Ann Murray Masterclass at the Royal Academy

18/09/2012
Royal Academy

Ann Murray is one of those singers who you can trust will always give a good performance, where there's simply no question about dramatic commitment or mastery of the notes. In that she reminds me of John Tomlinson - it's not that they are perfect singing actors, but neither seem capable of doing anything on stage that would for a moment suspend your belief in the character that is being presented in front of you at that moment. Which is probably a large part of why I admire both so intensely. They are as natural on stage as you can be in the unnatural world of opera.

With her brightly flashing eyes, Irish wit, and rapid fire way of talking and moving she is easy to like in the masterclass situation. You can't imagine that she could ever be idle for very long - she's too interested in people and her art form - everything seems urgent and important, and communication and intent seem to be the things that most excite her and where her focus is in instruction. Technique was never mentioned, but how to use the notes to say something musically along with the words certainly was. She's funny too, but only to dispel worries and create an atmosphere conducive to risk taking; she has no interest in regaling us with witty anecdotes about famous conductor X or Tenor Y. She demonstrated occasionally, and we got to hear her toss off some Donna Anna coloratura(!), not to show off of course, but only to better explain when a student was finding it difficult to make expressive these difficult passages and where demonstration seemed to be a better way of showing than words. She still has a lot of voice left, and the strength of intent is palpable in her sound and her body every time, even in the smallest phrase.

As is so often the case, the young students found it difficult to take on her suggestions even when they were relatively simple like where to accent a phrase. It always seems so surprising sitting in the audience of a masterclass when the teacher keeps asking a student to change something like for instance singing something with more forward momentum, and the adjustment the student makes each time is so negligible as to seem almost laughable. Presumably the student is really trying and thinks they are being wildly different, but it shows you how difficult is to truly listen to yourself as a musician, and also how much muscle memory plays a part in singing a phrase, and why changing bad technique, let alone an interpretation is so difficult for so many singers. These things take repetition over days and weeks and months to change, but really it is the freedom that an excellent technique provides that is the ultimate key - technique is as much about having options with regard to singing a phrase than it is about singing faster or in becoming efficient in terms of muscle and energy usage.

On one occasion at least though, Murray helped the student to go from a moderately good piece of Handel singing, to a breathtaking moment of drama as Caeser pictures his father while realising what he must become at the beginning of the eponymous opera. By focussing and guiding the student's gestures and emotion not only did her acting improve but miraculously the singing too - it's this sort of intensity that separates the big time singers from those that are merely competent.

I wasn't so impressed with the young singers this time, though I did manage to hear Sarah-Jane Lewis again, this time in French repertoire, which seemed to be living up to its reputation as the hardest language to sing in. The voice was still wonderfully lustrous (especially in Duparc's La vie antérieure), but she seemed to sing with greater ease and fluency in the Italian Mozart arias I heard last time.

A worthwhile and enjoyable few hours.

Barbara Bonney Masterclass at the Royal Academy

27/04/2012

First of all, Barbara Bonney is completely badass. Not just one of the greatest singers of her generation, but also one of the funniest and most charming. She's one of my all time favourite lyric voices, so fresh, so powerful, so effortless, and always with such care for the text and above all the composer.

Her care for young singers was very evident here as she approached all with warmth and total encouragement. She's a complete natural in front of an audience, whilst never appearing self regarding or a show off. Just a joy to watch and spend time in the presence of.

First Alison Rose sang Pamina's Aria Ach, ich fuhl's, a Bonney staple. Rose's voice is youthful, lyric, beautiful, but with a pleasingly tart edge that makes it affectingly direct - never disposed to vocal tricks, this is a very well trained voice, with a beautiful tone, and most importantly with a very conscientious musician behind it, who I am sure will grow into a very considerable artist. Bonney said she should be singing this role now at Covent Garden, at the Met, in Vienna and in Munich, and that the timbre of her voice "got her deep". I am inclined to agree. First class stuff. A few of Bonney's criticisms were common to more than one singer - first posture. All tended to be slightly slumped forward, with the head position not quite raised enough. The difference in sound in Rose's voice when Bonney held her hand behind Rose's head as a guide was subtle but decisive, and the lines seemed to flow more beautifully, and with less effort.

Another thing Bonney consistently remarked on was proper placement of vowels. The schwar sound is to feel as wide as possible, and she told lots of anecdotes from various great singers about them saying the sensation was as though they were singing through their ears. Of course this is, as with almost all singing pedagogy, metaphor, but it's not fanciful at all - teachers and students of singing need to build some kind of language of metaphors together to communicate in, because virtually all of the machanics of singing is hidden inside the body, and controlled by involuntary muscle movements. It's no wonder that it's so hard. One of the reasons why masterclasses are so often unhelpful, and indeed confusing for young singers (and audiences), is that this metaphoric language is so different for each singer, so the simplest ideas can be expressed in the most disparate terms. Every single one of the students seemed to benefit enormously from Bonney's guidance however (all had worked with her a few times in the previous few days) and the difference in sound in all of them was immediate and always for the better. Quite amazing, and so satisfying to witness. She made everything seem so simple!

Like this (but not this student.) 

The advantages of this wide placement of these "horizontal" vowels, were not just in tone and timbre, but also in stopping the voice from tiring - relaxing between the more vertically placed "closed" vowels, or rather using completely different muscle groups ensures that a singer will be able to sing for much longer and with less effort.

The other singers were all very good, accomplished, all doing lovely things. Meghan Taylor (potentially very interesting voice, with a very attractive timbre), Harriet Burns (very light soubrette sound who makes singing high and quietly seem easy), Jenny Stafford (again an attractive lyric voice though is Anna Bolena really appropriate vocally at this age?) and Jane Monari (generally sang so loud that all inhales and quiet notes sounded hoarse, but actually quite colourful once Bonney convinced her to sing at a normal volume!) all received very specific and useful advice from Bonney, and as I say, the difference in sound and quality was immediate and very noticeable in all of them.

But in the middle of these, we heard Sarah-Jane Lewis sing Porgi amor from Mozart's Figaro. Bonney had not a single criticism of it. Her voice is simply astounding. In terms of tone, one of the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in live performance. The sound reminds me of Jessye Norman spliced with Te Kanawa - glowingly warm, gorgeously full, bursting with overtones. As soon as you hear it, you know it's going to be an important voice. Very good legato also. She's not yet the finished article as she has been trained as a mezzo for a long time so the top doesn't come that easily yet, but when it does, she's going straight to the top of the profession. It's also a rather large sound, so I worry that she'll be pushed into heavier repertoire too early (something to be very strongly guarded against), but she should be singing in all the major opera houses within five years, and hopefully first as the countess in Figaro. Ariadne also sprung instantly to mind (though later in the career). Come Scoglio was less secure with it's ridiculously long coloratura phrases, but still very very good, the opening truly thrilling in both the high notes and low notes.

I have to be *slightly* measured in my judgements - it is very difficult to be sure in this room (which is extremely small) about how singers will sound in the theatre. Aioefe Miskelly for instance sounded tight and not particularly interesting in a Schubert lieder abend in there, but in the theatre the voice bloomed and shone as Pamina in the recent Academy Zauberflote. But Lewis just knocked me over, and if she sounds even better on stage, then so much the better!

And why on earth wasn't she singing the role of the composer in the lunchtime semi-staged Prologue of Ariadne auf Naxos? That performance revealed messy playing from the orchestra (I presume due to lack of adequate rehearsal: it's very hard) and lack of strong direction from conductor Elgar Howarth. Bass Adam Marsden again impressed me as the Music master (just as he had in Zauberflote), and Jennifer France might make a very charming Zerbinetta if the coloratura is in place (the prologue hardly requires it).