All Voice, No Looks

I came across this article (a humorous take) on the winner of Britain's (sort of) version of American Idol, a guy named Paul Potts, who actually sang opera as his talent.

I agree with the author of the article, Rick Coster, completely. Mr. Potts, though a pretty-talented guy, is probably not going to go anywhere. Oh, he'll get his 5 minutes in front of the Queen, but that's going to be the peak of his career. But, in the meantime, way to go, Paul! Let's hear it for the not-beautiful people making some waves!

Now, you must know that that picture of me at right is my "head shot" and, like most singers, it was taken about 15 years ago. (C'mon, admit it! It's true! When was the last time you saw any singer, other than some kid fresh out of college, whose head shot was current?) I wish I looked that good now. If I'd known I'd looked that good back then... but then, I didn't. I'm realistic about my looks, then and now. Especially now that the "blush of youth" has left my cheek. I know that, though I can sing Britten and Handel and Purcell, Covent Garden isn't going to be calling me anytime soon.

But that's the whole point of this article. Looks. This guy, Paul Potts, isn't exactly a handsome fellow. He's overweight, has bad teeth (I can hear the jokes now, "But, don't all Britons have bad teeth?"), and is not exactly a fill-up-a-room-with-his-personality type of guy. Yet he does have a very good voice. (Check out the YouTube video.) I can't even fake my way through "Nessun Dorma."

But he did manage to win Britain's Got Talent, which I suppose is more the equivalent of the eponymous American counterpart than Idol... except instead of a manic Simon Cowell, America's Got Talent has a drunk David Hasselhoff. Potts not only had to beat out singers, one of which was a cute 6-year-old, but jugglers, comedians, etc., which makes it all the more impressive.

But, you say, maybe Britain has more of a "thing" for opera than we do. After all, it is a European country. While there may be some truth to that in the case of older folk, I would imagine that the younger Brits, i.e., those that watch a "reality" series on the telly, could, like their American cousins, care less. They're more about pop culture: Hugh Grant/George Clooney, the White Stripes, and MySpace and/or Facebook.

So what does an average-Joe, portly opera singer in America or Britain, or any other country in the world nowadays do? Everything today is looks, looks, looks. If Pavarotti had been born 20 years later, would he have done as well as he has? "You have an amazing voice, Mr. Pavarotti, but we're really looking a different type, someone who could play the handsome, romantic lead. Thanks for coming in."

Meanwhile, a teenage girl in Kansas is sticking her finger down her throat so that she'll vomit and become as thin--and beautiful--as Kate Moss. Dr. Phil has a family in which the mother and older daughter have had breast implants and now the youngest, 19-year-old daughter wants them, but--get this!--her older sister and mother are against it. Hmmm... A fat kid from Corbin, Kentucky absolutely loves musicals and moves to New York to pursue his dream, only to end up a stock boy in a downtown chain store.

I'm all for technology, but maybe all those guys who are credited with inventing the camera did us a disservice. Look at the pictures of paintings of Beethoven, Bach, Handel, even Mozart. Do you think they really looked that good? (Well, there are some later paintings of Handel that aren't exactly flattering.) With a diet as poor as ours today, a sanitation system that consisted of a rut in the middle of the street, and health care that touted bleeding a person almost dry for "expelling the ill humors from the body"? I seriously doubt that. But composers have it easy, even today. A patron is much more likely to hear a work by a composer and realize its brilliance than to hear a talented singer without looking at his or her head shot. At least, back in the day, they gave you the benefit of a doubt.

But, I hear you, painters made the ugliest people beautiful; then photographers learned certain dark-room tricks that would cast, literally, a favorable light on someone's appearance; the invention of the airbrush brought us further along the path of "retouching"; lots of carbon-arc lamps did wonders for the complexions of Hollywood motion-picture starlets in the 1920s and '30s; and now we have digital--Photoshop (new version CS3!) and its kine--to help us to look our best. People have found ways to not look how they really look for millenia. And, perhaps, someday we'll all have some kind of advanced, light-bending clothing to make us look really good in public.

But, until then, good luck Paul Mott. We're pullin' for ya.