1. Emotion. When he advised “leaving emotion alone,” Stanislavski did not mean we were to do without it. He meant that to ensure that it seem genuine, rather than histrionically worked up, it be allowed to arise as it does in life, as the outcome of our actions in pursuit of our desires—thus, of “the thing that went before.” And it does not emerge only in response to the taking of an overt action, or the action’s encounter with an external obstacle, though that is the most easily recognized route. It is summoned by sensory impressions, by memory and reverie, by self-exploration, or a grievous loss. Or by inner obstacles, internal conflicts, such as contradictory desires, or a reservation within oneself—perhaps a moral concern, or a practical calculation—that inhibits the taking of a particular action. These last are of great importance in opera, with its profusion of monologues, whether in the form of a pure aria d’affetto, a dramatic monologue, or a passage of contemplative arioso. The modern actor contends that notwithstanding that all these are obviously saturated with feeling, they are best approached in terms of action, not emotion. The character is trying to do something, to accomplish some personally important goal. Take Siegfried’s thoughts in the Waldweben scene. The passage seems like a pause in the action, as if the hyperactive hero is taking a break from his great quest and has given in to passivity. But though he sings to no one but himself, is in highly contemplative mood and fully open to his natural surroundings, he is in action as surely as he is when forging the sword or confronting The Wanderer. He’s trying to sort things out, things that go to his very identity and reason for existence. Each question, each recollection, each inflection that betokens a quest for insight, is a part of that. The singer, though of course responsive to the shifting hues of the music, will produce a far more interesting passage of monologue, and feel much more in charge of his interpretation, if he pursues each new intention, rather than trying to “evoke a mood.” Or—one more example—consider Leonora’s “D’amor sull’ali” in Il Trovatore. It’s a dramatically positioned expression of a sentiment we often meet up with in Romantic song, whether in a simple, sweet evocation like Hahn’s Si mes vers avaient des ailes or a profound statement like Schubert’s Sei mir gegrüsst—the wish that the singer’s longing to overcome the distance from a beloved through the sheer strength of the wishing, as if wishes, if only deeply enough felt, had wings. And again the singer has an action—to comfort herself, let’s say, to keep hope alive (each singer must decide for herself just how to put it)—whose tactics and tone change with the arrival of each new phrase.

The notion of undertaking a theatrical action without predetermining its outcome (see my précis of Stanislavski’s findings, above) seems daft when it comes to operatic interpretation, with all those absolutes to be fulfilled, and with so much determined by the music. But if properly understood, it’s not. And it has so close an equivalent in the training of voices that the apparently parallel lines eventually merge. In a voice’s developmental stages, a great deal of potential will be foreclosed if singer and teacher fail to explore beyond the tracks already laid down—for example, with the introduction of sounds at either end of the pitch range that are initially unpromising and disruptive to the status quo, but which if patiently worked with will not only extend the range, but bring the entire instrument closer to completion. Doing this means assenting to a temporary loss of some of the functional control and aesthetic guidance that have given the singer his or her sense of security and produced whatever favorable results have to that point been obtained, in favor of exploring new territories that have not yet provided either security or results, and for which the singer has no sensory referents to help channel the energy being applied. So this principle of pursuing a trial-and-error process that is part of a long-term quest without dictating in advance the immediate result is already a part of a well-trained singer’s mindset with respect to technique, just as it is of the modern actor’s. Yet our operatic training and rehearsal habits create no room for learning its equivalent in acting terms, and the singer is left to hang on for dear life to the crucial vocal element of “interpretation,” for fear that some unforeseen emotional component of a living exchange may disrupt it. So this is one place where the modern acting sensibility can make a contribution—potentially a quite startling one, in terms of the perceived spontaneity of interaction—if given the room in an early stage. But of course for “room” read “time and patience,” and for “early stage” read “a new way of training and rehearsing from the outset.”