Why Golden Voices Fade

By Martha Duffy

Soprano Mirella Freni, 56, will not sing Madama Butterfly onstage. The part is so heavily emotional that she feels it could upset the vocal balance she has spent a lifetime achieving. Luciano Pavarotti has just won acclaim for his first Otello, and most musical experts think he was right to wait until age 55 to try the heroic role. The list of parts that tenor Alfredo Kraus, 63, will not touch reads almost like a chart of opera's greatest hits, including Cavaradossi in Tosca and Rodolfo in La Boheme. Kraus sticks strictly to lighter parts that do not strain his pure, lyric voice.

These artists have enjoyed long careers, and their voices still have the glow that sells out major opera houses. Other voices, once equally remarkable, do not retain their beauty, whether because of physical setbacks or misuse. Marilyn Horne, 57, has lost none of her taste or technique, but the nap is off that mezzo velvet. Hildegard Behrens, 54, an inspired dramatic actress, is now far easier to look at than listen to in the arduous roles she favors. A dozen years ago, handsome Peter Hofmann, 46, was a Wagnerian's dream of a heldentenor; today he mostly sings pop.

Nowadays opera audiences are finding healthy voices rarer. It may be that young singers are expanding into heavy but popular roles without the kind of seasoning that the small repertory opera house used to provide. A rested voice is lustrous and secure. A frayed voice has loopholes, swoops or worse.

Each voice is as unique as a fingerprint, and the whole aural setup is not exactly fair. An artist like Freni yearns to play grand heroines like Norma or La Gioconda but must obey the dictates of her two vocal cords. Yet Birgit Nilsson could prevail over waves of punishing orchestration for hours. Her explanation: "I was a healthy girl with a healthy voice."

The initial years onstage are crucial, and according to their elders, many of today's young singers are in too much of a rush. Leonie Rysanek, 64 and still a shimmering soprano, says, "The first word to learn is no, if you want a career." Says Pavarotti: "Go easy. One new role a year is plenty." Before his Otello, sung in a concert version with the Chicago Symphony, music fans speculated that he lacked the declamatory heft for the part. But Pavarotti not only had it; he was able to sing three out of four performances with a bad cough.

Armen Boyajian, a respected voice coach, says he tries to prepare his students for what he calls "the ordeal of a career. You hope that after the young singer gets out into the world, he will encounter conductors who understand the voice. Some are ruthless -- to them the voice is just another percussion instrument."

Conductors get considerable blame for young talent's biggest hurdle: the temptation to learn roles that are wrong for the individual voice. It could be a too-high tessitura, the range of notes where most of a part lies, or too heavy a draatic role. Especially in his later years, Herbert von Karajan was a great seducer of semiformed talent because he sought a clear, pure voice in almost any female role. Freni, offered the declamatory Turandot, and Rysanek, the taxing Salome, resisted. The maestro never called again.

Some performers jump into peril with their eyes open. In an era that has no natural heroic tenors, there are intense pressures on any reasonably ample- size tenor to sing Wagner. Some are willing to face a foreshortened career to sing such lucrative roles. Beverly Sills wanted some adventure in her career. Blessed with a light, lyric coloratura, she tinkled her way through the standard repertory and then embraced Donizetti's "three queens": Elizabeth in Roberto Devereux, Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda, all roles that demand stamina and the brawn to negotiate the stage wearing 55-lb. costumes for hours. "I knew it meant hanging up my vocal cords earlier, but it was worth it," she says.

Every seasoned singer has a notion about what sustains a career. But each acknowledges the importance of a solid technique, a way of producing sound that is comfortable and does not fray the voice. "Vocalize, vocalize," preaches Pavarotti. "Ten minutes, seven or eight times a day." Phyllis Curtin, dean of Boston University's School for the Arts and a soprano with a long career of her own, believes nothing is mysterious about producing beautiful sounds: "It's like knowing how to use your Bible."

Proper technique is essential because singing opera is a major athletic enterprise. Says Curtin: "It's a very physical process, but it must be the servant of the phrase, the expression." A strong body and erect carriage are crucial. Bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, 61, emphasizes psychic well-being and "loving what you're doing." He is right; stage fright is lethal because fear closes up the throat. Many a singer with a ringing high C fights to get roles transposed into lower keys because he or she cannot face the buildup of tension.

It would appear that patience and the ability to turn down inappropriate roles (often ones that companies are willing to pay very well for) help a singer survive until the age of 45 or so -- usually regarded as vocal prime time. But other potential liabilities exist. One is a severe personal crisis. Some experts believe soprano Renata Tebaldi never really recovered her silken voice after her mother died. In fact, emotion, real or counterfeit, is the enemy of vocal endurance. One reason a soprano like Freni avoids Butterfly is that the character must continually project raw passion, rage, despair. "If you sing with your heart at the beginning," counsels Nilsson, "your voice will go before the end."

A sick voice can often be treated. Boyajian likes to speak of his repair shop, "where people in midcareer, about to be crippled, flock to fix up their technique while remaining in the limelight." He starts them out with the basics, the five Italian vowels, and begins a relearning process. He says most artists, once they start retraining, are quick to recognize their own bad habits.

Many operagoers think that the jet plane has done more to ravel the thread of lovely sound than any other factor. A popular artist can sing in Brussels on Monday, Paris on Tuesday and Chicago on Thursday, and by the time Chicago rolls around, audiences often feel they are presented with a raspy voice and an unfocused characterization. Many veterans monitor their travel schedules as closely as their repertory. Rysanek arrives in a city two weeks before she is scheduled to sing. Kraus warns that if you sing in two cities on successive days, "your subconscious is working in both places, and it's too busy."

Maybe Polonius' advice holds for singers: to thine own self be true. Nilsson feels that "there almost has to be another you, standing at your side, in full control." To Pavarotti, long success depends on "remaining a student all your life. Remember the first lesson you ever took and believe it." Oh, and a couple of other things. Freni recommends pasta on performance days. Rysanek warns against after-performance partying. And Nilsson decrees, at all cost, wear comfortable shoes.

With reporting by Nancy Newman/New York