CONCERT WORK
If I have spoken largely about opera in these pages, this is because
with my experience it comes most naturally to me to do this. But concert
work--of which also I have done my share--is of course equally
important, and a few words on this subject, therefore, may not come
amiss.
It is hardly necessary to say that the kind of singing which is suitable
for the stage is not always equally in keeping on the platform. It is
the difference here between acting and recitation.
On the stage you are actually impersonating the character you represent,
and the fullest amount of realism is therefore permissible--indeed,
essential. On the platform the same amount of licence is not allowable.
You are here not impersonating, but interpreting at one remove, so to
speak.
You are not pretending to represent the actual character of the song;
you are reproducing in _your own personality_ the feelings and emotions
involved. Or as one might put it, the art of the stage is
representative; that of the concert platform is reproductive.
All this must be borne in mind, therefore, by the artist who turns from
the stage to the concert room. The effect produced may be just as great,
but it must be achieved in a different way--without action, without
gesture even, but with the maximum of intensity none the less--secured
by means of the voice, the expressiveness of the singing and the
personality and temperament of the singer alone.
And these will be all-sufficient for those who know their business; nor
should they be exceeded in the ordinary way. Yet if it comes naturally
to you to go a little further now and again, I do not know that it need
be condemned.
Observe, however, that I say “if it comes naturally to you.” Otherwise,
it will be forced and theatrical and will certainly not achieve its
purpose. It is purely a question of temperament. Be natural and
spontaneous and you will not go far astray. Northern peoples indulge
sparingly in gestures on the concert platform, but yet get great results
without their aid.
We Latin races are less restrained in this respect because this is in
accordance with our natural temperaments. It is the difference between
one who gesticulates freely in ordinary speech and one who never stirs a
finger. One would not counsel the Englishman to copy the foreigner’s
gestures for it would not come naturally to him to do this; but one
would not have a Frenchman or an Italian without them.
And so it is in singing. If an occasional gesture comes naturally to you
there is no need to repress it, even if you cannot be recommended to go
as far in this respect in the concert room as Jenny Lind did on one
occasion if report may be trusted. It is recorded that once when singing
Agathe’s prayer from “Der Freischütz” at a concert at Norwich she was so
carried away that she actually fell on her knees on the platform and so
finished the air! That was, perhaps, overdoing things. Certainly I have
never heard of even an Italian concert-singer going quite so far.
I need hardly add, while on the subject of concert deportment, that a
pleasing and ingratiating manner is also much to be desired, though this
is a matter that seems to be strangely overlooked too often by young
artists of the present day. One might think almost from the manners of
some of them that they consider themselves to be conferring the greatest
possible favour upon their hearers by condescending to sing to them.
And doubtless in many cases they actually do think this! But they should
endeavour not to indicate the fact quite so clearly by their demeanour.
I have seen artists of this self-sufficient type who actually make not
the slightest response, or barely any, when an audience is good enough
to applaud them! This sort of thing is quite incomprehensible to me,
and I am sure that if those who behave thus had any conception of the
impression which they produce they would speedily mend their manners.