Spending Time With legendary Tenor Franco Corelli Pt. 3

For Part 1, Click Here

For Part 2, Click Here

Additional evidence for the limited effectiveness of Corelli’s approach to voice teaching came ten years later when I began to teach one of his students, popular Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli (at that time Andrea was, technically, still a student of Corelli’s). In our first session, I was surprised to discover the extent to which Bocelli’s voice was underdeveloped. For instance, he could barely sustain a full-voiced pure ee vowel on middle C, while holding the vowel in the back of his throat. Considering Corelli’s own large, brilliant, and “back” ee vowel, Bocelli’s muted, small, and nasalized ee vowel, by contrast, made little sense. And that’s not all. All of Bocelli’s vowels were small and only partially developed (formed in his throat) and, as a result, were diminutive by operatic standards. I was baffled.

Bocelli displayed exceptionally high intelligence and an unusual gift for vocal imitation. I, therefore, ruled out the possibility that he was a poor student or was unable to grasp what Corelli was trying to teach him. On the contrary, by working with my voice building regimen, Bocelli’s voice deepened and strengthened significantly and very quickly as he freely admitted in published interviews. The only reasonable explanation regarding Corelli’s work with Bocelli was that Corelli’s method of teaching was simply unable to build Bocelli’s voice. I finally concluded that Corelli did not understand how to pass onto Bocelli (or me) what he himself had learned from his own teachers or possessed as a gift of nature.

In light of all of his comments about lowered larynx vocalizing, I am prepared to argue that had Corelli undergone the same vocal regimen as his students, he probably would not have developed the remarkable voice that he did. Corelli’s difficulties as a teacher, in my opinion, were two-fold: he didn’t understand how to teach sufficiently well his acclaimed lowered larynx technique; and he failed to comprehend the magnificent benefits that extreme, lowered larynx voice building has for all singers, regardless of the fragility or small “size” of a voice.

I tried to explain to the great Corelli, as deferentially as I could, that my work as a teacher has shown me time and time again that even the most delicate voice could grow into a strong, sturdy one if its vocal musculature was developed using the right voice building exercises. I remember saying that “the vocal muscles need to grow and become stronger gradually” before they are able to carry out extraordinary athletic vocal performances. Moreover, I told him that a superior vocal technique should never be based on a singer always maintaining the larynx in the lowered position anyway, but only when the music required it, such as with full-throated, powerful singing. Singing with different colors and levels of intensity is a necessary requirement for artistic singing, and using the voice in these ways could only be accomplished when the larynx is agile enough to assume different vertical positions in the throat.

In this instance, however, I was preaching to a celestial choir. Corelli never tried to sing with his larynx continuously lowered (which, in any event, would be artistically ludicrous). As we noted earlier, he maintained (and it could be visually observed) that he allowed his larynx to “float” to different vertical positions when he sang. Beyond that, Corelli was famously celebrated during his career for his unmatched ability to modulate the textures and dynamics of his voice (especially in his breathtaking messa di voce singing—singing loudly, then softly, and then loudly again all on the same breath and note and with artful control); he was especially renowned for performing this challenging feat when he sang his astounding—and extended—high notes.

As you could imagine, I felt more than a little uncomfortable—in fact, I felt downright foolish—lecturing one of the most accomplished, athletic singers of all time about the nature of muscular singing, so when he expressed some resistance to my earlier comment that even naturally weak voices would benefit from very engaging voice building exercises, I quickly and happily tried to steer the conversation to other topics. But Corelli had additional concerns that he wanted convey.

He also believed that lowered larynx singing had potential artistic limitations; namely, that it could inhibit legato (connected) singing, and make singing with volume dynamics and tonal nuance more restricted. The delicious irony of Corelli’s concerns was that his own singing was a powerful rebuke to his own objections. Corelli was a beautiful, legato singer, excelled in the art of skillfully modulating the volume of his voice, and possessed the ability of producing a variety of lovely vocal colors. His vocal technique, in fact, is a superb example of how a singer might successfully integrate the extreme, lowered larynx position into his vocal technique, and make it work with astonishing results. (By the way, the greatest tenor of all and one who also had frequent use of lowering his larynx to a high degree—Enrico Caruso—was also renowned for his excellent legato singing, his modulated use of his vocal volume, and his captivating vocal colors.)

Being thoroughly caught-up in his lyrical expression, I decided to let Corelli’s contentions stand unchallenged. My own view is that the talent for legato singing, the ability to sing with finely tuned, volume dynamics, and the capacity to create nuanced vocal colors is largely a natural gift that is either aided or obstructed by the quality of a singer’s vocal training, which guides the athletic health and responsiveness of his vocal musculature.