Re Training a Wrecked Voice

Although it is a great pleasure to work with a fresh, unspoiled voice, I sometimes think the experience of salvaging a wrecked voice and restoring it to its original loveliness is even more gratifying. It is a much greater test of the teacher’s knowledge and skill, and is naturally much more difficult; but the ultimate achievement is such indisputable proof of the teacher’s ability that it is worth all the time and effort that it entails.

While I have had this experience innumerable times, I can recall no more outstanding example than the case of a well-known soprano. This singer studied with me over a period of seven years. She had studied with other teachers prior to coming to me, and because of her magnificent natural voice, she had become a prima donna of first calibre.

Her first seasons in New York and with the Chicago Civic Opera Company had been sensationally successful, but later she began to receive increasingly unpleasant criticisms. Musical authorities were unanimous in their declarations that she was pushing and forcing her voice, that its beautiful quality had completely gone, and that the days of her professional career were numbered.

At first she refused to take heed. She was openly advised to go into temporary retirement, to seek help, in short to study and win back her voice if possible. But to all such advice she turned a deaf ear. One can readily understand this. She had made a great name. She had a great voice—and she had also a great pride. She could not risk her professional standing by going meekly to a singing teacher at this point in her career. Such admission of failure was unthinkable.

But things grew worse; critics were now openly hostile, and drastic action was imperative. Unless help came quickly, the great career would be over forever. It so happened that some of the singers at New York’s Metropolitan Opera were studying with me, and when this singer and her husband arrived for their New York season, their friends recommended my work so highly that she asked me to call upon her.

I did so, and after a brief interview, the famous diva decided that she wanted to study with me, but told me frankly that her professional pride would hardly allow her to come to the studio as an ordinary student, permitting other pupils to hear and perhaps criticize her. For a few moments we were at a deadlock, for with my own over-crowded schedule I could not afford to spend valuable time going back and forth to her hotel. Finally we compromised by arranging that Madame should come to the studio more or less incognito, and that no one was to see her while there.

My secretary was reluctantly permitted to remain at her post, but not my accompanist, Madame preferring to bring her own. Naturally, my students soon discovered that the great artist was working with me, and soon the critics also graciously noted he improvement and made glowing mention of it in their reviews. So, feeling that if they could hear a famous singer having a lesson they too might benefit from it, some of my pupils used to huddle behind a screen in the ante-room and listen. There they heard the famous one being told much the same things as they were told in their own lessons, such as, “Retain your head resonance on the descending tones, too,” “Think of your diaphragm,” “Higher placement, Madame,” or “Open the mouth.”

Their naughty little scheme was discovered one day when the screen fell with a crash, but by this time her voice had improved so astonishingly that she was too happy to be angry, and she kindly permitted them to remain while she continued her lesson. (But this time I tactfully did not interrupt nor correct.) Later my pupils told me confidentially that they had learned a great deal from their vantage point behind the screen, and that the experience had proved to them that the willingness to accept criticism cheerfully was more important than maintaining a false dignity.

Another student of mine had an interesting psychological make-up. Like many young men of his mental type, he liked to have every statement proved to him. I do not blame such persons, and this young man, like many another, had studied with a great number of teachers and had found most methods incomplete and unsatisfactory. Therefore he wanted always to be certain and to know the why and wherefore of everything. Even when I proved to his own satisfaction that certain suggestions improved his singing, he was not content until he knew why. Often when he would sing easily and beautifully a previously unattainable A-flat, he would shrug his shoulders and protest, solemnly, “Yes, that’s fine. But it won’t count until I can sing it on the stage as well and as easily as I do here in your studio!” Later, during his concert tours, it made me very happy to receive letters from him telling me that what I had taught him had proved successful and had passed the test of public performances.