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Dear Vocalisters:
I thought you might enjoy reading this article from today's NY Times reporting
on a 10-day-long master class workshop by the Mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig.
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Margaret Harrison
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Christa Ludwig Guides Young Singers
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/arts/13NOTE.html
December 13, 2000
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Christa Ludwig has never been keen on giving master classes. The
eminent mezzo-soprano loves hearing young singers, and since her
retirement in 1994 she has enjoyed working with selected private
students at her home in the south of France. But she knows the
unadvertised truth about master classes: it's very hard to
accomplish anything in them.
True, young musicians and singers find it inspiring to perform
even briefly for an artist they revere. And astute artists can
sometimes impart helpful tips and insights to the eager
participants in a master class.
But learning a performing art involves one-on-one work with a
trusted teacher for years. So what can a famous prima donna or
renowned concert pianist accomplish during one public coaching
session in which each participant gets, typically, about 30
minutes' attention, tops?
These days Ms. Ludwig, who is 72, covets her retirement time with
her husband, the French stage director Paul- Émile Deiber, her dog
and her cat. Yet when Carnegie Hall invited her to present not just
a typical master class or two, but a 10-day workshop, that was too
enticing an offer to resist.
The Christa Ludwig Song Workshop, which took place last week,
involved 10 classes for six singers and two alternates selected
from a large pool of applicants. The sessions were open to the
public, including several groups of official auditors (mostly voice
teachers and students). Ms. Ludwig stipulated that she would work
only on songs by Brahms and Mahler, repertory she grew up with in
her native Germany and later sang incomparably. Finally, the
workshop would culminate with a recital, which took place at Weill
Recital Hall on Sunday afternoon.
With such a specific focus and an intensive schedule, it was hoped
that something lasting could be accomplished in Ms. Ludwig's
workshop. Whatever she may conclude, it was certainly fascinating
to observe the changes that occurred: the struggles, growth,
tentative steps, sudden improvements.
It began behind the scenes on Dec. 1 when Ms. Ludwig and the
pianist Charles Spencer, who was Ms. Ludwig's accompanist for 12
years, auditioned the workshop finalists. The artistic
administrators at Carnegie Hall had already whittled the applicants
down to a group of 16 from which Ms. Ludwig and Mr. Spencer
selected the participants, all at various stages of their young
careers. And, as she explained in a conversation after one of her
classes, she did not necessarily choose the best voices.
"I was looking for Mahler and Brahms voices," she said. "Were they
able to color the voice for a lied, to play with the words, to vary
the sound? Was their technique good enough to do this? If you sing
only opera and only loud, then it's hard."
And how would she define a Mahler and Brahms voice? "Mine!," Ms.
Ludwig said, laughing but meaning it. Her own voice was ideal for
this repertory: weighty, with deep, rich low and middle registers
and a gleaming top, yet capable of wondrous colors and subtleties.
With the singers selected, the classes began, two a day, 90
minutes each, with a break for lunch. Ms. Ludwig, always affable
and energetic, was a kinetic listener, frequently poking the
singer's rib cages or holding their hands as she offered
encouragement or corrections.
"There are singers who sing lieder, and then there are lieder
singers," she said at the start of one class for the benefit of the
audience. "Many singers do not understand that a lieder cannot be
sung without flesh and blood and emotion. It is like an opera in
two or three minutes." All week Mr. Spencer accompanied the singers
with great sensitivity and transposed several songs on the spot
into different keys.
One morning the first singer up was Shon Sims, a Texas-born
baritone, who performed "Ging heut Morgen ýber's Feld," from
Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen." Ms. Ludwig's first
comments were about his husky voice.
"You have not much in the bottom voice," she said. "But a lot in
the high notes. What a top range!" Then she added, "You are a lazy
tenor!" The joke was partly on herself, of course, because
mezzo-sopranos are often teased about being lazy sopranos, and
sometimes it's true.
Mr. Sims sang the song with care, she felt, but with a rather
generalized expressive quality. She asked him to think hard about
the song's story, which begins with deceptive geniality. The singer
must portray a young man who goes out in the morning countryside
greeting everyone in sight, until the realization that his beloved
doesn't love him back bears down on him bitterly.
"The way you speak the German is clear, but you lose the sense of
the legato line, which is where the expression comes from," Ms.
Ludwig said. She also felt that the music's energy dipped in pauses
between the phrases. "You must perform the silences," she said,
"and bring more color to the sound in the line `alles Ton und
Farbe.' " In this phrase the singer says that "all the sound and
color" of the sunshine sparkled.
It was hard for Mr. Sims to do. "That's a difficult part of the
voice for me," he explained.
"But you are paid to do it," Ms. Ludwig said.
The geniality in
the song's first part is forced, Ms. Ludwig explained. But it still
must have a radiant expression, or the later mood change will not
work. Mr. Sims tried it again, and by sustaining the legato line
more elegantly and bringing an exaggerated sense of joy to the
first part of the song, his intense shift when the numbing truth
sinks in was far more poignant.
Next up was Jessica Tivens, at 19 the youngest participant, who
performed Mahler's "Wer hat dies Leidlein erdacht?," in which the
singer imitates a little ditty sung by a country lass. Ms. Tivens's
soprano voice, the first time through, was bright and full but
somewhat metallic in tone. Ms. Ludwig suggested that she open her
mouth more roundly and free her throat. Ms. Tivens made the
adjustment immediately, and the change was remarkable: suddenly her
voice was warmer and richer.
It was one of the few times Ms. Ludwig was specific about
technique, for she feels it is unfair to interfere with a young
singer's approach, as she explained in the interview.
"You cannot change the technique in five days," she said. "They
just become insecure. Also, with an audience in the hall, and some
of the teachers present, I am very careful what I say. Technique is
such an intimate matter. It is really work for two people alone."
Asking a singer to change a basic component of her technique is
like asking a tennis player to change her hand grip: it may be good
advice, but it can easily take months to make the adjustment.
But there were technical tips, as when Ms. Ludwig told Ms. Tivens
to sing the bobbing phrases of Mahler's ditty-like vocal line as if
she were jumping on a trampoline. "Get a good bounce on the low
note," she said, and then "lift up to the higher notes" as the
phrase curves up and down. With this image in mind, Ms. Tivens
executed the passage beautifully. Later, in a dipping phrase of a
wistful Brahms song, Ms. Ludwig had another helpful metaphor.
"Think of a sea gull gently landing on the lower note," she said.
Again, Ms. Tivens responded quickly, settling in on the stopping
point with grace.
Ms. Ludwig was excited by the voice of Nathaniel L. Webster, a
lanky baritone with a lot of experience for a singer of just 25.
Singing Mahler's grimly beautiful "Nicht wiedersehen!" Mr. Webster
revealed perhaps the most finished voice, settled in its deep
baritone range and with good breath support. But though the sound
of his voice is expressive, Mr. Webster's singing, Ms. Ludwig felt,
was restrained.
"Your voice is beautiful but you show us your voice too much," she
said. Think about the song, she said: a young man tells his lover
that he is going away until next summer; by the time he returns,
she has died. "He tells her, `Open up your grave, my love, for one
final goodbye,' " Ms. Ludwig said, almost distraught as she related
the tale.
Mr. Webster tried. "I don't believe you one word!" Ms. Ludwig
said. He tried again, singing with less robust sound, a more
anguished delivery of the words, and more intensity, even in the
softest moments of the phrase.
"Yes," Ms. Ludwig said; "I get goose pimples when you sing."
Every time Gigi Mitchell-Velasco sang in the classes, Ms. Ludwig
was filled with praise. This young mezzo- soprano has studied with
Ms. Ludwig in France, and she is, Ms. Ludwig told the audience, a
fine musician able to sing whole stretches of Octavian's music from
"Der Rosenkavalier" while accompanying herself at the piano.
In the classes Ms. Mitchell-Velasco revealed a rich though
somewhat grainy voice with a dusky quality and wide range of
colorings. In person she has a nervous, hardy humor. Tall, blond
and lively, she seemed like a cross between the Swedish
mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and Carol Burnett. The hardiness
sometimes interfered with her interpretations, as in a tragic song
from Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder."
"You must look straight out," Ms. Ludwig said. "Focus on
something, don't move your head, don't shift your eyes. The
expression is not something you are doing to the song, it is
something coming from within you." Ms. Mitchell-Velasco repeated an
arching phrase. Gone were the Carol Burnett twitches; she was
intent and piercing. "I am moved to tears," Ms. Ludwig said.
The audience arrived for Sunday's recital not knowing what the
program would be. Ms. Ludwig and the singer had only determined it
on Saturday, and decided to keep it short: just 18 songs, 3 for
each of the six singers.
Ms. Tivens began with three songs of Brahms and was able to veil
affectingly the bright sheen of her voice. In three Mahler songs,
Mr. Sims, who had been too restrained in the classes, was almost
too emotional. But Ms. Ludwig beamed. Having moved in this positive
direction, Mr. Sims should soon find the right balance. Ms.
Mitchell-Velasco sang three Mahler songs with dark-hued sound and
elegance. Mr. Webster was vocally robust yet quite touching in
songs of Brahms. Megan Dey- Toth, a mezzo-soprano who missed some
early classes because of illness, was still nursing a cold, but
sang Mahler songs with a vibrant voice and mature artistry.
During one earlier class, after Stacey Rishoi, a mezzo-soprano
with a plushly expressive voice, had given a poignant performance
of Brahms's deeply sad "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer," Ms.
Ludwig commented, "What can one hear after that?" So Ms. Rishoi
ended her Brahms group, and the recital, with that very song.
During the ovation Ms. Ludwig bounded on stage with double kisses
for each of her charges. Now they were on their own. Time will tell
if they can remember Ms. Ludwig's hard-won and generously shared
insights into the ache and beauty of Mahler and Brahms. Not to
mention some helpful tips about vocal trampolines and sea gulls.
The New York Times on the Web
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