Bartel: Two great retired opera singers , Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart, wife and husband, head a unique organization in the world of Wagnerian opera -- The Emerging Singers Program in partnership with The Wagner Society of Washington, DC. The program helps to find, train, and place singers of Wagner and who better to do this? Thomas Stewart was the Wotan of his age in the 1960s and 70s. Evelyn Lear also had a great career, singing Strauss, Mozart, and Berg. The Emerging Singers Program presents two concerts annually and the 12th concert in its six-year history is coming up on June 14th with the McLean Orchestra, under Sylvia Alimena. Miss Lear and Mr. Stewart donate a great deal of their time to the Emerging Singers Program. They are quite passionate about it, as I think you'll hear in this Classical Conversation.

Bartel: There are opera singers and then there are Wagnerian opera singers. What do you look for in Emerging Singers that says to you, "This could be a Wagnerian opera singer?"
Stewart: I guess really, as much as anything else, it's the texture of the voice which needs to be very solid in what, among singers and pedagogues, is called the "middle voice," which is the middle part of the scale because a lot of the Wagnerian operas are…they sing a lot in the middle voice. That's one condition. Another one: As best we can, we try to determine how strong the voice is, not in the amount of sound it makes (I stress that), but its stamina. How long can they go on singing in that middle voice with a high note every once in awhile. Because one Wagner opera is very often the equivalent of two Verdi operas or Puccini operas.

Bartel: So even Strauss. .
Stewart: Even the Strauss operas. Those are the two things, basically. I know the general conception is that you want a big voice. Wagner was a genius in that he composed so that, if he wanted a lot of sound out of the orchestra, he didn't require the singer to sing over or through that sound. If one follows exactly the dynamics that he put in his orchestra score, you don't have to have a huge voice. You have to have a strong voice that can sing a long time and a voice that has substance in the middle register.
Lear: There are a few conductors who are sensitive enough to have followed Wagner's markings in the score. James Levine was one great conductor who really observed those markings. Others who did not, like Georg Solti, let the orchestra go wild and mad, so he was loud, louder, . . .
Stewart: And it's very exciting. It is very exciting but so far as the singers are concerned, it's very hard on the singers.

Bartel: The singers who sing Wagner, who are getting started with their career -- my impression is that they are a little older than other opera singers.
Lear: They have to be. You can't be singing this music when your voice is just forming. You have to be fairly mature. So for our program, we like singers who are already at least 35 - 40 years old.
Bartel: Really?
Lear: Oh yes.

Bartel: At what stage in their careers are they generally?
Lear: (Laughter) Struggling.
Stewart: Sometimes they're trying to get a career started. It depends on when they felt that they were finished with the pedagogical part of their training, their vocal training, and so forth and so on. It also varies with the individual and his vocal development. Some voices are finished, so to speak, at 30. Among tenors and sopranos, they sometimes are finished at 25. But those people whose voices have that - again I go back to that middle register -- that has depth in it, usually they don't become fully developed until a minimum of age 35.
Lear: And many voice teachers, of course, are very leery of the fact that Wagner is associated with the term "loud and dramatic." So they are afraid that the young voices that they are training will be ruined by having to sing that music. But, as you probably know, Wagner was very influenced by the Italian bel canto and he wanted his singers to sing that way. And, as a matter of fact, . .
Stewart: He stated often that he would have preferred Italian singers to sing his operas. But he never could get them because they refused to learn German or sing in German in his day. But he preferred the Italian singers. He wanted them to sing his operas.
Lear: You know what his favorite opera was? Norma of Bellini. He stressed the bel canto style. "Sing my music as if Italian folk songs." You know, that's what he wanted. Not the blasting. So when young singers come to us and audition for us and they start off really blasting the voices, we stop that immediately. That's not what it's about.

Bartel: Well, let's talk more about that. What kind of assistance do you give to the singers when they come into the Emerging Singers Program?
Lear: Well, first of all their German. Some are good; some are not.
Bartel: You mean you work on their language?
Lear: We work on the language. Yes. What we do with them primarily -- We're not voice teachers. We don't teach them breath control or, excuse the expression, placement. (I hate that word but teachers try to place the voice, which you cannot do, of course.) What we try to do -- we have them speak the words first so that they are part of their apparatus, and declaim as if they were an actor or an actress and from speaking in their register, they go into singing. Not trying to make loud sounds but taking it from the speech into the voice. Nine times out of ten it works if they are doing it properly.

Bartel: Generally speaking, what kind of hurdles do you find young singers have to overcome if they're going to sing Wagner?
Lear: They don't breathe enough. Did you know you can breathe after every word in Wagner and nobody will know it. You need lots of breath -- lots of stamina. You know, so many conductors and coaches will tell you -- "Oh take this in one breath." You can do that when you have a Mozart orchestra under you. But to sing full, you need a lot of breath and some singers have a better breath support, as it's called, than others. In other words, some know how to apportion their breath to a phrase and others do not. So there is no crime in taking a breath. Sometimes people take it after every word. You just have to know how to take the breath so that it's not so audible and noticeable.
Stewart: I think the biggest hurdle that I find is when we listen to young singers, is to convince them that they don't have to push and sing loud. I find that's the biggest hurdle because they've learned this thing and then this misconception about what is required to sing the works of Wagner. They get up and, too often, push their voices beyond the point where they should. And, certainly if they're performing an entire opera -- you can't sing that way for an entire opera for three hours or four hours. It's just physically impossible.

Lear: You have to think in terms of the phrase. What is the high point of the phrase.
Stewart: Yes. And you always help, as she said, with the language. There is a lot you can do with the language so that you don't have to produce so much sound.
Lear: And of course, for American singers, we have to stress very much the rolled rrrrs. I mean, if they have a strain of foreign blood in them…..
Stewart: But now you're talking like a voice teacher. Careful.
Lear: No. No. No. The r has to be stressed, especially in German, of course. You cannot overdo the 'r's in German. So it's very helpful -- it helps shoot the voice forward.
Stewart: The German language, if I may. .
Lear: You're the Wagner authority. .
Stewart: The German language is not like the Italian language when you come to sing it. Italian is almost singing when you speak it. It is a vowel language. It's all vowels -- not all vowels, but the vast percentage of it are vowels. German -- the vast percentage are consonants. This can create problems if, as a young singer, and not entirely comfortable singing German, or you don't know German, you get hung up on all of those consonants which inhibit the production of their voice -- the vocal production.
Lear: It's like singing in English. It's the same thing.
Stewart: But in Italian, those vowels -- it's easy to make a sound because you're singing vowels all the time and that's much much easier to do. There are voices that, by nature, produce more sound than other voices. They're all different. It's that simple. We're looking for the ones who are naturally producing more sound, a fuller sound. That's what I meant when I said the texture of the sound.

Lear: It must also be rich and warm and expressive. That's what we look for in a sound. Sometimes we find it. Sometimes we suggest it to our young singers and they are very us or auditioning and have them go on to some other path.
Stewart: Very often in the audition process of young singers who come to us, we find that their natural endowment doesn't mean they should really pursue singing the works of Wagner. We just advise them -- No, you would be better off to stay where you are singing...
Lear: Sing Butterfly rather than Brunnhilde.
Stewart: …for lack of a better term, the lighter operas if you will.

Bartel: Everything's lighter than Wagner.
Stewart: Yes.

Bartel: Is it true that the best way to start with Wagner is with the earlier operas and then go on to The Ring and Parsifal or does it matter?
Stewart: I don't think it really matters. We don't advise a young singer to start out singing one of the monster operas like Tannhauser or some of the Ring operas. A young voice, if it's a male voice, a tenor voice for instance -- there are roles in Wagner that don't last so long. Parsifal is a reasonably simple opera. Start with that. Or start with Lohengrin. Yes, Lohengrin would be one that is a little more lyrical possibly than Siegfried or certainly Tannhauser.
Lear: If we hear them, we know exactly what they should go with. What they should be singing. And to take it slowly, not to jump in feet first.

Bartel: But it's not a case where Wagner gets more difficult as he progresses in his career?
Lear: Where there are certain roles like Tannhauser. .
Stewart: In length.
Lear: Tannhauser is an endless role. Tristan is an endless role. I think it's the length, isn't it that. .
Stewart: Tristan goes on forever. You sing forever. If you're a bass, the part of Gurnemanz in Parsifal -- he sings forever. I think it's the longest role in all of Parsifal. He has more words than any other opera.
Lear: And you know why? He's explaining what has already happened for the 20th time. (laughter)

Bartel: Let's talk about some of the success stories that have come out of the program. Where have some of the singers that you've worked with gone on and performed?
Lear: One of them, of course, is a local girl who has one of the most ravishing soprano voices we have ever heard. She's a combination of Leonie Rysanek and Birgit Nilsson. She came to us five years ago. We were giving a master class in this area and she auditioned for us. She sang "Dich, teure Halle" and we couldn't believe our ears -- that this gorgeous voice was here. And we said -- Where have you been singing Wagner? Where have you been doing this?" She said, "I'm in the chorus of the Washington National Opera." What? You're in the chorus? You gotta leave immediately. I'm surprised that nobody in the chorus, the chorus master or whoever, didn't immediately hear this voice and say -- Well, you have to sing for the administration and be hired. But we find that a lot. Voices sing in choruses to make a living -- to be able to earn their daily bread and then are lost and stuck there. But we said you have to quit and you have to join our organization. She did. She substituted for Jane Eaglen -- she was her cover -- in Chicago and she sang so magnificently. .
Stewart: as Brunnhilde
Lear: as Brunnhilde, from then on, her career just soared.

Bartel: What's her name?
Lear: Her name is Jennifer Wilson, who is now going to be singing Isolde in Montenegro and Brunnhilde in Paris and lots of places. She's going to be big star. She's already a star. Then we have another girl by the name of Caroline Whisnant. Somebody recommended -- an agent sent her to us -- she sang and she knocked our socks off. She's now in Germany singing everywhere -- the roles of Brünnhilde, Isolde. She doesn't have enough time to sing.
Stewart: I'd like to throw in at this point -- Here are two good examples of two singers who knew they were not singing what they were naturally endowed to sing. They were uncomfortable. They didn't fit right. Whatever they were doing -- I mean -- Jennifer in a chorus -- That voice that she has, you don't want a choral singer singing like her. So consequently she had to take away three-fourths of her voice in order to fit into the choral singer's mode, so to speak. She was not happy -- she was not happy with the repertoire that she was singing at the time. Her voice was not free. It was not doing what she knew naturally. Every singer listens or feels -- has an instinct about themselves and where they feel comfortable -- whatever they're doing when they're feeling comfortable. These are two girls that weren't comfortable at all and consequently they came to us because they thought, well, this is something I haven't tried -- let's go and see. Maybe these people can help me.

Bartel: It sounds like you're saying that Wagnerian singers are born?
Stewart: I think basically they are, yes. They're endowed with certain things. You need them. You cannot make a Wagner singer if you don't have the material to begin with.
Lear: We've had many people audition for us. Many singers. They are wannabees. They want to be Wagner singers but the sound of their voices is not a correct one. And it's the sound, essentially. It has a certain.
Stewart: It's a solid stream.
Lear: The problems that do arise when they are no longer beginners, they're already in their other career -- they have a family, they have a spouse, they have a child or two children -- and it's hard to get started and some of them don't want to be divided from their family. To start, you have to go to Europe and sing there. There are many imponderables to think about in that situation because they're not beginners -- so they already have an established life which is difficult to break into.
Stewart: Well, to be honest, to put it bluntly, they are not footloose and fancy free. They are encumbered. Consequently, the follow-up that we do, as part of the ES Program, if after they've auditioned for us and we coach them and work with them and present them in our concerts and everything is positive under the stress of performance, they still can deliver if you will. All of it is a plus and all of it is good -- then we try and help them get into the profession. Now, a large portion of that is going to Europe and auditioning for the regional opera houses. There are so many opera houses in Europe, in Germany and Austria. Now, somebody whose wife is working and has one or two children, for him to run off to Germany without any income just to audition -- it brings a problem. What do you do? You want to help him. There the Wagner Society is wonderful. They supply funds for these audition trips and that is fantastic. The Wagner Society has been absolutely glorious in helping us follow-up after the concerts have been completed here.

Bartel: Thomas Stewart and Evelyn Lear -- their Emerging Singers Program, in partnership with The Wagner Society of Washington DC, will present its 12th concert in six years of young Wagnerian singers. [This concert will be] with the McLean orchestra under Maestra Sylvia Alimena. It [will be] at the Oakcrest School in McLean, Virginia, Wednesday, June 14th, at 7:30. This is James Bartel. This has been a classical conversation with Washington's classical station WGMS and Viva La Voce.com.