HOW I SING AN ARIA
To sing a song or a big aria well you must, for the time, be both the
vocalist and composer of the words and music you wish to express. If I
wish to sing, say, “Home Sweet Home,” I must imagine how far I am away
from sunny Italy, and forget all the kindness and attention with which I
am surrounded here. Then, I begin to feel the mood and homesickness
coming to aid me, vocal control must do the rest in making the song
effective.
Or, again, if I wish to do justice to Sir Frederick Cowen’s charming
little song, “The Swallows,” I must think of a lovely sunny morning and,
mentally, “Open wide my lattice, letting in the laughing breeze,”
imagining all the joyous sense of life that the arrival of the swallows
brings to my naturally vivacious Southern nature.
Let us, however, take the Recitative and Polonaise from that brilliantly
sparkling opera “Mignon,” by Ambroise Thomas. First of all, I have to
study the setting of this great aria, and then study the words, which,
in English begin,
“Yes! for to-night I am Queen of the Fairies,
And here my golden sceptre see;
And behold these, my trophies!”
[Illustration: Musical notation: Yes; for to-night I am queen of the
fairies! And here my golden sceptre see; And behold these my trophies]
I ask myself what I might feel like were I able to become a fairy.
Giving myself free rein, I sing the whole recitative much as I would
speak it, only having in mind the notes, I attack them firmly, letting
the conductor punctuate the whole with the accompaniment somewhat
freely. In recitative, one must have fire and imagination, and, although
reasonable attention must be paid to the valuation of notes--the full
five beats, for example, on the long note of bars 6 and 7--it is the
part of the accompanist to feel your pulse, as it were, and go with you.
Now, on the same long note, be careful to carry a sense of increasing
wonder, by making a _diminuendo_, then, with increasing verve, make a
clean “turn” on beat four of the 8th bar, capped by a triumphant pause,
and, a clean interval of the fifth with the word “trophies,” on beats
one and two of bar 9.
Now we come to the actual Polacca, in which _tempo_ must be observed and
all the tricks of brilliant vocal agility put into play. Remember, all
these “runs” and bravura passages must be clear--every note like a fresh
pea out of a pod or bullet out of a machine gun! Observe the boldness of
“picking up” at the beginning of the polacca movement, and in bar 3 of
this movement how smoothly the detached notes have to be sung.
Moderato tempo di Polacca (96♩)
[Illustration: Musical Notation: I am Titania, queen fairy, I am]
Here, again, there must be no scooping up an octave, but a clear rise of
the octave, giving the sense of all, as it were, one piece. Thus, “I--I
_am_ Titania,” and repeat the same words with even greater fervour,
treating all the words and music with the same mentality and as vital to
the whole.
Many so-called intellectual singers prefer _Lieder_, because they cannot
vocalise the fine, dashing, graceful runs of florid music, not because
of its lack of intellectual requirements. What could better express the
vivacious joy of a fairy queen than the triplet passages on the
exclamation “_Ah!_” bars 14 and 15 of the polacca movement.
[Illustration: ry! Ah!]
When we come to bars 29 and 30, there is the chance of a lifetime with
the cadenza-like string of fifteen notes, in the neatest sets of three,
and they should be as perfect as though played by Kreisler on the
violin.
[Illustration: fairy! Ah!]
Later on we come to some roulade passages of six notes on the same
exclamation “Ah!” (bars 43, 44, and 45) which must be sung with
increasing verve, so that the wood wind of the orchestra comes running
up perfectly in tune and tempo, as it were from right under your last
note. Here, much depends upon the cue of the conductor, but, changing
one’s manner and keeping up the growing joyfulness, you begin a new era,
as it were, with the words, “Bright troops of fairies hover round me.”
Thus, the aria works on, until, on the last beat of bar 54 and bar 55
there is a suggestion of
[Illustration: Musical notation: _leggiero ed accentato._
Bright troops of fairies hover round me!]
a fairy call. A dream-like waltz, in wide contrast, follows. Unless one
feels this, the brilliance we have worked up is losing the value of
contrast with
[Illustration: Musical notation: dawn of day. Amid the]
this shimmer, as it were, of gleaming moonlight. On this breaks the
brilliant passages of the flute, which may be the task of some fairy
worker in the
[Illustration: Musical notation: I am Titania!
Ah!]
real fairyland! I must be wafted along in smooth subservience to the
brilliance of the accompaniment for the next few bars, until I repeat
the lovely melody at bar 62 when I begin to add--as scored in the
part--some grace notes and florid passages, and gradually awaken until,
at bar 79, I have ascended to a full top B, preceded by a “trill” or
“shake,” that leads up to the brilliant burst of the orchestra back to
the polacca-like movement, and to the finale. This must be one
increasing triumph, over the much-talked-of top E flat, the roulades,
grace notes, trills, and cadenza-like passages for sheer _joie de
vivre_. Yet all this depends upon how well you have conditioned
yourself, practised those tiring vowel sounds, scales, sustained
[Illustration: ah!
ah!]
passages, to which I commend you before essaying the brilliant Polonaise
from “Mignon” that has given me many triumphs, yet still calls for all I
can give, as it will to the end of the chapter.