Campbell Vertesi

I had my first lesson back with my teacher yesterday.  Mostly, I was concerned about the direction I was taking my voice on my own this summer.  It was either a really awesome new direction, or a really terrible one, and I needed to consult as to which one it was.  

See, your voice can react similarly to really new technique and really bad technique.  I was doing something that felt really different, that sounded terrible on the inside, but sounded great on recordings, and I found my voice getting very tired very quickly.  I was even a bit sore after intense sessions.  Sometimes that's because you're doing something new and your muscles are uncomfortable working in this way, and sometimes it's because you're doing something wrong and your muscles aren't supposed to work in that way.  This is why we have voice teachers, to be objective eyes and ears to guid us.

Turns out it was an awesome direction.  My teacher gave me some good things to start thinking about to help me with my highest notes, and a lot of encouragement about the direction I'm moving with everything else.  In all, it was a fantastic lesson, and it accomplished exactly what I wanted it to.

And then my teacher dropped the F-bomb on me.  We were talking about rep I should start learning after my recital this fall, and he suggested I look at Figaro.

Figaro is at once the most exciting and the most frightening thing he could have suggested to me.  On the one hand, the character fits my personality incredibly well, and a natural fit like that means it would be a great role for me to perform.  Lots of real basses have sung the role, and I always hoped I'd get to sing it someday.  On the other hand, it's a herculean task to sing.  

You see, though it's tough to sing things on a grand scale like Wagner or Verdi, in some ways it's much harder to sing something "nice" like Mozart.  Figaro sits in my most uncomfortable range, and he has to have ease and finesse throughout the role.  While you can yell through the tough parts in Verdi (if you have to), you can't get away with anything approximate or "good enough" with Mozart.  Every note has to be precise and beautiful.  Particularly in Nozze di Figaro, the composer expects perfection of his singers.  If anyone slips, the masterpiece doesn't make it.  Ezio Pinza used to say that Figaro was the role he dreaded most, because it was so vocally and musically unforgiving.  Ultimately it became one of his signature roles, but that came with a certain respect.

So I've started looking at the hard parts of Figaro.  I can get through it, which is great, but I have a long way to go to develop the ease I need on some of those Es and Fs.   This will be a long project.