Reality in Art, Reality in Life

"If Otello were to feel the rage expressed musically and dramatically in Verdi's final scene, one would need to engage a new Desdemona every night, and the tenore robusto would face charges of homicide. Otello could not successfully accomplish strangulation and high vocal tessitura simultaneously. Nor can Violetta become a wild, inebriated woman while accomplishing her melismatic tasks at high levels of vocal intensity and physical energy. A genuinely weeping Rodolfo will find it impossible to deliver his final, heartbreaking, sustained G#4 vocal cries of "Mimi" Andromache cannot move us with her decision to throw her royal son over a precipice if she is as torn apart emotionally as she would be by such a horrible act in real life."

"Art consists of the disciplining of reality for the portrayal of emotion without succumbing to emotion."

- Richard Miller, "On the Art of Singing"

Both quotes come from the great pedagogue Richard Miller, whose contributions to the vocal pedagogy world are legion.

It's very interesting that his thoughts and feelings are not at all out of line with the precepts that Uta Hagen discussed in her life's work. I thought that Miller's ideas just go to show the artistic aspects of the creation of a human character on the stage. It speaks to the necessity of a technique, not only for singing, but also for acting.

I am only impressed when the actor's technique is so perfect that it has become INVISIBLE and has persuaded the audience that they are in the presence of a living human being who makes it possible for them to empathize with all his foibles and struggles as they unfold in the play."

Uta Hagen, "A Challenge for the Actor"