I'm halfway through Miller's book, Training Soprano
Voices, and thought I'd give my impressions his
faching system given at the beginning of the book:
it's fabulous.
In the first section of the book, Miller speaks about
the categories of the female voice (he gives nine,
including mezzos). The rest of the book addresses
just sopranos.
His discussion of fach is wonderful, and ought to be
read by every female singer in America. He divides
sopranos into nine categories: soubrette, coloratura,
dramatic coloratura, lyric, lirico spinto, spinto,
Jungendlich dramatic, dramatic, and Zwischenfach.
He lends support to the often-heard European
stereotype that Americans always think of themselves
as two fachs bigger than they are. Miller points out
that houses in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
weren't necessarily smaller than they are now (citing
numerous examples of two- and three-thousand-seat
opera theaters), challenging the argument that smaller
voices sang bigger parts in the past.
[Side note: This may be true, but haven't the
instruments in the orchestra gotten louder and more
plentiful?]
Soubrette (which I've known as light lyric) and
coloratura (which I've heard called lyric coloratura)
often overlap, and their roles are fairly
self-evident. He gives the dramatic coloratura
Cleopatra, Queen of the Night, Konstanze, Semiramide,
Norma, Lucia, Violetta, Abigail, and Trovatore's
Leonora, emphasizing that, although the roles above
are of different weights ("like Norma!" I thought to
myself in exclamation points) these roles are NOT
suited to the coloratura voice. He says that Gilda is
best suited to the dramatic coloratura, often sung by
the lyric with extension, and less successfully sung
by the coloratura or soubrette.
Lyric sopranos sing most of the medium-sized heroines
of Mozart, the bel canto composers, Verdi, Massenet,
and Puccini; he puts into the lyric fach Micaela,
Manon, Onegin's Tatiana, Mimi, Liu, Nedda, and others.
I would say that most people singing this fach today
call themselves spintos (wrongly).
He gives the lirico-spinto fach (which I've never seen
separated from spinto, but he makes a good case for
it) as an in-between fach for the heavier full lyric
with bite -- Stravinsky's Anne, Susannah, Marguerite,
Desdemona, Fiordiligi, Rusalka. He points out that
many of these arias are excerpted by the lighter
voices for auditions and competitions, although in
terms of matching Rusalka's orchestration or Otello's
tenor, they are inappropriate for the lyric.
Spinto he reserves for the big Puccini, Donna Anna,
Aida and Amelia and the Forza Leonora, Lady Macbeth,
Adriana Lecouvreur, Minni, Butterfly, Tosca, and
others. He calls Strauss' Ariadne, Salome, and
Arabella "ideal for the spinto soprano." This I
totally agree with. Far too often, medium-to-big
lyrics call themselves spintos (or even dramatics!!)
who would never make an Amelia or Salome in a big
house over a full orchestra.
Jugendlichdramatisch, the "young" dramatic, gets the
Italian spinto rep plus Agathe, Elsa, Sieglinde,
Sente, and the Marschallin (among others; I'm
excerpting).
The dramatic soprano Miller reserves for Santuzza,
Elisabeth, the Brunnhildes and other heavy Wagner,
Strauss' Frau, Elektra, and Turandot. How many
singers have you met who bill themselves as "dramatic
sopranos" who wouldn't stand a chance in a Turandot or
a Walkure? I am in complete agreement and championship
of Miller on this point.
And the Zwischens get to sing the pseudo-mezzo roles,
Lady Macbeth, Kundry, Ortrud, Santuzza, Carmen,
Amneris.
He lists dramatic mezzo (Eboli, Azucena, Dalila,
Charlotte, Fricka, Brangane, Carmen) and lyric mezzo
(the Rossini, Dorabella, Adalgisa, Mignon, Hansel,
Octavian), and generic mezzo roles (Suzuki, Traviata's
Flora, Otello's Emilia).
He emphasizes that the true contralto is the rarest
fach, with a very limited repertoire -- Third Lady, La
Cieca, Ulrica, Dame Quickly, Onegin's Olga, Suor's
Countess, Schicchi's Zita, Pelleas' Genevieve, and
Menotti's Madame Flora.
I think my main problem with Miller's technical
approach is that he puts "imagery" as one dismissable,
small part of teaching voice, rather than a large part
of communicating technical ideas. For example, he
writes: "The goal of efficient breath-management
technique is not to try to sing on a column of breath
that starts in the region of the navel, but to allow
the exiting tracheal air to be turned into tone
through appropriate degrees of natural phonatory
resistance offered by the vibrating vocal folds."
Well, obviously you can't breathe *into* your belly or
take a deep "diaphragmic" breath, but imagery like
that has been used with success for hundreds of years.
Discounting it as unscientific doesn't help anyone
learn to sing.
Also, I find his description of "appoggio," like Ian's
description of natural breathing, a little soft.
Perhaps in person, Miller gives more energy to the
appoggio technique than is coming across in his
writing, but I find that it really takes quite a bit
of firmness to sing a decent high C. Also, I find
techniques such as the inward pulse of the lower belly
for staccato exercises (like the yoga "breath of fire"
expulsion of air) and the use of either "in-and-up" or
"down-and-out" to be helpful, despite the fact that
Miller discredits them all.
Of course, as Richard Allen would say, he's nationally
prominent and I'm sitting on the back of a bus. But
that's why these are my opinions. And I'm still
curious about Miller's students and what they have
become.
Who was it who first said they are put off by Miller's
writing tone? Here is an example of over-academic
bog: "When physical impediments intrude, free vocal
timbre cannot be readily conceptualized, regardless of
a meritorious tonal intent."
However, keeping in mind (Judy's?) comments about his
humorous personal style, I did chuckle when I came
across: "Both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira, despite
current tendencies to cast the latter character as a
flaming sex-mad lyric, are best suited to the spinto."
I will also add that I am in agreement with his
apparent theory that one learns to sing opera by
singing opera; the vast majority of his exercises are
excerpted bits of arias.
Isabelle B.
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Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
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