Hello there

Today I want to tell you a story......

It began when I was sweet sixteen, well sixteen anyway, sweet I'm not so sure about!

I was in the lovely music studio of my singing teacher Dame Sister Mary Leo. The spring sunshine was streaming gently through the lace curtains dappling the room in light. All around were the photos of pupils in various performances and costumes, often autographed. At the grand piano sat the hunched figure of Sr. Leo. Her habit always looked a bit big on her and her shoes as though they were a half size too large. Having only known her in her latter years and as the old habits before the sixties covered absolutely every aspect of the body except the face and hands, it is hard to know what she might have looked like in her youth. I bet the eyes would have been the same though even in her frailty they were not frail they were strong and compelling.  There was surprising strength in her hands even with arthritic knuckles and an indomitable will that her students rarely crossed.

On this particular day Sr Leo had advised that I would be attending a concert in the Auckland Town Hall where an international diva would be singing. She advised me that she had found the perfect place for us to sit - behind the singer! Well you can imagine my look of horror - what was the use of sitting behind the singer, shouldn't we be in the front rows? Sr Leo just smiled and said " Be grateful and wait and see. I will ask you what you thought after the concert."  

The concert arrived and I was duly on the stage behind the singer in tiered seats along with the other pupils of Sr Leo that were asked to attend. The diva arrived. She was a statuesque woman wearing a vivid grass green dress, waisted with plumes of chiffon attached at shoulder and waist and down each arm. She began singing and I was initially feeling very frustrated at not seeing her facial expressions to connect to the emotion.

In a short space of time though my perception had shifted to listening and watching the singer, not her performance but her technique. Her breathing was phenomenal. Thanks to the billowing chiffon I was able to see every moment of her breathing. How she used the back of her lungs and filled them continuously with air like huge bellows at some steel works. Just as the fire is kept alive with the air ,so too is the voice supported by the continuous stream of the breath. Breathing is the most important factor in making a voice sound beautiful and not least be heard without a microphone! I was also able to watch how she stood, shifting her weight when she needed extra support to reach the thrilling trills of her signature coloratura.

In other words I had witnessed how her body worked in order to create the extraordinary voice she had. Most people in the audience would have been totally unaware of the technique but due to Sr Leo having insisted I sit behind the singer I had learned one of the most valuable things a singer can learn - how to support the instrument.  It was a lesson I never forgot and of course when I spoke to Sr Leo after the event I apologized for questioning her judgement.

Some years later I was living in Sydney (still pursuing a classical singing career) and went to meet my teacher of the time at the green room of the Sydney Opera House. I entered the green room to find my teacher was not there. in fact there was no one in the green room except a lady in full costume surrounded by coloured threads and a tapestry frame on which she was busily but unhurriedly stitching. As I stood there almost hopping from foot to foot as I wondered what to do, the woman looked up and invited me to sit with her.

In that small moment we spoke of the colours in the tapestry and why she stitched - to relieve the boredom of rehearsal periods and how she used the tapestries to find space when she was performing. She asked me who I was, what I was doing at the green room and then turned to me with a big smile and said - "Oh I know you are a singer my dear, you have the cheekbones! We all have them you know, all those facial resonators," she said matter-of-fact-ly. The music from the performance changed in the overhead speakers and the lady picked up her threads and rolled them into a bag at her feet. " Nearly time for my cue," she said " Thank you for helping me pass the time and I hope you have a wonderful singing career, you deserve it!" she encouraged.

The lady left the green room as majestic as the bow of some 15th century ship looking for the new world. The lady was the late Dame Joan Sutherland  who died this week and who I had watched when I was 16, the singer who had inspired me to learn how to be a professional opera singer. 

It has been my great privilege to have met, learned and loved two Dames and I raise my glass in salute.

Thank you dear Dames for having instilled in me a love of opera that has sustained all these decades.

Melody.