermore, the student
is confronted with a style of production still geared to a

musical focal point by virtue of picture staging:

The few directions I found always referred to

the personages who were singing at the very moment.
The other characters were treated as if they were F.
simply to stand around waiting for their next turn
to sing. The very thing that disturbed me so much
in most of the operatic performances I had wit-
nessed was that the singers behaved like orchestra
musicians who when they have rests, sit in their
chairs quietly counting measures and waiting for
their cues.

 

The singer in focus is directed to "remember that
operatic acting differs from the drama in the fact that
important musical passages must always be turned toward

the public,"21

a movement than can only perpetrate an
unnatural and anti-dramatic performance. Yet, if the student
should try to acquire proper acting techniques because of

his own instincts and initiative or a teacher's counseling,
he is usually confronted with methods that are indecisive

or indirect in reference to his performance needs. The
student can turn to established musical drama performers

and study their methods of performance, particuarly those
noted for their acting skills. However, with little oppor-
tunity to study directly under such singers, the reading

22

of critical reviews and even observing their skills in

 

20Goldovsky, p. 3.

21Duval, p. 118.

22Examples: Van Vechten's book Interpreters and

 

45

performance does not reveal to the student how to develop
similar dramatic expressiveness in his own work. And though
in many modern programs the student is given an opportunity
to study in regular acting classes, this method of study
must fall short of the ultimate goal of producing a musical
drama performer, too, because it does not directly deal with
the problem of performing music and drama simultaneously.
Of course, the student does become familiar with basic act-
ing skills and, hopefully, develops his instinctive responses,
but never is he taught how to apply these skills with his
art. This not to say that there are not similarities in
preparing the actor for drama, the singer for concert per-
formance and the acting-singer for musical drama. In fact,
certain methods can be beneficial to the three types of
student, but there are differences which are essential for
the acting-singer to learn if he is to become proficient in
the performance of musical drama.

The musical drama performer is confronted by a con-
stantly varying range of character elements such as age,
personality traits, ambitions, etc., even though he is

vocally type cast, because within each vocal range there is

 

Interpretations - Olive Fremstad: "But the fierce joy and
Spirited abandon she put into the acting of the role, the
passion with which she infused her singing, carried her vic-
toriously past the dangerous places, often more Victoriously
than some other singer who could produce high notes more
easily, but whose stage resources were more limited."

Singer Maurice H. Jacquets from The Road to Successful
Singing: "We breathe not merely oxygen but our emotions -
love, hate, friendship, fear, anger and so on. If a singer
will breathe in the thought or emotion he wishes to express,
he will automatically find the right 'color' for the tone."

 

 

46

no set pattern of character. He must be proficient in a
variety of musical as well as dramatic performance styles.
He must reveal, too, the essentials of his character as
naturally as the dramatic actor while keeping constant
contact with the central pulse of the music regulated by
the conductor. In essence, then, the acting-singer must
be able to do all that the actor does, all that the singer
does plus successfully mesh the two arts into a unified

performance.23

Goldovsky, in his work with singing students,
notes the eagerness and ease with which the methods of
blending musical and dramatic values are assimilated and
utilized by such students, and believes it to be an indica-
tion of how underestimated the flexible talents of singers
have been over the history of musical drama.24 However,
the presence of these flexible talents is of no advantage
if the student is not properly trained, and the failure

of available methods to do so is all too evident in the
constant result of anti-dramatic performances by singers

in musical drama. Special training programs, geared to the
specific needs of this genre, must be developed if musical

theatre is to have more dramatic resources than an occasional

instinctive acting-singer.

 

23Rona1c1 Elwy Mitchell, Opera - Dead or Alive (No
City: University of Wisconsin, 1970), PP. 57-58.

24Goldovsky, p. viii.

 

CHAPTER IV

THE STUDY SURVEY: WHAT CONSTITUTES ADEQUATE
MUSICAL DRAMA TRAINING?

Introduction

 

The aspirant singer usually begins a concentrated

study of his art when he enters a college or a private music

 

school at about eighteen. Most voice educators agree that :?
although the vocal apparatus is not completely matured at
this age, it is sufficiently developed to begin the regimen
of exercises and song study required in an applied voice
program. The student's first problem is to find a school
which offers the type of program he wants, which is within
his financial range and which will accept him as a student
after a process of auditions and qualifying music examina-
tions. It is difficult to acquire an exact count of the
number of accredited schools that offer a music program in
applied voice. However, of the 1185 schools listed in a
college preparatory pamphlet printed by the Indiana National
Bank,1 a little over half (600) offered a music program,

and within this number about half also contained a program

in dramatic arts. Music programs at the college level break

 

lThis pamphlet was printed in 1968, the year this
author looked for a music school with an applied voice
program.

47

48

into three basic types: private music schools that have
established an accredited academic program (Juilliard

School of Music and The Cleveland Institute of Music);
private music schools that have become incorporated into a
university (Fredonia School of Music at the State University
of New York and the College-Conservatory of Music at the
University of Cinncinati); and universities having developed
music departments which are usually part of their liberal

arts college (the University of Indiana or Minnesota).

 

The Survey Purpose

 

The purpose of a survey conducted by this author was
to try to establish patterns of dramatic training within
the various types of vocal programs available to the student
considering a career in musical drama. It was hoped that
such patterns would yield answers to several questions per-
taining to the present day nature of a singer's dramatic
training at this formative stage. As the trends in musical
drama performance have slowly shifted towards a more complete
expression of the genre, have the methods of training the
musical drama performer reflected this change? As old
methods prove unfruitful in yielding competent acting-singers,
are schools taking on new methods or do their programs still
basically reflect the patterns of the old methods? Do vocal
educators believe in dramatic training for the singer since
the next generation of musical drama singers will reflect

their teachings in performance? Do music schools include

49

dramatic training within their vocal programs, or is such
training merely an appendage added if there is time left

after music requirements are fulfilled? How do vocal students
get their dramatic training? Do they, in fact, get such
training? Since the major source of music training for the
singing student in America is available through university

and private music school programs, it is pertinent to obtain

the answers to these questions through an evaluation of the

programs these schools offer.

The SurveyeSample

 

A review of large numbers of vocal programs revealed
certain requirements emerging as essential to almost all of
them. The coursework for voice majors usually includes
differing amounts of study in a basic survey of liberal arts,
physical or social science and a music core covering sight
singing, aural harmony/ear training, music theory, history
and literature, secondary piano, diction in four languages
and/or language study, voice lessons and membership in a
choral organization. ,The remaining credits of the degree
are devoted to more in-depth musical studies such as con-
ducting, composition, etc. with a possibility of one or
two elective courses. If a school is able to emphasize a
certain style of singing, operatic is usually the first
choice, and some type of workshop in operatic training
(covering dramatic presentation within opera) is made avail-

able within the program. Private music schools are more

 

50

likely to offer specialized training in different singing
styles, and their programs tend to include less "liberal arts
and science" study. However, overall, the music departments
in universities can offer the same basic music courses and
vocal training as private schools at considerably less
expense to the student.2 The schools included in this survey
represent all three types mentioned3 and they meet certain :'

criteria in order to equalize the variables as much as pos-

sible. These criteria include: enrollment of over one

 

thousand students, a co-educational student body, tuition
under one thousand dollars per academic year, a complete
bachelor degree program in music and a dramatic arts program
as well as a music program within the school.4 Each question-
naire was sent to the chairman of the music department or
school with a letter of explanations requesting that it be
given to the teacher most qualified to answer questions on
dramatic training for the singer. The teachers answering

the questionnaire were voice instructors, the head of the
vocal division, the chairman of the music department or

specialists in operatic training.

 

2The tuition range runs about $2500 for private
schools and $700-$1000 per academic year for others.

3Questionnaires were sent to 110 schools with 73
responding to them.

4Exceptions were made for private music schools.

5A complete list of these schools is found in Appendix

51

The Survey Results

 

Question #1
Do singers need dramatic as well as musical training?
Yes - 72 No - 1

This question was aimed at three goals. First, it
would establish the position of the instructor answering
the questionnaire in relation to his beliefs concerning the
most basic level of the survey's investigation: dramatic
training for the singer. This could then be used as a vari-
able to discern patterns between those educators who do and
do not deem such training necessary in later answers.
Second, it would help reveal trends in vocal education
among a random sampling of vocal teachers for or against
dramatic training for today's vocal student. Finally, if
opinion on this question were divided, different emphases
within music programs would be pinpointed through a compari-
son of negative or positive responses according to the
school's type where the individual teacher taught voice.

The response to this question was almost unanimously
in favor of dramatic training for singers, a response which
indicates that, at least in principle, today's vocal educa-
tors do believe dramatic training is a necessary part of
the singer's preparation for a career in vocal music.
Teachers who deem such training necessary are more likely
to encourage a student, even beyond the offerings of a given
program, to acquire skills in the dramatic side of his art.

This is the first and perhaps the most important step in

 

<~,_

52

revamping vocal programs available to students towards a
more balanced curriculum of drama and music. It is these
teachers who construct the various curricula within the
schools and who have the most direct influence on the

student's development and training.

Question #2
Does your department require dramatic training in its pro-

gram for a voice major? Yes - 20 No - 53

Question #3
If it is not required does your department recommend it and
allow elective credit to accommodate it?
Yes - 47 No - 6
Total: Yes - 67 (require or recommend dramatic training)
No - 6

The aim of these two questions was simply to establish
the policy of required or recommended dramatic training
within the vocal programs of the various institutions
being surveyed and, therefore, to note any patterns among
them. Question #2 was based on the assumption that a student
studying in a school that required dramatic training within
its vocal program would get at least a minimum exposure to
acting skills (recognizing the variation in the types of
training among the different programs). Also, the school's
view of the importance of such training through the incor-
poration of it as an academic requirement in the voice
program might act as an impetus for the student to continue

such training.

53

A little under a third of the schools surveyed included
some form of dramatic training in the requirements of their
vocal programs. These twenty schools tended to have more
specialized programs in musical drama, such as opera or
musical theatre. In the remaining fifty-three schools, only
six did not recommend at least some form of dramatic train-
ing to their students. Thus, in the majOrity of music
schools some type of dramatic training is either required
or recommended as part of the voice program. Within schools
that only make a recommendation for such training, it is
difficult to speculate how much training the student is
able to include in a program usually already laden with
coursework, or even how much direction he really receives
towards obtaining such training. However, the answer pat-
tern of these questions does indicate that not only individual
voice teachers, but also general music department policies
reflect the belief that dramatic training should be part of

the singer's training.

Question #4
Do your voice majors get dramatic training from:

A — courses taken outside the department 13

B - courses taken inside the department 13
c - both ' 44
D - neither 2
Not Applicable (NA) 1

This question tried to pinpoint the source of dramatic

54

training for the voice student among the various programs.
Courses taken by the student "inside" his department usually
fall under the heading of workshop or music theatre techni-
ques class (the latter is rare) and are easier for the student
to accommodate within his degree program as major credits.
If such training is acquired "outside" the music department,
it comes most likely under the heading of acting classes
through the theatre department. These credits are usually
classified as electives within the student's degree require-
ments. The type of class situation the student generally
finds himself in under these circumstances is either a
course designed for non-major students (usually those not
interested in any type of dramatic career) to provide a
broad experience in acting skills and increase their appre-
ciation thereof (this is not to say such a course cannot

be beneficial to the singer), or a regular introductory
acting class geared towards acting majors.

In both cases the specific needs of the acting-singer
are not approached in the class work. Also, because of the
limited elective credits available to the music major and/or
the crowded enrollment in such beginning acting classes,
the voice student usually doesn't get past introductory
courses in either situation. The majority of schools
indicated that, in fact, the student received his training
from both sources. Ideally, this could create a situation
where the student learns the basic acting skills outside

the music department and, then, is taught how to apply them

55

in reference to the specific need of his art within the
department. Generally, it seems that the student is not
instructed on how to apply the natural abilities he may
have or the acting skills he may acquire to the dramatic
requirements of musical drama. The trend in seeking out-
side sources of dramatic training does indicate that

within music departments the lack of sufficient training

to develop the potential of the student's acting skills

is being recognized either by the educators or the students,

and solutions are being investigated.

Question #5
The average amount.of credit hours spent on dramatic train-
ing by voice majors in your department equals:

A - l to 6 48

U?!
I

6 to 12 16
C - 12 to 18 0
D

- 18 to 24 1

E - 24 to 30 1
B and C 1
NA 6

When the voice student does receive dramatic training
within his music curriculum, it is also necessary to deter-
mine the extent of his training in terms of credit hours
in order to evaluate further the state of training for the
acting-singer in present day vocal education. In the

schools surveyed, over half had only a maximum of six credit

56

hours of dramatic training as an average in programs encom-
passing one hundred and twenty credit hours applied towards
vocal training plus related music courses, or acting credits
plus related courses for theatre majors. A very negative
picture develops for the potential of proper training for
the acting-singer in such programs. At best, one to six
hours of study would just barely give the student a minimum
base from which to work in his understanding of the dramatic
elements of musical drama: how to coordinate these elements
with the musical elements would receive even less coverage.
Production time cannot be counted in the individual student's
dramatic training because all but the main characters are
given only basic direction on how to move unobtrusively and
gracefully to various stage positions. In terms of class-
room situations, these credits read as two acting classes,
one acting class plus workshops or roughly three workshops.
The sixteen schools that indicated a program of six
to twelve hours of dramatic work reflect one of two struc-
tural changes in comparison to the schools with under six
hours of work. First, these extra credits are usually made
available because of fewer requirements within the program
for liberal arts-science general courses. Secondly, these
credits encompass programs structured to more specific goals,
such as the opera majors. The two schools that indicated
programs with over eighteen hours of work both have bachelor
of fine arts programs geared to the musical drama performer

and, thus, dramatic courses become a major subject and more

57

intrinsic to the degree's goals. Therefore, while the
attitudes of vocal educators have become more positive in
reference to dramatic training for singers, department
requirements for vocal programs have not yet encompassed
the needs of the student in terms of the amount of training

necessary for his dramatic development.

Question #6
Do you feel that the voice majors in your department receive
sufficient dramatic training? Yes - 13 No - 50

This question was again aimed at establishing the
individual teacher's feeling about the nature of his student's
dramatic training. Since the majority of schools required
no more than twelve credit hours of such training and an
average of six hours, the pattern of agreement or disagree-
ment by individual teachers would indicate the future
potential for revisions of such credit allotments to drama-
tic training within the various programs. If a teacher
believes his school's allotment of credits to such training
is insufficient for the students' needs, he is more likely
to be open to favor increases of credit time in this area,
to promote proposals of different methods of training or to
encourage the student to obtain further instruction in act-
ing. It is encouraging to note that the majority of teachers
did not feel that the training available to their students
(from one to thirty hours) was sufficient preparation. This

attitude creates a positive atmosphere for the reevaluation

58

of dramatic training within vocal programs.

Question #7
Do you feel operatic voice students as opposed to applied

voice majors:

A - require more dramatic training 26
B - require some dramatic training 10
C - require special dramatic training 24
A and C 7
NA 5

Opera has been the key form in musical drama for many
generations, if for no other reason than because the musical
preparation is more extensive than for other forms of the
genre. Opera is more difficult vocally because of its use
of the extreme parts of the vocal range and its generally
more complex melodic and accompaniment line.6 It is opera
that is usually recognized by music schools as the valid
form of musical drama for study, and, if schools do incor-
porate a specialized program of musical drama in their
curriculum it is most often in opera. Thus, voice students
are classified as "applied" when the major portion of their
song repertoire covers a variety of vocal styles and song
forms, and, as "operatic" when the major efforts are directed
to operatic material and styles.

In comparison to concert singing, even the most non-

dramatic production of opera requires more movement for

 

6In terms of intervals, rhythmic patterns, etc.

59

entrances, exits, and focal positioning, includes costumes
and make-up, requires musical concentration while moving
about stage and constant contact with the conductor from a
variety of stage positions. Many music schools offer some
form of "stage deportment" study to their voice students,
particularly schools with specialized programs in opera.

Do vocal educators feel the same type of dramatic training
is necessary for the operatic voice student as the applied
voice student? Three-quarters of those teachers surveyed
stated the need for some type of different training in pre-
paration for an operatic career. Opinions were almost
equally divided between a program that just increased the
amount of dramatic training for operatic students or one
that incorporated a special method of training. This special
type of training usually falls under the heading of "opera
workshop" and is more often than not the department's only
form of dramatic training, an indication that no form of
such training is available to nonoperatic voice students
within their departments. Since the majority of schools
surveyed only require minimal training and the question
covered both types of voice student under a general heading,
even those schools advocating special and/or more dramatic
training for the operatic student (a potential acting-singer)
do not provide more than six to twelve hours of such train-

ing per four years of voice education.

60

Question #8

DO you feel the reputation singers seem to have as "not

being able to act" is due to:

A - lack of general ability on most Singers' parts 1

B - lack of training in acting for the singer 49
C - unfounded and varying with each singer 17
B and C 5
NA 1

Do vocal educators recognize this "reputation" and to
what do they attribute it? The majority of teachers an-
‘swered that this reputation was caused by a lack of train-
ing for the singer in acting techniques. Only one teacher
felt that it was due to an overall lack of dramatic talent
on the student's part. Most believe the vocal student cap-
able of attaining dramatic growth through training to alle-
viate this reputation. Seventeen educators indicated that
they felt such a reputation is unfounded and individually
varying, which also negates the idea that singers are, as
a group, simply not capable of acting. The answers to this
question remained consistent within the pattern that has
emerged in earlier answers in that most teachers feel their
students need and benefit from dramatic training and that

not enough of it is offered to meet their needs.

Question #9
Do you feel a special course designed to give singers basic

acting training in their own medium (singing) is:

61

A - needed 53
B - not necessary 2
C - exists 15
A and C 3

If the future acting-singer receives his training from
the degree-oriented programs of music schools or universities,
then the most comprehensive method of training him must be
developed within this structure. Answers to question four
indicated that the means by which a student gets his dramatic
training may come from a variety of sources, while responses
to question five revealed that in the majority of programs
a small percentage of the overall degree credits is directed
to such training, even in those programs more specialized
toward musical drama. A pattern emerges as to the nature of
dramatic training for students which covers a minimum amount
of undirected (in terms of musical drama needs) and non-
standardized work which may account for the consistant lack
of skill in dramatic abilities by the singer. The majority
of educators answering this question indicated that a special
course geared to training the voice student to act while
singing was needed. While a minority of educators felt that
such a course already exists, it was obvious from comments
they added that they also felt the need for such a course.
This special course could offer a partial solution to the
problem of training the singer to act while singing, by
giving the student a basic knowledge of acting techniques
in conjunction with his usual performance form, i.e.,

singing.

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION

Historically, musical drama has constantly shown that
the singer doesn't act well while singing because he has not
been trained in proper acting techniques. Further, these
techniques have been considered unnecessary in vocal educa-
tion until recently. From the beginning of its history,
there have been different concepts of musical drama's ideal.
The dominant concept of drama subservient to music established
the singer as the prominent element in the performance of
musical drama. The singer developed a highly technical vocal
art in response to the audiences' demands for vocal ornamen-
tation. Critics and reformers, such as Marcello, Gluck and
Wagner, tried to reestablish both arts as part of the genre's
performance, but audiences continued to accept the singer's
performance as a musical instrument producing beautiful
sounds. Over the last forty years the audience, while still
tolerant of bad acting from singers with exceptional voices,
increased its demands for better acting in musical drama.
Today's singer is hindered in learning how to act while sing-
ing by two problems. First, tradition is the keynote of
vocal training and many methods which are still valid vocal
techniques often tend to produce an anti-dramatic performance
style. Second, if the singer does receive acting training

62

63

there is usually no means of learning how to apply these
techniques directly to singing.

A survey of seventy-three vocal education programs in
accredited colleges was conducted to establish the present
policies and practices of dramatic training for the singer.
This survey revealed that the majority of teachers questioned
felt dramatic training was needed by the singer. In fact,
this majority felt the singer's "reputation" of not being
able to act was due to an absence of acting training for the
singer. The voice student is either required or encouraged
to get dramatic training by the majority of surveyed schools.
However, these same schools only allowed six to twelve credit
hours for such training, one-twentieth to one-tenth of the
degree program. Most of the teachers felt that this was not
sufficient training for the student and that there was a need
for a special course designed to give the singer basic acting
techniques in his own medium of expression, the song.

Throughout the history of musical drama there has been
a lack of dramatic training for the singer. Today it is
generally accepted that singers should act as well as sing
in performance, but there is still a lack of sufficient
training. The student should be exposed to proper acting
techniques while he is still receptive and flexible enough
to adopt them as part of his performance technique. The
author believes that for this reason the student singer
should be trained in three steps; a comprehensive voice

curriculum, a comprehensive acting curriculum and a training

64

method that would bring the two arts together so that the
student would learn to act while singing. These three steps
could be achieved in several ways. For example, the voice
curriculum and the acting curriculum could be taught simul-
taneously with continued crossing of coursework so that the
final step occurs throughout the training program. This
type of training would require a complete revision of most
contemporary voice programs and add additional time to them.
The author feels that at present the most practical
solution is to devise a program training the singer to act
which can become part of the present structure of voice pro-
grams. The first problem encountered with this solution is
the wide range of opinion among vocal educators about how
much dramatic training is needed by the student. No school
surveyed requires equal training in the two arts and the
average allotment of credits to dramatic training is six to
twelve hours. To develop this program another survey is
needed to determine what the majority of vocal educators
believe is the necessary minimum credit allotment for such
training. It should also question these teachers about the
type of material they feel must be covered in dramatic train-
ing for the singer. Ideally, the next step would be an
agreed minimum credit allotment for dramatic training cover-
ing the same basic material incorporated into all voice
programs. However, this is presently impossible and a
special course designed to train the singer in this area

seems a more practical form of this solution.

65

This special course should be designed to give the
student a basic foundation in acting techniques concurrently
with work on the problems encountered when applying these
techniques in a singing performance. The author does not
believe this should be the only dramatic training for a voice
student but rather is a starting point in his training. In
programs with few credits for dramatic training the student
would be assured of this minimum of acting techniques.
Students in programs with more credits for dramatic training
could use this course not only to obtain basic knowledge but
as an evaluation process to determine what techniques they
need further work on. The content of this course could be
constructed from the results of a survey of recognized actor-
singers inquiring where they received their training, what
training they believed was the most basic help in their
development and what they believe.arethe essential techniques
in teaching a student to act while singing. A follow-up
survey would then be sent to the schools or teachers named
by these performers to examine the format and content of
dramatic training within their voice programs. Further
materials for this course could be obtained through a compar-
ison of results from experimental classes using a variety of
methods to train the singer to act while singing.

The most immediate step that should be taken within
all voice programs is to require some amount of dramatic
training for the student singer. Most voice curriculums

include elective credits which could become the credits for

66

a requirement in dramatic training. Thus, all students would
be exposed to at least basic acting techniques, while not
increasing the overall credit load of their degree programs.
While this is certainly not the whole answer to the problem

of training the singer to act while singing it does offer

a positive step. Solutions to this problem must be found if

a consistently higher level of dramatic performance by singers

is ever to be achieved in all forms of musical drama.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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American Academy of Teaching Singing. Singing, the Well-
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Appia, Adlophe. Music and the Art of Theatre. Translated
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Armstrong, William. The Romantic World of Music. London:
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Arnold, Denis. Monteverdi. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.,
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Austin, Ball Thomas. Answer to Some Vocal Questions.
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Bacon, Richard Machinzie. Elements of Voice Science Being
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Baker, George. The Common Sense of Singipg. London-Paris:
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Barthel, Grace Claire. Fundamentahsof Correct Speech. St.
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Bauer, Marion and Peiper, Ethel. How Opera Grew. New York:
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Beskler, Paul. The Changing Opera. New York: W. W. Norton
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Brockett, Oscar G. The Theatre. New York: Holt, Rinehart
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Brockway, Wallace. The Qpera. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1941.

 

67

_‘
.V
I ‘.
- A
I

 

68

Brook, Donald. Singers of Today. London: Rockliff, 1950.

 

Brower, Harriette. Vocal Mastery. New York: Frederich A.
Slohers Co., 1920.

 

Brown, Ralph Morse. The Singing Voice. New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1946.

 

Bukofzer, Mandred F. Music in the Baraque Era. New York:
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Caisari, E. Herbert. Tradition and Gigli. London: Robert
Hale Ltd., 1958.

 

Colvert, Louise. Problems of the Actor. New York: H. Holt
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Chalmers, Helena. Clothes On and Off the Stage. New York-
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Cooke, James Frances. Great Siggers on the Art of Singing.
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Crocker, Charlotte. Taking the Stage. New York: Pitman
Publishing Corp., 1939.

 

Croker, Norris. Handbook for Singers. London: Augener
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Dace, Wallace. Elements of Dramatic Structure. New York:
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Davies, David Thomas F. The Singing of the Future. Champaign,
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DeRobeck, Nesta. Music of the Italian Renaissance. New York:
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DeYoung, Richard. The Singer's Art. Chicago: North Shore
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Diehl, Alice M. The Life of Beethoven. London: Hodder and
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Downs, Harold. Theatre and Stage. London: Pitman, 1951.

 

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Duval, J. H. Svengali's Secrets and Memoirs of the Golden
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69

Edwards, Henry Sutherland. The Prima Donna - A History from
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Feechs, Victor. The Art of Singing and Voice Techniques.
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Fields, Victor Alexander. Training the Singing Voice. New
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Freedley, George and Reines, John A. A History of the
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Gage, John. Life in Italy at the Time of the Medici. New
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Gehring, Albert. The Basis of Musical Pleasure. New York
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Gilman, Lawrence. Aspects of Modern Opera. London: J. Lane,
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Goldman, Albert and Sprenchorn, E. Editors. Wagner on Music
and Drama. Translated by H. Ashton Ellis. New York:
E. P. Dutton and Co., 1964.

 

 

Goldovsky, Boris. Bring Opera to Life - Actingeand Directing.
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Guelvert, Yvette. How to Sing a Song - The Art of Lyric and
Dramatic Interpretation. New York: The Macmillan Co.,
1918.

 

 

Henderson, W. J. The Art of Singing. New York: The Deal
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Heriot, Angus. The Castrati in Opera. London: Secher and
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Herman, Rienhold L. An Open Door for Singers. New York:
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Hoover, Kathleen O'Donnell. Makers of Opera. New York:
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Jackson, Stanley. Caruso. New York: Stein and Day, 1972.

Jacquet, H-Maurice. The Road to Successful Singing.
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Kagen, Sergus. On Studying Singing. New York: Rinehart,
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Kerman, Joseph. Opera as a Drama. New York: Knopf, 1956.

 

7O

Klein, Hermann. Great Women Singers of My Time. New York:
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Knapp, J. Merrill. The Magic of Opera. New York: Harper
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Krehbiel, Henry Edward. Studies in the Wagnerian Drama.

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Lakee, Henry Charles. Famous Singers of Today_and Yesterday.
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Lawson, Franklin Dana. Human Voice. New York and London:
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Lawrence, Robert. A Rage for Opera. New York: Dodd and
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Lahmann, Lotte. More than Singing - The Interpretation.
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Machlen, Eveangeline. Speech for the Stage. New York:
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MaKinzie, Barbra. Singers of Australia - Melba to Sutherland.
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Miller, Frank Ebenizer. Vocal Art - Science and Its Applica-
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Mitchell, Ronald Elwy. Opera - Dead or Alive. University of
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Nicolli, Allardyce. The Developpent of the Theatre. New
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Pennington, J. The Importance of Being Rhythmic. London
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71

Pleasante, Henry. The Great Singers: Dawn of Opera to
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. The Great American POpular Singers. New York:
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IIL 'K-i "b. '10. 9'.

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. My Voice and I. Chicago: A. C. McCherg and Co.,
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"Stanisloavski - He Made Singers Act," New York Times, 13
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72

Tetrazzine, Luisa. How to Sing. Philadelphia: Theodore-
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Volback, Walter R. Problems of Qpera Production. Fort
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Wagenknecht, Edward Charles. Seven Daughters of the Theatre.
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. 300 Years of American Drama and Theatre. New
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APPENDICES

FIT».

 

I‘D

APPENDIX A

QUESTIONNAIRE

Do singers need dramatic as well as musical
training? Yes

Does your department require dramatic train-
ing in its program for voice majors? Yes

If it is not required, does your department
recommend it and allow elective credit to
accommodate it? Yes

Do your voice majors get dramatic training
from:

A - courses taken outside the department

B - courses taken inside the department

C - both

D - neither A B

The average amoung of credit hours spent on
dramatic training by voice majors in your
department equals:

A — l to 6

B - 6 to 12

C - 12 to 18

D - 18 to 24

E - 24 to 30 A B

Do you feel the voice majors in your
department received sufficient dramatic
training? Yes

Do you feel operatic voice students as
opposed to applied voice majors:
A - require more dramatic training
B - require same dramatic training
C - require special dramatic training A

73

No

$2121." ll; .4

”I“

No

 

No

C D

C D E

No

74

8. Do you feel the reputation singers seem
to have as 'not being able to act' is
due to:

A - lack of general ability on most
Singers' part

B — lack of training in acting for
singers

C - unfounded and varying with each

singer A

9. Do you feel a special course designed to
give singers basic acting training in
their own medium (singing) is:

A - needed
B - not necessary

C - exists A

Any further comments or information are welcomed.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP AND TIME

I. - (Jim—v“: 4.4;

 

APPENDIX B

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

Academic Music Programs in Voice

NAME

Auburn University
Alabama

University of Alabama
Arizona State University

University of Arizona
Tucson

Arkansas State College
University of Arkansas

University of Redlands
California

Colorado State University
University of Colorado
University of Connecticut

Hartt College of Music
Hartford, Ct.

University of Delware

Howard University
Washington, D.C.

University of Florida

Southern Illinois
University

University of Illinois

1

No
Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

75

2

No
Yes

Yes

No
No

No

No
No
No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

3

Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

4

>- :> <3 r) (1

U3

5 6
A No
A Yes
E No
B No
A No
B Yes
A No
A' No
B Yes
A Yes
B/CYes
A No
- No
A No
B No
A No

7 8 9
C C C
C C C
A B/C A
A B C
A B A
- B A
A B C
C B A
B B A
A B A
A/C B A/C
A B A
C B A
A B C
C B C
A/C B/C A

 

171‘ .

NAME

Ball State University
Indiana University
University of Iowa

William Penn College
Iowa

Fort Hays Kansas State
College

Kansas State University
University of Kansas
University of Kentucky

Western Kentucky
University

Northeast Louisiana
University

Eastern Nazarene College
Massachusetts

University of
Massachusetts

Wayne State University

Bethel College
St. Paul, Minnesota

Mankato State College,
Minnesota

University of Minnesota
Delta State University

University of Southern
Mississippi

Central Missouri

College of Great Falls,
Montana

76

Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No
No
No

No

No
Yes
Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No
Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

O>OO

COCO-D

3>

3>UUS>D>

No
No
No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No
No

No

No

No

No

A/C

A/C

A/C

0017:1000

B/C

A/C

3>

>wz>u>

A/C

 

.1 l._ film. Q

NAME
University of Montana
Union College, Nebraska

University of Nebraska
Lincoln

University of Nevada
Reno

Trenton State College
New Jersey

Highland University
New Mexico

University of New Mexico
City College of New York

State University of New
York, Fredonia

University of North
Carolina

Minot State College
North Dakota

University of North
Dakota

Cleveland Institute of
Music, Ohio

Ohio State University
University of Akron

University of Cincinnati
Conservatory of Music

Oklahoma State University
University of Oklahoma
University of Oregon

Indiana University of
Pennsylvania

77

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

No

No
Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes
No

No

Yes
No
No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

>

0000

>

>U33>UU

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No
No

No

No

No

No

No

No

A/C

A/C

B/C

Dd

mounts

>-

> >> CD >

 

NAME

Pennsylvania State
University

Philadelphia Academy of
Music

University of Rhode Island

University of South
Carolina

South Dakota State
University

University of South
Dakota

East Tennessee State
University

Memphis State University
Tennessee

University of Texas
Austin

West Texas State
University

Seattle University,
Washington

University of Washington

Washington State
University

Marshall University
West Virginia

West Virginia University

University of Wisconsin
Oshkosh

University of Wyoming

78

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

B/C

...-i «'1

u.t~' . . ..

 

79

Composite Results

 

Question #1 Yes - 72 No - 1

Question #2 Yes - 20 No - 53

Question #3 Yes - 47 No - 6

Question #4 A - 13 B - 13 C - 44 D - 2 NA - 1

Question #5 A - 48 B - 16 C - O D - 1 NA - 6 Ti“
B/C - 1

Question #6 Yes - 13 » No - 50

Question #7 A - 26 B - 10 C - 24 A/C - 7 NA - 7 .

Question #8 A - 1 B - 49 C - 17 B/C - 5 NA - 1 r _

Question #9 A - 53 B - 2 C - 15 A/C - 3

APPENDIX C

Private Musical Schools with Degree Programs

The Juilliard School
Bachelor of Music

Voice and Opera Department

English Literature and Writing 6

History of Western Culture 9

Music in Western Civilization 12

Voice - Private Study 40
Literature and Materials 16

Ear Training 16

Piano Class 12

Vocal Literature * 8

Opera Training 1, II 12 to 24
Diction, Italian, German, English, French _12

Diploma Course (minus first three courses) 120 minimum
Degree Program 150 minimum

*This training includes classes in body movement, acting,
and staging as well as individual coaching.

Additional Course of Study: The American Opera Center
for Advanced Training

This provides the young singer with the performance
experience he needs between final training and a career.
It is devised for the young professional who has mastered
vocal technique and other basic studies and the curriculum
concentrates on opera production in all its facets
(students being required to participate in major opera
productions). The required courses are geared to the
needs of the acting singer:

1. Opera Theatre: Solo and ensemble coaching, both
musical and dramatic; the integration and rehearsal (in
studio and on stage) of scenes, acts and operas for work-
ship and public performance. 15 hrs. weekly

2. Lyric Diction: English Diction for
Singers 2 hrs. weekly

8O

 

oouoxm

81

Italian Diction:

Body Movement: Basic training in the
use of body in stage

movements.
Stage Make-up/one semester
Fencing/one semester
Acting

Dramatic Analysis and Interpreta-
tion

2 hrs.
2 hrs.

1 hr.

4 hrs.

2 hrs.

weekly
weekly
weekly
weekly

weekly

 

82

The Cleveland Institute of Music
Bachelor of Music - Applied Voice

Core Program:

Applied Music , 40
Language: Italian, French and German 18 g—g
Music History and Literature geared to
major 15
Harmony - Sightsinging - Eartraining -
Theory 30
English 6 ‘
Liberal Arts (beginning acting courses , .
available) 6 ; :
Additions to Core: #‘

 

Piano 4
Ensemble 6
Voice Pedagogy and Repertory 4 to 6
Conducting 2
Opera Theatre* 4
Eurhythmics** __2

37-140 Credits

*Opera Theatre:

Introduction to Peratic stage technique devoted
to the cultivation of free, expressive, and significant
movement on stage, to the discovery of the many backstage
facets of the opera house, and to the development of the
aural and muscular sensitivity which is the basis of good
opera theatre. Advanced courses available through
auditions.

**Eurhythmics:

The physical expression of rhythm in which large
bodily movements form the reference for rhythmic analysis.
Study of pulse, meter, patterns, cross-rhythms, improvisa-
tion, rhythmic canons, and bodily coordination emphasizing
proper tension and relaxation. Advanced courses available
and major offered on degree program.

APPENDIX D

Music Schools Incorporated into University or
College Programs

College - Conservatory of Music: University of Cincinnati
BFA - Musical Theatre

Applied VOice Concentration 2

Secondary Piano Study

Freshman English

Introduction to Western Civilization

Introduction to Theatrical Forms,
Broadcasting & Film

Theatre Dance 1

World Literature

Introduction to Music

Basic Theory

Sight-Singing

Acting

Stagecraft for TV, Film & Musical Stage
or

Design for Theatre & TV

Introduction to Directing for Musical
Theatre & Opera

Development of Drama

Music Theatre Workshop

Music Theatre Vocal Coaching

History & Aesthetics of the Theatre

Ensemble

Academic Electives

\OUJKOKDKONKO \O\OO\.L\

H
CXJONOOOOKDKO \0

H

I

l 9 Credit Hours

83

 

84

State University of New York - Fredonia

BM - Applied Voice

General Core & Electives 23
Music Courses
Applied Voice 24
Theory of Music 16
Secondary Piano 8
Conducting 4
Diction 3
Vocal Literature 6
Music History and Literature _§
77 total
(2 theatre courses - Introduction to Acting for non-

majors

Introduction to theatre available
to music majors) -

 

- -
\‘d'hiice 3,

 

APPENDIX E

Music Departments within University

Indiana University - Bloomington
School of Music
Bachelor of Music

University Core:
Humanities
Life and Physical Sciences
Social and Behavioral Sciences
English Composition

Music Courses
Voice 2
Piano
Diction
Song Repertoire

Core Group

 

O\U'ICD-I-\ U'ILDUIU'I

Music Theory and Music History 27
Musical Theatre-Opera of Others 15
General
Languages 15 _
Electives 15
I28 hours

Courses available to train acting singer:
Beginning Dance — Ballet
Introduction to Musical Theatre
Workshop in Opera Acting I-Il (Analysis of roles/
Exercises in per-
formance of operatic
scenes)
Opera Workshop I-II (Technical and performing aspects
III-IV of the light and grand opera
as they pertain to the singing
actor)
Musical and Dramatic Coaching I-II
Styles in Opera Acting

85

86

University of Connecticut
Music Department
Bachelor of Music

University Core

Physical Science 9
Social Science 9
Liberal Arts- 12
Music Courses

Voice 24
Theory - Sight-singing - Ear

Training - Harmony 18
Music History 12
Conducting 6
Piano - as needed
Music Electives 15
General Electives 15

Bachelor of Fine Arts - Music

University Core

Same 30
Music Courses I
Voice 24
Music History 6
Theory 6
Music Electives 16
Related Fields 15
General Electives 47

BM and BFA = 120 Credit Hours

All acting and related courses within the Department of

Dramatic Arts are available to music students.

 

 

"II IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII