Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing | Page 2

Margherita was
present on the occasion and complimented her highly and prophesied
for her a great career. She asked the trembling débutante how old she
was, and in the embarrassment of the moment Luisa made herself six
years older than she really was. This is one noteworthy instance in
which a public singer failed to discount her age.
Fame came speedily, but for a long time it was confined to Europe and
Latin America. She sang seven seasons in St. Petersburg, three in
Mexico, two in Madrid, four in Buenos Aires, and even on the Pacific
coast of America before she appeared in New York. She had sung
Lucia more than 200 times before her first appearance at Covent
Garden, and the twenty curtain calls she received on that occasion came
as the greatest surprise of her career. She had begun to believe that she
could never be appreciated by English-speaking audiences and the
ovation almost overcame her.
It was by the merest chance that Mme. Tetrazzini ever came to the
Manhattan Opera House in New York. The diva's own account of her

engagement is as follows:
"I was in London, and for a wonder I had a week, a wet week, on my
hands. You know people will do anything in a wet week in London.
"There were contracts from all over the Continent and South America
pending. There was much discussion naturally in regard to settlements
and arrangements of one kind and another.
"Suddenly, just like that"--she makes a butterfly gesture--"M.
Hammerstein came, and just like that"--a duplicate gesture--"I made up
my mind that I would come here. If his offer to me had been seven days
later I should not have signed, and if I had not I should undoubtedly
never have come, for a contract that I might have signed to go
elsewhere would probably have been for a number of years."
Voice experts confess that they are not able to solve the mystery of
Mme. Tetrazzini's wonderful management of her breathing.
"It is perfectly natural," she says. "I breathe low down in the diaphragm,
not, as some do, high up in the upper part of the chest. I always hold
some breath in reserve for the crescendos, employing only what is
absolutely necessary, and I renew the breath wherever it is easiest.
"In breathing I find, as in other matters pertaining to singing, that as
one goes on and practices, no matter how long one may have been
singing, there are constantly new surprises awaiting one. You may have
been accustomed for years to take a note in a certain way, and after a
long while you discover that, while it is a very good way, there is a
better."

Breath Control The Foundation of Singing
There is only one way to sing correctly, and that is to sing naturally,
easily, comfortably.
The height of vocal art is to have no apparent method, but to be able to

sing with perfect facility from one end of the voice to the other,
emitting all the notes clearly and yet with power and having each note
of the scale sound the same in quality and tonal beauty as the ones
before and after.
There are many methods which lead to the goal of natural singing--that
is to say, the production of the voice with ease, beauty and with perfect
control.
Some of the greatest teachers in the world reach this point apparently
by diverging roads.
Around the art of singing there has been formed a cult which includes
an entire jargon of words meaning one thing to the singer and another
thing to the rest of the world and which very often doesn't mean the
same thing to two singers of different schools.
In these talks with you I am going to try to use the simplest words, and
the few idioms which I will have to take from my own language I will
translate to you as clearly as I can, so that there can be no
misunderstanding.
Certainly the highest art and a lifetime of work and study are necessary
to acquire an easy emission of tone.
There are quantities of wonderful natural voices, particularly among the
young people of Switzerland and Italy, and the American voice is
especially noted for its purity and the beauty of its tone in the high
registers. But these naturally untrained voices soon break or fail if they
are used much unless the singer supplements the natural, God-given
vocal gifts with a conscious understanding of how the vocal apparatus
should be used.
The singer must have some knowledge of his or her anatomical
structure, particularly the structure of the throat, mouth and face, with
its resonant cavities, which are so necessary for the right production of
the voice.

Besides that, the