Mezzo-Soprano Pappano's Classical Voices

MUSIC: Carmen Suite No. 1 by George Bizet

I'm Antonio Pappano.

All my life, I've been surrounded by wonderful singing...

..and as a conductor, it's been my great good fortune to work

with some of the best singers there are.

OPERATIC SINGING

I'm on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden -

my musical home.

And home to all the great operatic stars,

past and present.

In this programme, I'll be sharing with you

the wonders of the mezzo-soprano voice,

a slightly lower incarnation of the soprano.

Some of the great female singers of the modern age were mezzo-sopranos.

What secrets did they learn from the mezzos they admired?

What makes mezzos tick?

Having flat vowels was probably a great help.

I sang Yorkshire, in a sense.

SHE SINGS DRAMATICALLY

Wow, that was pretty scary!

I'll be talking to some of the great singers of today,

working with them, in fact,

to find out some of the tricks of the trade.

How do they do it?

How does the throat work?

How does the breathing work?

The body?

The soul?

SHE SINGS

A randy page,

a witch, a commander,

a suicidal queen,

Delilah, Romeo, Cinderella.

A haggard Gypsy mother

and a fiery Gypsy girl.

What do these roles have in common?

They're all sung by mezzo-sopranos.

In opera-speak -

witches, bitches

and britches.

The mezzo-soprano voice is known for its earthy quality,

sensuality, dare I say, its erotic quality.

Ever playing the rival,

the siren, the enchantress.

The mezzo-soprano is the closest in sound to

a woman's natural speaking voice.

I think a good way to describe mezzo

is the vibration at the centre of the earth,

that the edges of the voice

become one with the landscape.

The mezzo range may surprise you.

From the very lowest notes a woman can sing.

She also has to sing top notes -

nearly as high as those of the soprano.

SHE SINGS A SCALE

SHE HOLDS NOTE

SHE HOLDS NOTE

You're expected to able to compete with

the sopranos on their high notes.

We're just not going to stay there all night long.

MUSIC: Carmen Suite No. 1 by George Bizet

They may share many of the same notes

but the characters mezzos and sopranos play

can be worlds apart.

The most definitive mezzo roles

aren't idealized heroines

but recognizably real,

flesh and blood women -

one, most of all.

Carmen is a radical departure.

Gone are the prim and proper characters

that are the domain of the sopranos.

Here we have a challenging,

ballsy, capricious, fearless mezzo lead

who challenges all the prevailing ideas of

how a woman is supposed to act.

And she surprises us at every turn.

All the while singing immortal tunes.

There've been thousands of Carmens.

So, you must put your individual stamp on it -

otherwise, the tunes are just the tunes.

You could say that Carmen is to opera,

what Hamlet is to theatre.

The forbidding shadow of previous performances

hangs over each new interpreter.

Here's Anna Caterina Antonacci,

the Italian mezzo,

in a smouldering performance at Covent Garden,

that I conducted in 2007.

Another Italian mezzo,

Giulietta Simionato,

a coquettish Carmen, in Tokyo, in 1959,

singing in Italian.

SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN

SHE HOLDS NOTE

Wow, what a high note that was!

The vivacious American Grace Bumbry,

in a 1966 film directed by the conductor,

Herbert von Karajan.

# J'irai danser la Seguedille

# Et boire du Manzanilla

# La, la, la, la, la-la

# La, la, la, la, la, la, la! #

But there's far more to Carmen

than her surface glamour.

I was not the type for Carmen

because I had two flops,

in Frankfurt and in Darmstadt -

two flops with Carmen.

So I had to make something out of Carmen,

that is away from the comb

and red roses and so on.

This I couldn't do.

And I thought,

"She is a free woman.

"She does what she wants to do.

"She has a lover, and if she doesn't love him any more,

"she has another lover.

"She is a free woman.

"She is not dependent on anything in the world."

And so I could do it.

Here's Christa Ludwig's

German Carmen, from 1961.

SHE SINGS CARMEN SUITE NO. 1 IN GERMAN

The mezzo may get fewer leading parts,

but the supporting roles she does get to play

are cut out of the same cloth as Carmen.

Gutsy, delinquent, edgy...

and some really scary.

A much-admired mezzo celebrated for her dramatic power,

as well as her definitively

dark-tinged voice

was Giulietta Simionato.

Here she is as Azucena,

about to reveal that

to avenge the murder of her mother

she has accidentally thrown

her own baby into a fire,

rather than the intended victim.

Giulietta Simionato's own mother

took a leaf from Azucena's book.

She threatened to kill her daughter with her own hands

rather than bear the shame of seeing her become an opera star.

It was only after her mother's death

that she truly began her career -

but she spent years playing minor roles,

until recognition finally arrived.

TRANSLATION:

Giulietta Simionato scares me to death,

I have to tell you.

The force of her personality and her voice

are quite blood-curdling.

Look at her eyes - she doesn't blink, this woman.

A constant stream of tone.

Quite unvaried in colour,

but imposing.

You ask yourself, will she ever get to the top?

Well, she can.

SHE BUILDS AND REACHES A CRESCENDO

See, she doesn't blink!

Simionato was also known for the sheer power

she could bring to the very lowest part of her vocal range.

This is the mysterious mechanism

that singers call the "chest voice".

Chest voice.

-LOW PITCHED:

-Ah, yes...

-NATURALLY PITCHED:

-..is going to be something where you

purposefully gather your forces

and it's going to be, literally,

sort of, this resonance,

the chest bone, versus...

This is were you spend most of the time,

you let the sound come up into what the Italians call the mask,

all this skeletal structure here.

You bypass that for the head voice.

SHE SINGS HIGH NOTE

So we are really quite in the mask here.

And if I'm going to go to the chest...

SHE SINGS IN LOW PITCH

..I let it settle here.

I relax, sort of, everything.

-LOW PITCHED:

-# Oh, no. #

It's going to be more the chest voice.

Here's Simionato in spectacular chest voice mode.

Roles like Azucena, the witches and bitches,

are an important staple of the mezzo repertoire.

Bel canto takes second place here.

The English mezzo-soprano, Dame Felicity Palmer

came to specialise in playing such grim ladies on stage,

such as the famous witch featured by The Brothers Grimm.

# When up I spring The bat takes wing

# The hell-cat sings The death knell rings

# My tongue's on heat to taste the sweet

# And melting treat of children's meat... #

Felicity Palmer is known for her acting talents -

not just in comedy, but in full-on tragedy too.

Greek tragedy, as realised by Richard Strauss.

The mezzo role in his 1909 opera, Elektra,

is a fearsome lady who took an axe to her husband,

Agamemnon, while he was taking a bath.

Her name - Clytemnestra.

Of course, she had her reasons.

She has some axe to grind,

if I can use that term.

-Yeah, we don't use that term with this opera!

-Unfortunate.

Bringing out the horror of such characters

places huge demands on a mezzo's vocal health.

The role of Clytemnestra,

one of a series of very,

very troubling ladies

that you tend to perform.

Yes, absolutely.

Beauty of tone is

not the first thing

-that one would think of.

-No, no.

Because you're so locked into the words,

and if you're dealing with people who psychologically

are somehow flawed...

-..it does affect the sound, doesn't it?

-Absolutely, absolutely.

I've had to look at

steaming into a, sort of,

biting tone

which makes it very ugly,

to find a way of getting that anger,

or giving orders,

or whatever it is, across,

without affecting the voice.

And these kind of roles

can really be quite dangerous.

TRANSLATION:

How do you find the redeeming characteristics in,

what on the surface,

are very evil characters?

What fascinates me more and more is how people tick.

I'm quite interested.

And so the baddies,

I want to understand

why they behave as they do,

and so I think I've failed if they say,

"Oh, you're just so evil!"

I think one really needs to try and inhabit

the person that one is playing,

get into their skin, if possible.

The very lowest female singing voice

is the contralto -

a subcategory of the mezzo-soprano voice,

perhaps one woman in 1,000 possesses it.

In the 1940s,

a singer from Lancashire

became one of the best loved of British performers.

Her name was Kathleen Ferrier,

and she was one of that rare breed -

the contralto.

A true contralto.

Not only did she have those low tones,

those luscious, sensual tones

that we know to be the colour of the contralto.

But there was,

I think, a unique poignancy.

Whatever she sang,

whatever note, whatever dynamic,

it just got through to you -

it would bring tears to your eyes.

It's no accident that Kathleen Ferrier

became the nation's favourite during the Second World War

and the austerity years -

vivacious and charismatic, she was also down to earth.

After the war, she did a series of tours

and concerts all round Britain.

And I think the fact that she was so often requested on programmes like

Housewives' Choice, Family Favourites,

showed that she could appeal,

not just to the highbrow Albert Hall audience,

but also to normal householders

who just wanted to hear her sing

cos her repertoire was enormous.

It went from Mahler's Song of the Earth to

Blow The Wind Southerly or

Kitty, My Love, Will You Marry Me?

and things like that.

Folk songs.

Before turning professional,

Our Kath spent nine years

as a switchboard operator

for the GPO in Blackburn.

She auditioned to be the voice of the speaking clock...

and was turned down.

No footage of her singing exists

but the many recordings of her rich,

sonorous voice are evergreen.

# Why should I not speed after him

# Since love to all is free? #

Kathleen Ferrier first came to prominence with Messiah -

sung at Westminster Abbey in 1943.

The tenor was Peter Pears.

At first I think one was simply taken

by this adorable personality.

She had no troubles, I think,

in standing up and

giving us herself.

In the audience was Benjamin Britten.

Something that touched me the first time

I heard her in Westminster Abbey,

and that is the only thing which moves me about singers,

and that is that the voice is

a vocal expression of their personality.

I loathe what is normally called,

"A beautiful voice."

Because to me it's like an over-ripe peach

which says nothing

and Kathleen never had that.

Even if she made mistakes, even if one could criticise her,

her voice was always Kathleen.

And the weaknesses in the voice were the weaknesses in Kathleen,

and the glories in the voice,

which, I've no need to say,

were many, were the glories of Kathleen.

# He was despised... #

I heard Kathleen Ferrier when I was a schoolboy

and I can hear Kathleen Ferrier

doing Messiah, now, to this day.

It was sensational. We hadn't heard anything like that.

# He was despised

# And rejected of men

# A man of sorrows

# And acquainted

# With grief

# A man

# Of sorrows

# And acquainted

# With grief. #

She was just world-beating.

What a tragedy that she would die at the age of 41, in 1953.

This was really a major loss,

because she was really one of the outstanding British singers

and, even today, her influence is felt.

All the young mezzo-sopranos that sing...

Kathleen Ferrier will always be a beacon.

It was written at the time that her death

cancelled out the euphoria of the Coronation.

It was said that she was the second most loved woman in Britain,

after the Queen.

# I will lay me down in peace

# Will lay me down in peace. #

Ravishing.

She was particularly admired for

her interpretation of English repertoire.

It has been one of the specializations of fellow mezzo,

Sarah Connolly.

Perhaps the greatest joy of listening to a mezzo-soprano

is luxuriating in that lower middle register, wouldn't you say?

Yes, and I'd also say it's easier to get the text across

in the lower part of the voice

because you're not putting so much pressure on the instrument.

Which is why the likes of Kathleen Ferrier were

so clever at interpreting the text

so touchingly and so beautifully.

Now, you sing in certainly every operatic language, of course,

but you sing a lot in English.

Yes, I've chosen to do that, I think.

And why's that?

Partly because I have a sentimental attachment to the composers -

Elgar and Britten, and Tippett.

It's a wonderful legacy for a British singer.

# And on that sea

# Commixed with fire

# On that sea

# Commixed with fire

# Oft drop their eyelids

# Raised too long

# To the full

# Godhead's burning.

# The full

# Godhead's burning. #

It's only very rarely in the history of music

that a singer's impact and reputation

transcends that of pure music

but that is undoubtedly the case with Marian Anderson.

True, she had an exceptional voice.

No less a judge than Toscanini said to her,

"A voice like yours comes round only once in 100 years."

But what secured her reputation in America,

and beyond,

was her courage and dignity

as a human being.

# He's got the whole world in his hands

# He's got the big round world in his hands

# He's got the wide world in his hands

# He's got the whole world in his hands. #

Marian Anderson, like Kathleen Ferrier,

was a contralto.

# He's got the moon and the stars in his hands

# He's got the wind and rain in his hands

# He's got the whole world in his hands. #

Her bearing was regal.

There was a no-nonsense, no-frills approach

to her stage persona.

It was just the voice.

The voice was gorgeous -

but it was an honest type of singing.

There was no flailing about with her arms,

there was no eye rolling,

it was just plain, and simple

and deep.

# He bowed his head

# And died

# And he never said

# A mumblin' word

# He bowed his head

# And died

# And he never said

# A mumblin' word... #

That's not a voice, that's a cello.

# Not a word

# Not a word

# Not a

# Word. #

Marian Anderson did have ambitions to sing opera,

but she would have to wait a long time

before she set foot on an American operatic stage.

This had nothing to do with the quality of her voice -

it had everything to do with the colour of her skin.

Marian Anderson was born in 1897,

in Philadelphia,

the granddaughter of a slave.

Her early career was beset by prejudice,

but slowly the tide turned in her favour.

In 1939, President Roosevelt himself

engineered a concert for 75,000 people

at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

# My country 'tis of thee

# Sweet land of liberty... #

Singing surprisingly high, there,

it was not until 16 years after

this concert that Marian Anderson

finally got to sing an opera.

When she was in her late 50s and, sadly,

past her vocal prime,

Marian Anderson made history.

She became the first African-American singer

to sing at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The role was Ulrica,

the Negro fortune teller

from Verdi's Ballo In Maschera.

Now, it didn't matter that her voice was not in its prime.

Her mere presence on that stage

was an inspiration

for a whole new generation

of African-American singers.

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience,

and she stood there, Anderson,

and she sang with strength that was even more,

with dignity that was even more,

with excitement that was even more,

personally, for me, that night.

And I knew, I'm leaving from this audience

and I am going down there,

and I know it is very much because of her,

and I am going to be standing

where she was singing tonight.

And it worked out pretty good.

Marian Anderson is

a shining example

of a great artist

and a courageous human being.

Two of the most celebrated American mezzo-sopranos of their generation

cited Marian Anderson as an inspiration -

Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett.

SHE SINGS

Shirley Verrett's voice

is one in a million.

Warm, velvety,

everything that you would expect

of the typical mezzo-soprano,

but she had fantastic high notes -

and we mustn't forget that in the dramatic mezzo repertoire,

high notes are a must.

# Ti maledico

# Ti maledico

# O mia belta... #

SHE HOLDS NOTE

# Ti maledico

# O mia belta. #

The sheer physicality of her singing.

Shirley Verrett was born in the Deep South

and, as with Simionato,

her choice of career was opposed by her parents,

devout Christians.

When she sang Carmen,

they fell to their knees to beg God's forgiveness.

Like Marian Anderson, she faced racial prejudice

but with the Civil Rights movement growing in strength,

she faced it on her own terms.

There were places in the United States when I began

and there are still places in the United States

that I have not been to sing.

And, in all honesty,

I don't wish to sing there

because I have the feeling that, if someone does not want me

to sing in a place, I don't want to go.

You sing, but you don't sing for segregated audiences.

Who pays for a ticket, comes in

and sits where that ticket says he can sit?

And not because he's black,

green or grey or whatever.

Shirley Verrett's natural acting ability,

and her stunning good looks

made her an ideal interpreter

of a particular type of mezzo-soprano role.

Around the 1850s,

composers realised that

that husky, earthy, dark quality voice

would be ideal for the siren,

enchantress -

the femme fatale.

One of Shirley's signature roles

is the role of Delilah

in Saint-Saens's Samson and Delilah.

See how she smoulders,

it's genuinely sexy.

And she uses her voice,

the husky, dark quality

in the lower register,

to really seduce.

To seduce Samson

and to seduce us, the listeners.

Rewind a century before Delilah and Carmen,

and the mezzo-soprano mostly had to feed on scraps,

playing nurses, drones, drudges, and also-rans.

Now, the castrati had sung the leading male roles at the time

and when they began to be ushered from the stage,

many of their high-voiced male roles were handed to the mezzo instead -

here was manna from heaven.

During the 18th and 19th centuries,

the mezzo-soprano benefitted greatly

from the decline of the castrato tradition.

Now they were being called upon to play the young male heroes.

This combination of a clear, soprano-like timbre

with a dark quality

was perfect for the young teenage adolescent.

Now, these trouser roles, as they're called,

took in both sides of the theatrical tradition,

the tragic and the comic,

with the inevitable sexual frisson caused by a female playing a male

making love to a female female character...

Yeah, that's it.

One of the first, and most famous of all,

is Mozart's Cherubino,

the sex-obsessed page from The Marriage of Figaro.

Here, she...HE is sung in a celebrated interpretation

by the American mezzo Frederica Von Stade.

She's singing a song that is about asking the ladies

to give their opinion as to whether he's in love or not.

And he describes all the feeling of love -

hot, cold, suffering, joy.

He secretly lusts after The Countess -

well, not so secretly, actually.

VON STADE SINGS IN ITALIAN

The Countess is obviously interested.

The trills and thrills of the hormonal teenager.

'Trouser roles have been one of the best gifts,'

certainly to my career.

You have to get way outside your comfort zone.

'You have to really inhabit

'something very foreign.'

Men are very angular,

and women are much curvier.

THEY SING IN ITALIAN

So, if I'm thinking angles, I'm thinking lower part of the body,

which is where the man lives.

Quicker, sharper and, often-times,

it's in the music that way.

Then the physicality starts to emerge as male.

Sarah Connolly made her name playing trouser roles like Julius Caesar.

As a performer, dressing up as a man,

finding the way to walk like a man,

that must take some doing, right?

Tell me about that process.

It's a question of lowering the centre of gravity.

Women tend to walk and control their walk from their upper bodies,

from their waists,

and men can walk from their hips.

I mean, we're not talking John Wayne swagger or anything,

but men do tend to walk,

control their movement, from their hips more -

their legs are looser.

They don't... It's not up here, it's down there.

And that little clue made a huge difference

to my understanding of how women can impersonate men without trying.

SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN

By the turn of the 20th century,

the sexual frisson of a woman playing a man

making love to a woman was hard to miss.

But not all mezzos enjoyed unsexing themselves

to play the britches roles.

I hated to sing trouser roles.

I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink,

I have to be slim

and my female attributions had to be away,

you know, and we had such a terrible thing around the body.

Oh, it was ugly. Oh, I hated it.

The bosom clencher - it was like a corset.

There is...everything away and I couldn't breathe any more.

I don't know. I don't like it.

Help was at hand.

Rossini had a particular affinity for the mezzo-soprano.

He was married to one,

and wrote one of the best starring roles in the whole mezzo canon.

The operas of Gioachino Rossini are a gold mine

for the mezzo-soprano voice.

Both the tragic operas and the sparkling comic ones

are alive and well today.

He demanded a singer that could surprise us

with flights of fancy, coloratura,

fast-moving notes all of a sudden,

that would make us fly with the singer.

Frisson, hearts a-flutter.

But these roulades, these adornments to the musical line

needed a tremendous amount of vocal flexibility,

taste and musicality.

The sparkling coloratura mezzo roles with their bravura pyrotechnics

reached a zenith with Angelina,

the lead in La Cenerentola, or Cinderella.

A celebrated modern Angelina

is the superstar mezzo, Cecilia Bartoli.

Born in Rome, the daughter of professional singers,

she made her own debut aged eight.

Her dazzling performances of the repertoire

of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries

have made her one of the most admired

and influential mezzo-sopranos of the last 30 years.

Her absolute command of that music!

She wasn't just getting through it, she wasn't just singing it,

she was creating it.

Without fear, without limit.

It was as if she just tore up the rule book.

La Cenerentola ends with a champagne aria - Non piu mesta.

Here, Cinderella - and the mezzo-soprano -

celebrate their transformation from drudge to princess.

SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN

'I say she tore up the rules.

'I don't think she ever read the rules!'

And as a result, it's this wonderful reminder

that that's what the world wants.

We want uniqueness, we want to hear that voice.

We want to hear...what do YOU have to say? What do YOU sound like?

Cinderella, Carmen, Delilah - starring roles for the mezzo

are unfortunately few and far between.

One option is to taste the forbidden fruits of the soprano repertoire.

But it's not without controversy, and can lead to ruin.

And yet it can certainly work, with the right role.

The great German mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig

on occasion sang the soprano part in Beethoven's Fidelio.

Leonore impersonates a jailer to rescue her husband,

a political prisoner.

I never woke up in the morning as a soprano. Not always.

Sometimes I was like a raven...

SHE GROWLS

-IN A HIGH-PITCHED TONE:

-..and never like this!

And I think, "My God, I need to sing this evening Fidelio.

"What am I doing? What am I doing?"

So, slowly, slowly, slowly.

Also with cortisone, of course,

because all the singers, they took, at a certain time, much cortisone.

It was a certain time in the '60s - the doctors gave everything.

All over, all over.

Not only in Vienna - in Berlin, Buenos Aires, New York.

They gave everything,

only that we could sing in the evening good.

So, at 12, 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon,

I was in good voice and then I knew "Oh, I can sing Fidelio."

SHE SINGS IN GERMAN

My mother was a singer and when I was a child

and I heard her singing Fidelio, I was eight years old,

and I said, "I want to sing Fidelio in my life once and then I can die."

And I made it, but I didn't die, so...

A tinge of darkness in the middle voice

just gives it away

that she is a mezzo-soprano and not a soprano.

The role of Leonore is particularly challenging,

even for sopranos.

It's very high.

It concentrates in the middle voice,

demands a singer who can project in that all-important middle voice.

But, it is difficult, believe me, it is difficult!

And also for the sopranos, the very last high note,

the very last note, it is difficult, yeah.

She does it absolutely brilliantly.

But the next day, I was...

SHE CROAKS

An alternative, less controversial option for mezzos bored

with singing the same handful of roles in the standard repertoire

is to mine the music of the more distant past.

It's a movement that has been gathering pace since the 1950s.

The revival of early music has proved to be a real boon

for the lighter mezzo-soprano voices.

All-but-forgotten roles from the past,

many of them originally sung by the castrati,

have been dusted down and brought into the limelight,

vastly expanding the mezzo-soprano repertoire.

One ground-breaking production that emerged from this trend

was the 1996 Glyndebourne staging of Handel's Theodora,

directed by Peter Sellers.

Its star was the great American mezzo-soprano,

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

Lorraine began her career as a viola player,

becoming a professional singer at the age of 30.

It wasn't so much that Peter Sellars cast her -

it was the other way around.

Lorraine had sung it in Boston in concert,

and so they made a tape, and sent it to me.

And so, you know,

I proposed to Glyndebourne Theodora

cos I'd just heard this tape of Lorraine.

Theodora is an oratorio not meant to be staged

but, oh, how it works.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is able to wring out the drama

inherent in Handel's story of a Christian martyr.

Lorraine was a mezzo-soprano with incredible gifts as an actress.

She was a supreme musician.

The way she ornaments, the way...she captures

the true Handelian spirit, is, I think, remarkable.

# As with rosy steps the morn

# Advancing, drives the shades of night

# So from virtuous toils well borne

# Raise Thou our hopes of endless light

# Raise Thou our hopes

# Of endless light

# As with rosy steps the morn

# Advancing, drives the shades of night

# So from virtuous toils well borne

# Raise Thou our hopes of light

# Raise Thou our hopes of endless

# Endless light

# So from virtuous toils well borne

# Raise Thou our hopes

# Of endless light

# Raise Thou our hopes of light

# Raise Thou our hopes

# Of endless light. #

These astonishing levels of sound,

that float in a middle place,

that use the mezzo sound, that is centred in the heart.

And that's...Lorraine's beauty.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died ten years after this performance,

at the terribly young age of 52.

Superb technique, innate musicality, consummate musicianship,

dramatic flair, distinctive personality.

Rarely do these things come together as equal partners to such a degree

as they did with Dame Janet Baker.

# You white clouds of Heaven

# Oh, stay for a moment

# And bear me away to France

# Away from this torment... #

Dame Janet is possibly the greatest singer

this country has ever produced.

And she had it all and she could do it all.

From early opera to trouser roles, to lieder, to oratorio,

to symphonic singing.

The great heroines of the French repertoire,

Handel, Purcell, Bach, Mahler - you name it, she did it.

And she wanted it all.

SHE SINGS IN GERMAN

What does performing bring to you?

It contains everything.

It's a visual, audio experience,

in a way that nothing else is,

that's why it's so difficult to get right.

You have all these factors coming together, one hopes,

and any one of them can go wrong, and often do.

But there's so much happening,

and I think that's why the audience find it so exciting.

Everything exciting is being given to them on a plate.

You don't see them because you're all in the dark, so to speak.

But you know there's this immense world out there

that somehow you've got to reach.

And it's a question of what is happening up here.

The intention of thinking about the people up in the gods,

that they've got to hear it too,

it's as though you expand - you expand to the space mentally.

I've never known anybody work as hard as Janet

to get it right.

It had to be absolutely perfect.

The languages, the pronunciation, the knowledge of the role.

SHE SINGS IN FRENCH

She would read - I mean, we did Mary Stuart

and it took months of reading about Queen Elizabeth and whatever.

That's how Janet was, she was a perfectionist.

# But you will not hear me

# And onwards you'll roam... #

It had to be right. She had to be the character.

I love the story about Janet in New York.

She and Keith, her husband, were walking,

and somebody came up and said, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

And Janet said, "With a great deal of work, my dear,

"with a great deal of work".

You're famous for having the clearest diction possible.

Talk to us about your technique.

How do you develop that as a singer?

When you practice at home,

practice the libretto with the melody.

The only sound you can make is on a vowel.

So...somehow you have to use tricks of the trade to make to the vowels,

the openness, as long as possible

before you fall off the edge of the cliff, so to speak.

You need the consonants, of course,

but we can never be like a violinist who can go on and on and on.

We have at some point, A, to breathe, and B, to sing a consonant,

which snaps the sound off.

So the trick is to elongate that vowel sound.

And when I encourage people to do that,

they feel ridiculous because they close off the sound,

naturally, much quicker.

But there's a discipline in seeing how long the note

is and not letting go of that vowel sound until you absolutely must.

# By mount and mead, by lawn and rill

# When night is deep and moon is high

# That music seeks and finds me still

# And tells me where the corals lie

# And tells me where the corals lie... #

My job was to serve the composer and the poet,

um...and I really mean that -

to try to...remove myself, as some actors say they do.

They remove themselves to the side of the stage

and watch themselves playing the role.

In other words, you're like a vessel?

Like a vessel, yes.

Singers are emotional creatures. That's what we are.

We are human beings of emotional sensitivity.

# When I am laid

# Am laid in earth

# May my wrongs create

# No trouble

# No trouble in thy breast... #

Would you say that the emotions that you lived in your career

were sometimes overwhelming?

How could you not end up in a puddle of tears?

But I mean, people don't pay money

for people crying all over the set, do they?

You can't do that. You can't do that.

Somehow or other there is this... not a distance,

but it goes into another place.

I find it difficult to describe, because I'm a mechanic,

I'm a working mechanic.

Everything has to work.

And if that happens, if I've, in my own opinion,

done enough work, and the thing is rehearsed well,

and the thing is going well,

you're happy with everybody and everything,

there is this moment when you do stand aside

and something - I will use the word "spiritual" -

puts the final touch on things.

And then, if the fates are with you,

the magic can descend

which has absolutely nothing at all to do with you.

You make the possibility. And that's what singing is.

It's making a possibility for something magic to happen

over which we've no control.

# Remember me

# Remember me

# But ah!

# Forget my fate

# Remember me

# But, ah!

# Forget my fate

# Remember me

# Remember me

# But, ah!

# Forget my fate

# Remember me

# But, ah!

# Forget my fate. #

I can point to technical things -

the manipulation of the vibrato, the legato.

But the genuine pathos and feeling...is...

It's heart-stopping, isn't it?

Next time, we move from the lowest female voices

to the lowest male voices.

Gods, demons, tsars, tyrants, drunkards, heartless seducers.

The mighty bass and dark-edged baritone take the stage.