The Art of Giving a Recital

A couple of weeks ago, Frederica von Stade gave her farewell recital at Carnegie Hall, accompanied by her long-time collaborator, Martin Katz. It was an honor to witness her in her element, full of comfort, elegance and charm as always. The theme of the evening: Songs and arias that told the story of her life, in and out of music. We should all be lucky enough to have so much to sing about, and to sing it so sincerely. This was one of the few recent events that served as catalysts for our new beginning. 

When a young singer walks into her first voice lesson, often her teacher hands her a song, something in Italian, and plays it through once for her. She learns the words phonetically, learns the translation, learns the notes and when to come in. Eventually, we are all ready to perform for an audience, and, someday, put together a recital. Songs are the building blocks of technique. It's not easy, but the singer becomes comfortable communicating with an audience, just singer, pianist, and the song.


Then opera happens. Starting with simple, short arias, moving on to learning and performing entire roles. We learn how to flesh-out a character, how to work with a director to create a dramatic arch, how to be at home on the stage with costumes and sets and lights and orchestra. And, often, we leave the recitals of our earlier training behind. So accustomed are we to being surrounded and encompassed within the world of an opera, we feel exposed when asked to step back in front of that simple piano with a simple song. Simplicity is not always easy.


So here we go. Let's strip down (again) and sing for you. The coópera monthly recital series starts this June.