After a thorough drilling in solfeggios and technical exercises, I would
have the student work on the operatic arias of Bellini, Rossini,
Donizetti, Verdi, and others. These men knew how to write for the human
voice! Their arias are so vocal that the voice develops under them and
the student gains vocal assurance. They were written before modern
philosophy entered into music--when music was intended for the ear
rather than for the mind. I cannot lay too much stress on the importance
of using these arias. They are a tonic for the voice, and bring back the
elasticity which the more subdued singing of songs taxes.
When one is painting pictures through words, and trying to create
atmosphere in songs, so much repression is brought into play that the
voice must have a safety-valve, and that one finds in the bravura arias.
Here one sings for about fifty bars, "The sky is clouded for me," "I
have been betrayed," or "Joy abounds"--the words being simply a vehicle
for the ever-moving melody.
When hearing an artist like John McCormack sing a popular ballad it all
seems so easy, but in reality songs of that type are the very hardest to
sing and must have back of them years of hard training or they fall to
banality. They are far more difficult than the limpid operatic arias,
and are actually dangerous for the insufficiently trained voice.