The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit

An Essential Guide to Creating A Role

Martin Constantine

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350006485
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Opera Music

The complete dramatic toolbox for the opera singer – a step-by-step guide detailing how to create character, from auditions through to rehearsal and performance and formulate a successful career. Drawing upon the innovative approach to the training of young opera singers developed by Martin Constantine, Co-Director of ENO Opera Works, The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit leads the singer through the process of bringing the libretto and score to life in order to create character. It draws on the work of practitioners such as Stanislavski, Lecoq, Laban and Cicely Berry to introduce the singer to the tools needed to create an interior and physical life for character. The book draws on operatic repertoire from Handel through Mozart to Britten to present practical techniques and exercises to help the singer develop their own individual dramatic toolbox. The Opera Singer's Acting Toolkit features interviews with leading conductors, directors, singers and casting agents to offer invaluable insights into the professional operatic world, and advice on how to remain focused on the importance of the work itself.

Part One The Tools

1 Foundations: Where to Start

On my first day at drama school a photo of a baby laughing was pinned to the noticeboard. It was signed at the bottom ‘love Rudi. See you soon’. Rudi Shelley was a renowned teacher at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and the subject of much excitement, having been ubiquitously quoted by the most famous alumni in their various autobiographies. Rudi was in serious ill health and, although he would battle back to the school to teach the new year-group, he was entering the last year of his life. This was his first and most important lesson to us prospective actors (most of whom were in a state of some confusion and proposing various profundities to explain the photo). The lesson was simple: to act, you must play. Like a child you must know how to play and how to find pleasure in the game.

The job of the singing actor is to transform into somebody else; somebody who sings in order to communicate their thoughts, needs and feelings. The central question is how do you begin to transform yourself, when all the thoughts, needs, feelings you have will be your own and not those of somebody else? That’s the question we’re going to explore in this first section of the book.

As we grow older we lose the freedom to play as a child. Society teaches us the way to behave and our experiences mould us. We perhaps develop certain tensions or blocks which constrict our imagination and our potential to transform. So, where to start? Well, with you.

At ENO Opera Works the exercises that follow were very much the starting point for our journey and work. We continued to return to them throughout the year, integrating them though all our work. They are the foundations for the process of building character; they will free you in body and mind to play and, in so doing, transform.

The Body: Releasing Tension

Every physical action we do is achieved through the constant exchange of tension and release.¹ However, we all carry around unnecessary tension; tension that can make the easiest things more difficult to do. As a singer, you will be aware of how such unnecessary tension can affect how you breathe or how your sound resonates. This awareness of the particular and individual tension that you habitually carry with you must be brought to the entire body.

This habitual tension affects how you move, sing and, in turn, how you think. You tire more quickly and can risk strains and injuries. Additionally, it is visible and reveals part of your own story, rather than the character’s. In order to begin a process of transformation you must become aware of, and learn how to release, tension. Otherwise, not only will doing things become unnecessarily difficult, it will prevent you from embodying new tensions to create somebody else’s story.

The process of transformation, in itself, should also be approached with a sense of ease and play. Tension can creep into our work at any moment, especially when performing under the gaze of an audience and the physical contractions that arise from straining to create emotion, or to cover anxiety, do harm to the voice and the production of sound. It also interferes with the revelation of the thoughts and emotions to the audience; delicate, transient, changing moments of feeling become strangled and gnarled.

It is important to note our habits. For example, I tend to carry a very heavy bag on my left shoulder which causes me to lift my left shoulder a little so that the bag remains in place. As a result, even when I’m not carrying the bag, my left shoulder is raised. This tension is visible: it affects the way I walk, the way I roll my shoulder, without thinking, to release tension, the way I sit at a table. This tells the observer something about me; if only that I travel a lot with a heavy bag. This might not be the story of the character I’m playing and is therefore superfluous, or perhaps even contradictory and confusing, information for an audience. As much as possible we want to begin with a blank canvas; a state of physical release and freedom, in order to bring greater control to our bodies, voice and mind and the stories we tell.

We need to get into the habit of breaking our habits and releasing the blocks we carry with us. We can’t simply do the following exercises the moment we step into the rehearsal room and hope that they will immediately unlock years of behaviour. We need to find ways of incorporating them into our life; setting the alarm fifteen minutes early, engaging with them on our walk into work, integrating them into the way we approach coachings and so on, in order to be ready for the moment we step into the rehearsal room in order to allow us the freedom and control to change.

Awareness

Begin to listen to your body and understand the tensions you carry, in order to learn how to release these tensions. Bringing awareness to your physical state creates a dialogue between your interior reflections and your visible exterior.

EXERCISE: Understanding Outer Tension
Solo/5 mins

•Lie on the floor. Tense your left arm, as hard as possible, and release.

•Repeat this, becoming aware of the different sensation of tension and release.

•Explore this with different body parts.

•Slowly begin to get up but, almost immediately, stop and release back down to the floor.

•Again, begin to get up. Notice which part of your body moves first; which body part initiates the movement?

•Very slowly continue to get up. Which muscles contract next, and which follow.

•Relax and do the sequence again. Be aware of the parts of the body where tension does not exist.

•Walk around the space. As you walk, bring your attention to where the necessary tension is; you might notice the core, the arms, the buttocks.

•Ask yourself if there is any tension which seems to be unnecessary.

•Is this a part of your body where you would normally feel additional tension? Try to let go of this unnecessary tension by gently shaking out this part of the body.

•Change the speed of your walk and explore how different body parts become more engaged.

•Sit down on a chair. Slowly, at first. Stand up and, now, sit on the floor.

•Which parts of the body engage to enable you to sit? Notice the difference between sitting on a chair and sitting on the floor. Become alert to the muscles that en...