Both of my teachers have been sopranos. For a young student, the vocal
category of the teacher's voice is far less important than the teacher's
pedagogical ability and general attitude. I have female singer friends who
have only studied - and successfully - with men; and male friends who have
studied successfully with women; tenors with baritones; sopranos with
basses. I suppose having a teacher in the same _fach_ would be a nice
luxury ... they've "been there", after all. But each of us is so unique
that it's possible that even another mezzo would have had a very different
experience from yours, so her experience might not be as directly relevant
as that of, say, a baritone who had gone through a much similar
development.
Of course, there are - and always have been - teachers who "specialise".
One very famous examples was Mathilde Marchesi, who taught sopranos
exclusively. But in this day and age, that kind of specialization is the
exception, and more likely to occur among coaches for the understandable
reason that a coach can only become familiar with a finite amount of
repertoire, so may choose to limit his/her scope by concentrating on the
repertoire for one voice type.
I'd say find a GOOD teacher, and don't worry about the _fach_ as much as
the overall pedagogical quality and personality.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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What lies behind us, and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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