Singing Lieder can be a nervous business for Opera Singers

Lieder singing is a lot more nerve-racking than opera. I perform a lot of opera these days and I feel that I am getting better and better at getting on stage, getting in a pretty good state, and rolling off the show.
There is a slight adrenaline release, especially in the premiere performance, and first few shows, but after that it becomes very easy.

Why then is it so nerve-racking to get up on stage with a pianist and sing lieder instead? Today I sang four Brahms lieder at a musical afternoon event at the London Buddhist Arts Centre in Bethnal Green in London. My nerves were at fever pitch beforehand for about half an hour, heart pounding, hands sweating, and although I got through the pieces with only one small text-blip in the first song ("Wie bist du, meine Königin"), which is strangely the one I know better than virtually any other song in the repertoire.

 I didn't really enjoy performing them in the same way that I enjoy performing Figaro or Germont, due to the nerves, but at the same time, the songs I chose gave me such scope to play with dynamics, colours and emotions that I felt I should have been enjoying it far more.

Part of it is of course that I had only one short rehearsal with the pianist a couple of hours before the gig, he and I both knew the songs beforehand, but we weren't really 'in sync' in the same way one is when working more regularly with one pianist on the song repertoire. On the other hand, one tends to have rehearsed opera for weeks beforehand. Another part is that lieder is utterly exposed compared with opera. You stand there, interpret and perform without a character to hide behind. It's you, the pianist and the audience. It shouldn't be underestimated just how much stage direction, movement, costumes and scenery help to dissipate nervous energy too through their spreading of focus.

Then, there's the fact that each Lied is only a few minutes long, so it's like starting a new mini-opera every couple of minutes. You also don't have other singers to share the load with, banter with backstage etc.

Interestingly I sang a lot of lieder in my student days, and it's a matter of being out of practice with it now. I don't feel at home on the concert platform in the same way as on the operatic stage because I do it so seldom now.

But lieder is such a wonderfully rich art form. I love the repertoire, especially Brahms and Schumann. Great poetry, magical intense and compact musical settings. Real interplay of piano and voice, intimacy and subtlety. It is a harder art to master the further into your opera career you go, as you get used to working in grand gesture and broad strokes in opera. But some great opera singers maintain their gift for lieder and the concert platform.

Time to change things for myself, create a new familiarity and renew my confidence for performing lieder (with ample rehearsals beforehand, please, to create a more relaxed experience).

That can only be done by doing it much more regularly. 

Heavy Metal's three best singers - technique, range and power

What sets heavy metal and rock singers apart from their pop, soul and rap contemporaries? Well, for a start, a lot of these guys can really sing powerfully and in tune, reproduce what they do night after night on stage, and record minus the studio tricks that modern day pop stars use to cover their vocal flaws. They often have phenomenal technique, and display genuine vocal athleticism. In operatic terms, they mostly support the voice well, they use the breath skilfully, and they sustain outrageously high tessituras for far longer than most male opera singers.

So here is my personal list of the best of the best in this genre:

1. Bruce Dickinson – voice category: full lyric tenor.
   
   
   

What can you say about Bruce that hasn’t already been said? The man is a phenomenon. A polymath and Renaissance Man, he is an airline pilot, champion fencer, author and historian, as well as being the singer in the world’s most successful heavy metal group. Here is a person who is widely respected outside the rock community for his intellect and media-savvy, as well as being a great singer.

With regards to his singing, he was nicknamed the ‘Air-raid Siren’ in his early days, singing for british metallers Samson. You could say that Bruce pioneered what was to become a signature sound for metal (especially power metal) singers with the extremes of high register and a relatively clean sounding vocal production. What sets Bruce apart as a singer is the level of commitment and intensity in what he does. He never sings a song half-heartedly, and performs with a seemingly indefatigable energy. Also, in contrast to many rock and pop singers, he actually brings a broad palette of colours and dynamics to what he does. 

Listen to the video clip here, the song Number of the Beast from 1982. Bruce was only 23 years old, and as far as I know he had no formal voice training. In the first section of the song, he moves from a near-whispered intro, to sudden fully supported high pitched lines with remarkable dexterity. When the song kicks of properly, he combines a punchy, staccato quality with a legato line. This is a feature of much bel canto opera repertoire but which many classical singers find very difficult to pull off. The style is of course rather different, but the technique the same. You can see it in opera vocal music when there is a legato bow indicated over a phrase concurrent with staccato or marcato markings.

He also incorporates a certain amount of rock 'raspiness' into his sound, but it is never forced or strained. He has a total command over his instrument at all times. The high lying legatos which he finishes phrases with, and indeed all his high singing is a very well supported head voice, which is NOT falsetto. There is no audible join, and he brings a large amount of the head quality into his lower voice too, which maintains a timbral brilliance and emotional connection. His range has sunk a little as he gets older, but he still performs with the same energy he as he had in his 20s.

Here is another example of his work on the more gentle solo track.

2. Ronnie James Dio – voice category: low tenor
   
   
   

Ronnie James Dio was what you would call a late starter in the world of rock. He was born in 1942, and although he fronted many bands, he didn’t break through in the world of heavy rock until the mid 70s when he teamed up with Ritchie Blackmore to form Rainbow. After a stint in Black Sabbath, his first solo album, Holy Diver, was released when Dio had turned 40, in 1982.

Dio’s voice was the classy sound of rock, and an altogether different instrument than the histrionics of for example Bruce Dickinson. He didn’t have the huge range, or the high-pitched wailing sound so popular to rock singers, but relied instead upon a combination of genuinely sweet tone, a rough rasp at times, and rock solid phrasing and technique. There was a sense of grandiosity and more epic poetry in Dio's singing, and indeed his lyrics more often than not dwell on the fantastic, dungeons and dragons, rainbows and dark forces.

Here he is on the track 'Gates of Babylon' by Rainbow. The amount of feel he conveys in this track is second to none:

Dio claimed that he had never had vocal training, but attributed his solid technique to his childhood years spent playing the trumpet, and the ensuing breath control.

He was extremely adept at edging the vocal chords to give a supported rasp. At no point does this feel uncomfortable or painful. This is, I feel, one of the prerequisites of masterful rock technique. Some singers can do it and some can’t, and it is usually discovered by them in a process of trial and error.

Out of all the singers here, Dio probably has the most naturally beautiful sound, similar in many ways to an operatic high baritone or low tenor. Listen to the clean singing at the start of the Black Sabbath track 'The Sign of the Southern Cross' to hear this, and also his modulation into a raspier, edgy full voice technique:

The only thing that keeps him off top spot is that Bruce takes things a lot further with using extreme registers and the risks that they entail with live performance. Dio’s was the most solid, and effective voice in rock for many years, and a truly powerful instrument to boot.

And let's not forget, Dio was the man to introduce the now ubiquitous 'horns' gesture to the world of metal. 

Ronnie James Dio passed away on May 16th, 2010.

3. Geoff Tate – voice type: baritone
   
   
   
   Geoff Tate shot to prominence as the vocalist for progressive metal band Queensrÿche in the mid 80s. His voice is included here due to a phenomenal technique which allowed him to sing at extremes of high register even though his actual speaking voice and vocal 'centre' are very much in the baritone area. Listen to this track, Roads To Madness, by Queensrÿche from their first full length album 'The Warning'. For me this is his most complete vocal display, combining a huge range of dynamics, emotion and register. I hear influences of Ian Gillan's performance on the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar here too.
   
   
   In general baritones  have a very good falsetto capability, usually better than that of tenors, and Tate uses his falsetto to maximum effect in a 'supported falsetto' fashion, which imbues it with power and focus. He also sings with a fairly high larynx in his upper range, which is what enables him, as a baritone, to hit those stratospheric heights with flexibility and precision. It means that the root of his tongue can remain reasonably relaxed. With a mic, the thinning of the sound that this causes isn't so problematical. Dickinson and Dio both sing with lower larynxes than Tate, giving a slightly more 'full' sound at the top, even though they have higher Fachs (voice categorization).
   Most operatice technique favours either a neutral laryngal position or a lowered larynx through as much of the range as possible.
   Tate is the only singer out of this trio who had formal vocal training, and it shows. His teacher in the US for a period was David P. Kyle, who also taught Ann Wilson of Heart and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, both rock singers with outstanding technique. Apparently as his career went on he became much lazier with his practice and skills and his vocals less technically accomplished as a result. What a shame! At the start of his career he had all the materials to be one of rock's premiere vocalists for decades to come. He was a huge influence on the vocalists in the plethora of prog-metal bands who were influenced by Queensrÿche in the late 80s and 90s such as Dream Theater and Fates Warning.
   An example of his more baritonal singing can be heard on Queensrÿche's most well known single, the ballad 'Silent Lucidity'.

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Of course there are many other fantastic singers in Metal. The raspy, rock sound is covered well by singers such as W.Axl Rose, and Brian Johnson. Rob Halford could well have been included in this list, as a pioneer of baritone/falsetto singing in metal. And in classic rock we have such amazing voices as Ian Gillan, Paul Rodgers, Freddie Mercury and Meat Loaf, to name but four.

Malaysia - Heading Home

So, I’m sitting on a plane somewhere over Hungary on my way back from the Malaysia experience. How did it all go? Did I learn much? Was it worth taking opera to a country with very little interest in it?

Theatre isn’t a particularly prominent art form in Malaysia, and opera is hardly ever performed there. Shopping malls seem to be more of a development priority for the government than building a thriving arts community and scene. As an experimental tour, sounding out the scene, I think the Merry Opera and Gardner and Wife collaborated fantastically well to get the whole thing to happen and to take La Traviata to the people of Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Ipoh. I think people like our promoters are doing a great job trying to increase awareness of our western art forms in the East.

Audience figures, at between a third and half full must have been disappointing though, on a financial level, especially as the shows were well promoted. What WAS really positive however was the eclectic mix of people at the shows, from muslim Malay, to Chinese, to British and Antipodean expats. Many of them were experiencing opera for the first time, so even though the audience figures weren’t great, we were planting seeds for more opera in Malaysia in the future.

One can’t help wondering if a collaborative Carmen or Madam Butterfly (with local musical groups or choirs, and the Philharmonic orchestra) would be rather a big event in the future if someone chanced on it.

For us as performers, well, it was a marvellous tour. To be in a tropical country like Malaysia for three weeks, as autumn turned to winter in the UK was great. Like a combination holiday/tour/hang out with mates/foodie extravaganza. Oh yes! Some of the street food in Malaysia is quite exquisite. And there are a plethora of scrumptious Dim Sum to try as well.

Being on tour is always a mixed bag. You live in a hotel room, have breakfast together most mornings, then go off and do stuff like sightseeing on your own or in little groups, before convening at the theatre again in the evening and spending a lot of time in the backstage area together before and during the show (we all shared one large dressing room). So there are times when the camaraderie and fun is brilliant, contagious. And there are times when you just want to get away and have some peace.

Luckily, as a large portion of the tour was spent in KL, where we were resident at the lovely Boulevard Hotel with our own rooms, privacy was easy to find when we needed it. And if you felt like a drink after the show, there would always be a few people sitting outside in the pool/bar area enjoying a late night tipple.

I often wonder what it’s like for big rock bands who spend one or sometimes two years on the road non-stop though. I can see how it would begin to get trying after a long time, and why band members often come of tour numb and exhausted. It is a somewhat surreal existence, and you need to find ways to earth yourself, whether it is working out, yoga, going for a massage or finding a nice park to reconnect with nature.

Experience wise this will leave its footprint with some great memories. I got to sing in a country that few of my colleagues will ever get to sing in, and to sing the Germont/Violetta scene with two such talented sopranos as Claire Egan and Anna Jeruc-Kopec was, as ever, an absolute pleasure.

The stage crew and staff from Malaysia were never less than courteous and professional, and Natalie, who liased with us for Gardner and Wife, the promoters, was lovely and became a great friend of everyone in the company. She even got to come on stage in a cameo for a couple of the group scenes on the last night.

Watch out for a couple of new videos in the next couple of days about sights in KL and Ipoh. I will post them up on Youtube with a link from The Baritone too.

Malaysia tour day 19 - Lightning strikes

Our show on wednesday evening, when we got back from Ipoh and returned to PJ Live Arts, was cancelled at the last moment due to lightning hitting the theatre. That was a first for me!

Heavy rain and thunder are a feature of most days here. The morning and midday are sunny, and then the skies cloud over and the tropical rain hits. It is rainy season here (one of two). Some of the thunder storms have been quite dramatic; indeed just yesterday I watched from my hotel room window as a bolt of lightning hit the high rise block opposite, about 50 metres away, the roof being about level with my room.

I love thunder and lightning, and I love it to be as close overhead as possible. It probably ties in with my taste for the epic, loud and overblown which can be traced back to my heavy metal days.

Anyway, I'm warming up in the theatre on wednesday evening, as are several of my colleagues, when all of a sudden we hear a crash overhead from outside, and a second later, all the lights in the theatre go down and we are plunged into darkness. Within a few seconds the faint emergency lighting comes on so we can move around again.

Apparently the lightning hit the building and put out the substation. As the lights had still not come back on half and hour later, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing it was decided that the show would be cancelled and that people who had tickets would be able to attend one of the four remaining shows instead. Of course, it meant that a lot of people turned up and were told when they arrived, but the feeling I get is that people get far less irate about this sort of thing here than in Europe.

We all headed back to the hotel an hour or so later, and to be honest, it was quite nice as we were all a bit tired after trip to Ipoh on tuesday and wednesday morning's sightseeing there.

The following evening, yesterday, we were very well rested and did probably our best show of the tour so far!

Malaysia tour day 14 - Some fun with signs!

One thing that any world traveller will tell you is that the signs in non-european countries can be unintentionally funny and/or odd. It's all down to cultural mismatch, and no doubt they would find our signs strange too. When guidance is offered on things that fall outside our cultural norms or european common sense, they often seem quite bonkers to us.

Here are a few that I've encountered here in Malaysia in the last couple of weeks:

1. No snogging on the tube.

There is a plethora of prohibitory signs on Kuala Lumpur's modern public transport trains. The most amusing for us is no doubt the no-kissing sign. Coming to think of it, we could do with this on the tube in London too. There's nothing worse than trying to read a book on the way home on a saturday evening while the couple sitting opposite are eating each other's faces off.


2. No durians.

Durian is the legendary smelly fruit of Malaysia. As I mentioned in a previous post, the smell is rather noxious. This sign prohibiting durians was seen outside the lift at our hotel in Penang. Durians are often banned in hotels and public transport, but you often catch the odour of durian abuse in other places such as markets, malls and streets.


3. No stage-diving from toilets.

The floor in bathrooms can provide for rather a hard landing. Seriously though, this sign is telling people used to crouch-toilets (the hole in the floor ones!) not to get up and stand on the rim and attempt the same thing with a modern toilet. So, why does the figure on the left look primed for a jump from the high-diving board?


That's all for now. To finish off, here is a little video of random mini-reportages I've done in the last nine days or so. Enjoy!

Hello Malaysia Vid from last week

Here is a little video I filmed last week at the press conference here in Kuala Lumpur, and edited last night. Took some short clips of our singers and MD at PJ Arts' office, and you get four different languages: hellos and soundbites in English, Polish, Welsh and Swedish. (oh, and Kiwi!!!!)

I guess it would've been useful to have Mandarin and Malay in there as well. Next time!

Malaysia tour day 8 - KL Monsoon

I'm sitting here in my hotel room looking out at the most colossal downpour and thunderstorm.
Quite something, and on an intensity we never see in Britain. Half of the Merry Opera peeps went off on a sightseeing walk to Chinatown. Right now, I'm quite glad I didn't.

This snap is of the storm brewing:

My first show, on thursday in Penang, went very smoothly. Considering we haven't performed this since July I was happy with it.

On saturday morning, before the bus trip back to KL, it was time for....drum-roll.....jet-skiing. I'd never done this before, but I have to say, it was an absolute blast. Those things can certainly move, and the adrenaline kick is equivalent to at least 5 Lavazza espressos.

We did nearly lose Stephen Hose, our musical director, who got ultra-exuberant and went off around a distant headland to explore the coast. When we took the jet-skis back to the beach he was nowhere to be seen, and they had to send one of the hire companies employees off to find him. For a second we feared the worst...that he had made a mad escape dash for Indonesia and we would end up doing the rest of the tour without an MD and pianist, but in the end he came trailing back into view.

Georgetown, Penang is an interesting town, and on friday afternoon I got the chance to explore it. Well, at least the historical quarters, which is a World Heritage Site due to the amount of colonial architecture on display. The whole place has a faded colonial glory about it, and mixed with the eclecticism of typical asian city life, with hindu, buddhist and taoist temples, plus islamic mosques all rubbing shoulders, it is an absorbing place to visit if you look in the right places i.e. beyond the ubiquitous shoreline high rise office and condo blocks.

One of my favourite pastimes when in asia is photographing shrines in temples, so here's a few taoist examples coming at ya. As you can see, there is no single, large figure of a teacher or deity on taoist shrines, but there are scripture blocks/strips and smaller gods:

These taoist shrines have a remarkable, primal feel to them, being quite dark and with heavy, earthy incense filling the air. I like them immensely!

Back in KL on saturday evening we settled in a the Boulevard Hotel again, and, although we have everything we need here and the hotel is a cut above, we probably all felt that a few more days of beach life wouldn't have gone amiss. Oh well! We are here to work after all.

The first show was yesterday afternoon, and played to a nearly full house. As usual I had my camera on stage for the last scene of Act 1 in the club, "Lovely lady...", and snapped merrily whilst falling around in a drunken stupor. You never know quite what you are going to get with these dangerous opera singers:

Tomorrow, my KL debut as Germont. "Hello Kuala Lumpuuuuuuuuur!!!!!"