CHAPTER VIII

VOICE

Next comes the question of voice. That this is a fundamental requisite you will not expect me to tell you, although it may be noted, in passing, that some of the greatest singers have started comparatively ill-equipped in this respect--or apparently so.

Of Pasta, for instance, we read that her voice at the outset was heavy and strong, but unequal and very hard to manage. It is said, indeed, that she never to the end of her career succeeded in producing certain notes without some difficulty.

Yet, as the result of incessant study and practice, sometimes pursued in retirement for long periods, she gradually subdued her rebellious and intractable organ, and was eventually recognised as one of the very greatest singers of her time. Jenny Lind’s voice at the outset was also very unmanageable.

I might even quote the case of Caruso himself as another example. Caruso was one of my greatest friends. But he gave little promise in his younger days of the wonderful career which was in store for him.

Thus we are told that among his fellow-students at the Scuola Vergina he was known as “_Il tenore vento_,” meaning a thin reedy tenor, and when he had completed his studies neither his master nor any one else had any expectation that he was going to do anything out of the way.

Vergine even remarked humorously of him that if there was any gold in his voice it could only be likened to that at the bottom of the Tiber, inasmuch as it was not worth drawing out. Little did he guess in those days how much rich gold his unpromising pupil was destined to draw in time out of his wonderful organ!

Nor did his earliest appearances impress outside critics any more favourably. The general opinion was that his voice was sympathetic in quality but rather small, and that he himself was lacking in temperament. Caruso lacking in temperament! How odd it seems to us who knew him later! But that was the impression which he produced at first.

All of which goes to show that it is not always easy to say in the beginning how any given voice will turn out in the end.

At the same time I do not wish to encourage the belief that one should begin with a poor voice, or that every mediocre student can hope, with study, to become a Caruso. For this would certainly be a disastrous notion to disseminate.

Such cases as Caruso’s are indeed quite exceptional, and in the ordinary way a pupil can take it that if his voice shows no promise at the outset he is not likely to do very much with it later.

On the other hand, what does happen only too frequently, as I have suggested before, is that a pupil starts with a fine voice which, however, through faulty training, want of application, or some other cause, eventually comes to nothing; and it is this which is to be most carefully guarded against.

Sad, it is, indeed, to think of the fine voices which have been lost to the world in this way! Nor need one look very far for instances. Hardly a day passes, indeed, but what one reads or hears of some wonderful voice which has been “discovered” in this place or that. Alas! how few of these wonderful voices eventually justify the hopes which they have aroused! Either the other necessary qualities are lacking, or--too often, I am afraid--their training is entrusted to the wrong hands and they come to nothing.