“Opera is not for everybody,” said Blanche Thebom, co-founder of the Opera Arts Training Program in San Francisco, California. “The feeling today is that the average young person doesn’t have much discipline because with TV and computers, everything is so facile, so easy.” Criticized at times for her lack of compassion in the three-week rigorous training program, often reducing the 13 to 17 year olds to tears during challenging workouts, Thebom knows that these young girls are willing to push their voices beyond physical limits to become a part of the opera world and she does not flinch in showing them what it takes to get there.
Thebom sang with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for twenty-three years and was the first American artist to sing at the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow. Born in Pennsylvania in 1918, Blanche spent a large portion of her childhood in Canton, Ohio, where her family had relocated, and she always wanted a career in singing. The lack of money in the thirties left Blanch to practice her voice in any way possible. The church choir and weddings helped her keep a glint of promise toward a life of song as she worked as a secretary to pay the bills.
Her chance arrived in 1938 when her employer offered to pay for her study with prominent voice teachers. Years of study and intense training could never prepare her for the harsh criticism of reviewers of becoming a new, young rising star but she refused to be beaten and has passed this knowledge along to others.
Another prime example of the female singer, often referred to as a Diva, is Brooklyn born Beverly Sills. Devoted to voice lessons with Estelle Liebling at the age of nine and graduating from the Professional Children’s School in 1945 at age sixteen, ten years of grinding work began as she toured with opera companies. But it was not until 1955 and eight unsuccessful auditions later that Sills was finally received in her début at the New York City Opera as Rosalinde in “Die Fledermaus.”
Beverly also proved that you don’t have to be of international breed to make it in the world of opera, marrying a journalist from Cleveland, who worked at the local newspaper, the Plain Dealer. Always a smile on her face and known for her warmth, intelligence and humor, her nickname of “Bubbles” just seemed to fit. When Bubbles had to relieve her singing career as an opera star, she continued in the public eye on TV and served on several committees, including being Chairperson of the Metropolitan Opera.
Considered a musical instrument within the human body, the voice is an interesting but complex machine. Positioning the tongue or lip position, loosening or tightening vocal chords and regulation of air pressure can create an already near perfect voice into one of grace and substance, traveling far over a sixty member orchestra and beyond, stroking even a rock outside of a packed theatre.
The registers involved in the human voice are Chest, Middle voice, Head voice and Super Head Voice/Falsetto (also called Whistle register). A good vocal teacher is absolutely essential for training the voice in breathing, resonance, volume, phrasing and warm ups to achieve Opera status. Disciplining ones voice to perfect opera quality is not merely a passion for singing but a way of life.
Performing well for a hall full of opera enthusiasts is like hitting a home run on the baseball field to most singers. The magnitude of having complete control of a perfected voice and throwing tones with each change of a scene is incredibly thrilling to both the players and the audience.
The electrifying performances that were once only found in European opera houses or from singers trained abroad is no longer just a dream to many musically talented young people. Several schools exist in the Midwest where a wish can become reality when, at one time, the opera seemed too far away to touch. The Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio, the Indiana University in Indiana or the Westminster College in Pennsylvania are excellent places to begin for more information into a world of music, language and acting.
Becoming a diva is possible and rewarding but only if you have the fortitude to make it your life’s journey.
By Kate Eglan-Garton, AAPJ Senior Editor