News

04.07.2016

The pace of life has accelerated, and opera hasn’t been spared

Our young opera soloists Sofia Fainberg and Ekaterina Fenina continued the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s tradition of study placements at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala. Over the course of a week, they gained new insights under the tutelage of Italian masters. Sofia Fainberg gave us her impressions after returning from the Mecca of world opera.

“We were met with a very welcoming reception when we arrived at La Scala to study Italian music performance under the supervision of local masters”, Fainberg said. "Verdi is the central figure of Italian opera, but he wrote almost nothing for my vocal style. His operas usually feature roles for dramatic mezzo-sopranos. I really hope to be able to perform them one day, but for now my vocal style, lyric mezzo-soprano, is best suited to French music. From the Italian repertoire, there are only a few parts from the operas of Donizetti and Bellini which are suitable for me. So we worked on Leonora’s aria from Donizetti’s La favorite, before moving on to works by French composers. Ekaterina Fenina fared better, singing Violetta from La traviata, Musetta from La Bohème, and Norina from Don Pasquale.

"In addition to myself and Ekaterina, there were two singers from the Bolshoi Theatre’s Young Artists Opera Program studying with us, as well as a young man from Kyrgyzstan. We began with Italian language lessons. We had a fantastic teacher who, before doing anything else, said one phrase to us very slowly — buon-gior-no. She really drew out the word, dividing it clearly into syllables, which allowed an idea to take root in my head: how wonderful, I understand Italian! It was fantastic to be able to spend lots of time learning this language at the conservatory and the theatre, but our first experience of Italian came at the airport, which was full of the sound of Italian voices, and very confusing.

“After that we had lessons with the pianist Vincenzo Scalera. Just as our concertmasters here do, he works with the singers, helping them to learn the parts. He knows a great deal about different styles and how they are performed, and he explains all the nuances and offers advice. Italians are very sensitive when it comes to pronunciation, and at every master class you would hear one particular word very often — pronuncia. You might end up with a completely different meaning just by doubling a consonant in a word... We were taught this early on. We then started lessons with Maestro Giuseppe Sabbatini. At the beginning of his musical career he was a singer — a tenor — but he then took up the conductor’s baton, so he has vast experience and knowledge. He took a liking to us. Hearing Ekaterina’s rendition of Violetta, he said that her delivery of the E-flat was world class, and that she should work very hard at mastering the role. He told me many things about meaning and interpretation. I sang Carmen’s and Charlotte’s arias for him. He gave me tips as to how everything should sound, pointing out areas to focus on — a large number of seemingly minor observations which nonetheless enriched my knowledge greatly. You know how it goes: you take a garment in your hands and everything looks fine, but then you start to look at the seams. Here it’s crooked, there it’s slanted, and here the pocket has been sewn unevenly. Then you take something else, designer made, and everything is perfectly crafted. If it’s crooked, it’s because it was done deliberately. A trained eye can spot these things very clearly. It’s the same with music. You can sing any piece of music, and hit all the notes, but have no finesse. Without all these details, there can be no quality, no dazzling beauty. Sabbatini is very perceptive in this regard, of course, and we learnt so much from him.

“He believes that conductors have almost no time for singers anymore. The conductor’s place is first and foremost with the orchestra. If the singer doesn’t know their part well enough, and makes mistakes during entrances or in the rhythm, then that conductor will likely stop working with that singer. Singers must come to rehearsals fully prepared, and perform their parts without a hitch, unfaltering. Before it wasn’t so strict, there was more time, we weren’t so hurried in our work, and there were many meetings and rehearsals. Now the pace of life has accelerated, and opera hasn’t been spared. The conductor also made another observation — a singer must correct any mistakes immediately, because there will always be a line of people who would jump at the chance to take your place.”