Lucie Manén: The Art of Singing

One of the more curious books on singing is Lucie Manén's Bel Canto: The Teaching of the Classical Song-Schools, Its Decline and Restoration (1987).

However, Manén's first foray into publishing was The Art of Singing which was published in 1974. This earlier book was refashioned into the smaller and tightened current version. There is something to be said for the original however. For one thing, it has an accompanying record with musical examples of Manén's teaching on the Imposto, that is, the start of the tone, by well-known British singers of the period—Elizabeth Harwood, Thomas Hemsley and Peter Pears. Another is the looser writing style which gives the reader a better sense of the writer's personality. And what a personality she must have been: Manén (1900-1991) was married to Dr. Otto John,  the "J Edgar Hoover" of West Germany.

Manén studied privately with Anna E. Schoen-René in Berlin, who also taught Margaret Harshaw in New York at The Juilliard School. Schoen-René was a student of Pauline Viardot-García and Manuel García. And it is in dealing with Manuel García's legacy that Manén, in my opinion, gets matters muddled.

Imposto

The vocal quality of the Bel Canto school is not produced solely by the mechanism of the larynx and its resonator, the pharynx. An essential component of the Bel Canto technique is the exploitation of the upper respiratory tract, i.e. the nose and the naso-pharynx, by switching the start of the note, the transient, from the larynx to the nasal passages behind the level of the bridge of the nose. This mechanism is called Imposto. —The Art of Singing, p. 27

To advance her concept of Imposto, Manén asserts that García did not teach the correct start of the tone—a conclusion which is arrived at after speaking to one of Garcia’s last students—John Mewburn Levien. In fact, she claims that García's theories on vocal production—and his teaching on the coup de glotte in particular—broke with bel canto tradition.

I'm not convinced that this is the case.

Just because García was the first to focus on the physiology of the vocal tract—and the glottis in particular—does not mean that he did not teach the same concepts as his sister Pauline Viardot-García. Otherwise, why did Viardot-García send Schoen-René to her brother for his imprimatur?

Was Manén unaware of Schoen-René's book America's Musical Inheritance (1941) which contains an interesting conversation with García about the mask?

Plançon, thinking the Maestro was alone when he saw the young men come out of the studio, entered and greeted him with a jolly and smiling countenance. Garcia was delighted. “Sing me,” he begged, “a few of your beautiful tones, so that I may be sure that correct singing exists.” Seated at the piano, he sang scores and scales. Manuel Garcia’s expression lost its discouraged sadness and became radiant, as he exclaimed, “That is singing through the mask and not through the nose! The nose is the wast-basket of the brain but not considered for resonance.” Suddenly turning to me, he grumbled, “Why do they sing and speak with that nasal quality in America?” I, who detested the ugly nasal speaking voice and had fought against it so long, answered, “Master, it comes from ignorance—from not knowing that mask and nose are two separate resonances.” “Yes, “ he said, “I think you are right. God may forgive them, but I cannot.” —America’s Musical Inheritance, p. 109-110.

Manén is even more strident regarding Manuel García in her later book, and this is unfortunate. Instead of standing on his shoulders, she pounds on his head, writing that his research was predicated on the desire to understand his own failure as a singer. How she is able to know this "fact" is not clear.

There are better ways to make one's case. 

Still, I believe Manén has advanced an original theory that deserves more attention and research. However, for that to happen, there needs to be more light and less heat.

How to find more light?

I believe the answer to that question will be found by looking more closely at what Schoen-René called Garcia’s “tricks” (America’s Musical Inheritance, p. 98) —those methods that resulted in the auditory phenomena of “singing in the mask” —as well as how those same methods relate to the inner workings of the ear.

This post first appeared on VOICETALK in 2010 and is being republished with additional context.