Legato singing, and how to sing consonants
Not many singers can sing real legato. This, unfortunately, is a fact, and in many masterclasses with students and even in rehearsals with professional singers, I have to ask for a real legato. But what is legato (in English: tied) actually? It is the ability to sustain the sound of the vowels in a word without interrupting the flow of sound through the consonants. This brings us to the next problem and to a “trend” in today’s preparation for opera productions.
Many coaches, and, unfortunately, also many conductors, place great importance on articulation. Articulation is, per se, important, but the context needs to be examined. Coaches of the past stressed the fact – as I personally also do – that the sound of the consonants must also be “sung” and not only made through soundless noises. An example of this trend is very current, especially in the German repertoire, where many singers (also some of a glorious past) overarticulate, producing strong, exaggerated gutturals, bilabials, labiodentals, and alveolars, and making all of them plosive (this happens when the flow of the air is blocked and the result is a voiceless sound). The old singing school incorporated consonants into the flow of sound.
My wife Yulia, a coach in Zurich, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Italy, etc., has a good image for the successive consonants so often found in German words: the letters and syllables should be pronounced in a row, and given time and space, not jammed together like a traffic jam, and the consonants should “dance” in the mouth. I think these images are very helpful for understanding the concept, and this is crucial for beautiful legato singing.
But more than an explanation, a singer from the past (and a German one) makes clear how perfect pronunciation and expressive legato can be combined.
It is a joy, as it always is when I hear him sing, to listen to Fritz Wunderlich singing Lenski’s Aria from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin. I only wish more singers today would listen to such singers of the past; they have a lot to teach.
By the way: Mr. Wunderlich’s “non-acting” is the highest art of acting. With no unnecessary gestures, his simple posture illustrates Lenski’s despair, loneliness, and hopelessness, and the stage behind him, in its simplicity and squalor, helps us understand – without “teaching” us – what is happening in this scene.
About some German singers’ overarticulation (no names here) the great Otto Schenk made a joke, imitating them and saying – in perfect Italian – “si mangia la voce.”
