In offering this work to the public the publishers wish to lay before
those who sing or who are about to study singing, the simple,
fundamental rules of the art based on common sense. The two greatest
living exponents of the art of singing--Luisa Tetrazzini and Enrico
Caruso--have been chosen as examples, and their talks on singing have
additional weight from the fact that what they have to say has been
printed exactly as it was uttered, the truths they expound are driven
home forcefully, and what they relate so simply is backed by years of
experience and emphasized by the results they have achieved as the two
greatest artists in the world.
Much has been said about the Italian Method of Singing. It is a question
whether anyone really knows what the phrase means. After all, if there
be a right way to sing, then all other ways must be wrong. Books have
been written on breathing, tone production and what singers should eat
and wear, etc., etc., all tending to make the singer self-conscious and
to sing with the brain rather than with the heart. To quote Mme.
Tetrazzini: "You can train the voice, you can take a raw material and
make it a finished production; not so with the heart."
The country is overrun with inferior teachers of singing; men and women
who have failed to get before the public, turn to teaching without any
practical experience, and, armed only with a few methods, teach these
alike to all pupils, ruining many good voices. Should these pupils
change teachers, even for the better, then begins the weary undoing of
the false method, often with no better result.
To these unfortunate pupils this book is of inestimable value. He or she
could not consistently choose such teachers after reading its pages.
Again the simple rules laid down and tersely and interestingly set forth
not only carry conviction with them, but tear away the veil of mystery
that so often is thrown about the divine art.
Luisa Tetrazzini and Enrico Caruso show what not to do, as well as what
to do, and bring the pupil back to first principles--the art of singing
naturally.