I happened to catch an old video of Beverly Sills singing "The Willow Song" from Ballad of Baby Doe on the ARTS channel yesterday. (I don't know anything about the ARTS channel, except that it broadcasts on the Knox County Schools channel when the school system doesn't have any programming, i.e., at night or during the summer. They show old videos of classical music performances.) It was an old, old video, judging by the look of things, probably the early to mid-1960s. She was on what appeared to be some kind of talk show, with a couple of hosts in director chairs and a small studio audience. That kind of genre of show was popular in the 60s, so that's what made me think it was from then. Anyone who has seen Monty Python lampoons of talk shows from the BBC in the 1960s/early 1970s will know the format I mean.

I wish I'd caught the whole performance instead of the last minute or so. But, c'est la vie. It was wonderful to watch such a consummate singer as Sills. The key to good opera singing is to make it sound--and look--like it's just the easiest thing in the world. The next time you see a video of Pavarotti, check out his jaw. There's absolutely no tension whatsoever. It's just hanging there, even though he's belting out high Cs and Ds. Ditto for the tongue. And, of course, he sounds like, "Why, Cs and Ds are in the middle of my range." And Sills was no exception in this video. The closing high notes--I'm not familiar enough with the opera to know what they were--were just as easy as all the other notes. You could see that her body, the diaphragm, all the torso musculature, was doing all the work. But she didn't look like she was working hard at all.

The only thing I found odd was how much she dropped her jaw on the highest notes. It seems to me that the jaw has a natural range of motion, opening and closing. If you exceed your natural downward extension, you have to exert extra energy in those muscles that pull the jaw down. (Forgive me, Ms. Michaelopolis. I don't remember the names of them from vocal pedagogy.) That's tension. And any tension anywhere in the facial muscles affects the sound... not that Beverly Sills sounded that way at all. It just looked rather odd. I don't think singers today do that. It may have been an affectation peculiar just to Sills, or it may have been the pedagogical thought at the time. (Research on singers via endoscopy was probably just getting revved up in the late-50s/early-60s)

Pedagogy, like any science, changes. Any singers around with the weird, fast vibrato so popular in the 30s and 40s? Nope. Thank goodness! And though everyone reads Enrico Caruso's treatise on singing and the singer in vocal ped., there's a lot of things in it that don't hold water in this day and age. An example would be alcohol consumption, although a) this might be cultural (Italian vs. American), and b) Caruso doesn't say to drink it in excess. In his defense, also, many scientists today agree that a glass of wine a day has an overall positive effect. Other things he says have stood the test of time. He touts a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. (Don T. has related how Pavarotti requested large platters of fresh fruits and vegetables when he was in Knoxville oh-so-many years ago.)

For protein, Caruso said that he ate primarily lean chicken and fish.

I believe he also mentions taking a brisk walk every morning, though, given the air pollution in most major industrialized cities during the early 20th century, one wonders how the scale would weigh in on if that behavior would be healthy or hazardous. In any case, the plug for daily exercise is there. As I say this, I've been sitting at my computer drinking strong coffee since I got up 3-1/2 hours ago. My chief plan of exercise for the day is walking around my parents' house with the contractor and, possibly, lifting a Blue Coast Burrito or two... not to say that anyone would ever confuse me with either Caruso--or even Mario Lanza--physique or vocal-wise.

But, regardless, Sills treatment of "The Willow Song" is wonderful. And, if I may say, physique-wise, she was pretty much a babe. I don't recall ever seeing her in the media where she didn't look dressed to the nines, always elegant and composed. The paragon of opera sopranodom, or just femininity.

Ahem. I do hope that Britney, Paris, and Nichole will read this and take heed.