house inevitably lacked a permanent orchestra and chorus. But this deficiency was usually surmounted with amazing success, first by the wholesale importation of one of the standing London orchestras—as is done today, in the case of Glyndebourne, for instance—and secondly by the natural British genius for choral singing. It was easier than it would have been in most other countries to assemble a chorus of high standard, because the chorus members probably were accustomed to singing together, either in oratorio or as members of some choral society.
Against this background appeared artists—and in some cases whole casts—who were perfectly used to performing together in other parts of the world.
And now for my favourite comment, “They didn’t act much then, did they?”
Act! Why a man like Chaliapin could act everyone off the stage today with the exception of Callas and Gobbi. It must be forty years or more since I last heard Chaliapin’s Boris, but my spine still chills enjoyably as I recall his Clock Scene, where the Czar, who has murdered his way to the throne, sees the ghost of the child he has murdered. And he did the whole thing with a chair and a handkerchief: a monumental and solitary figure in a splendid costume of brocade and fur, he scarcely made a movement at first, only the agitation of the red handkerchief in his hand showing his growing uneasiness and his incredulous horror. Then, at the moment when he actually saw the child, he would take the chair on which he had been sitting and try to hold off the figure, unseen to all but him. And we, sweating with heat and terror in the gallery, could have sworn in the end that we saw the child too. That was acting!
Of course, in a singer, the first essential is the voice. But it is useful to put the record straight for those who imagine that the stars of those days stood stolidly at the footlights and sang.
When people ask, “Are there not just as many great vocal artists today?” I am afraid the simple, if unpopular, answer is: No. This is not because God has stopped giving out good voices. It is because the full development of a great singing talent is a near-impossibility in a world where everything from coffee to soup to philosophy and art must be “instant.” Presently someone is going to discover how to grow an instant tree. It won’t be much like the tree that has taken years and years to mature, but it will satisfy quite a number of people who will, incidentally, be rather huffy if you talk about the superiority of the real thing.
The development of a complete musical artist differed a little from country to country, but in every case it took time. In Austria, for instance, anyone lucky enough to be accepted into one of the famous musical conservatoria faced six years of study. No agent or talent scout was allowed to approach the singer during the first five years.—Nor, of course, was there any chance of preening and twittering on television to a chorus of uninformed praise.—At the end of the fifth year, the conservatory would organize a students’ concert, to which agents and talent scouts would be invited. An interested agent or scout would approach the teacher, not the student, with the request that, in a year’s time, he or she might hear the singer again. An engagement—probably in a provincial opera house, where immensely varied professional experience would be available—might result.
The greatly gifted artist might find a few short cuts, and there was always the occasional phenomenon who conformed to few of these rules. But, generally speaking, any artist who succeeded in the international scene—in parts great or small—had this wealth of understanding and experience behind him or her. What we, the audience, enjoyed was the tip of the iceberg. Underneath was the firm base of knowledge and hard work that supported the performance.
The luckiest—and usually the most gifted—were those who came under the direct influence of one of the great musical directors. Directors like Serafin, Marinuzzi and probably Panizza, or Clemens Krauss, Bruno Walter and, a little later, Kleiber. These were men who knew exactly how to develop a voice rather than exploit it. Not all the greatest conductors had this special flair, though this is no criticism of them. They probably expected to handle the finished article rather than perfect it. This expectation is legitimate if the conductor is truly great and can recognize whether or not the singer is really capable of taking on the projected role. The operatic highways and byways nowadays are strewn with the wrecks of voices called in to support the prestige of a conductor rather than the cause of true singing.
This lack of basic development is combined with overexposure and over-performing. Everyone wants to hear everything today. By way of the airplane, which is no friend to a singer, artists rush to and fro doing their admired and over-recorded performance of this role and that.
Also, modern recording tends to inflate the size and quality of many voices. A “souped up” recording results in some attractive smallish artist being pressed to sing in large opera houses. The role is, in life, totally beyond his or her safe capacity. Very soon the individual colour and charm of the voice disappear, and another good singer fails to reach the legitimate goal.
In the space of a few paragraphs, one can mention only a few points, and the whole issue becomes oversimplified. But in those days, both abroad and here among our British singers, there was a great deal more of what Eva Turner has so aptly called the mixture of “inspiration, dedication and perspiration.”
We probably did not know how supremely fortunate we were. I suppose one never does until the light begins to fade. But in those happy days, there was a great deal of glory around us. Naturally, there were always older fans to assure us that we, who had not heard Destinn, Caruso, Plancon and other safely dead, could not possibly know what real singing was. One tactless old boy once asked Louise superiorly if she had heard “Ternina in ’02.”
Early in 1929, when the preliminary list of artists and works were issued, the name of Rosa Ponselle appeared for the first time. She was to sing three performances of Norma, in which she had recently made a sensation in New York, and two performance of La Gioconda.
This was news indeed! Louise and I had tremendously admired Ponselle when we had heard her in New York, and we felt in our bones—which were pretty reliable bones in matters operatic—that she was just what the Italian contingent at Covent Garden would rejoice in.
May 28, 1929. How often have those of us who loved her recalled that first night Ponselle sang at Covent Garden? We were at a fever pitch of excitement when, just before the queue moved in, a tall, striking—indeed, almost melodramatic-looking—figure sauntered up Floral Street and stood for a few moments at the corner. The whisper went round that this was Ponselle, though we found it hard to believe that the star of the evening would just stroll up like any of us. I was commissioned to walk past and take a good—though surreptitious—look at her as the Forza Leonora we had last seen on the stage of the Metropolitan. This I did. But we were still in some doubt until she walked along the street and in the stage door. That settled all disputes.
I am sure that no one who was there on that extraordinary evening will ever think of Norma as just a nineteenth-century coloratura role. It was written for a great singing actress. And by a great singing actress it must be played or, quite simply, be humbly left alone.
Years and years afterwards, Callas once said to me, “I think you know, Eeda, that to me, Ponselle was probably the greatest singer to us all. But can you tell me how we differed on the stage?”
A very interesting point. And, broadly speaking, the answer is that Ponselle played Norma almost as a goddess. One understood exactly why the tribe worshipped her; and when she proved so much a woman, the shock to the audience was almost a reflection of the shock to the tribe. Callas played Norma as a woman from the beginning, again employing her unrivalled gift of absolute pathos, combined, in this case, with a sort of passionate majesty.
Ponselle was a splendid actress and the greatest singer I ever heard. Callas was an uneven but splendid singer and, without question, the greatest actress I ever saw. How blessed indeed I have been to be alive in the same age as both of them!
At that first Ponselle Norma, I think what stunned us all was the almost unbelievable vocal control, displayed immediately in a “Casta Diva” of rocklike security but shimmering tone. She went on to give us an evening of drama and vocal splendour never matched in my experience.
Her voice was warm,