Some crazy teacher in Holland has convinced these two that this is the way to sing opera. This seems like Florence Foster Jenkins for the 21st century.
Two pretty people with rather good voices using their voices in some kind of distorted fashion (Daliesque nightnare comes to mind).
Ohime! Are people that senseless or just trying to get attention on Youtube?
TS
Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
This Wotan needs his personal Goetterdaemmerung. This pair of Siegmund and Sieglinde need to produce a Siegfried that break the grandfather staff!
OK enough Wagnerian musings!
TS
Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's just sickening what they're doing to that poor young tenor. The father is teaching all of them singing. He claims he was an "opera singer". I made a comment a couple of hours ago and it's already gone. Just like that Angel Taormina weirdness.
*************************************************** ''It is easy to say that such and such a singer has sold his soul, when really we are only annoyed that Satan has never offered us as high a price.''
I left a comment expressing I found it unacceptable, and instead he made it a personal comment about my own singing I have on youtube.
(I deleted my comment, though, because I realized it's getting lots of traffic, and I had not intended people to watch the videos, they were simply for a bigger project.)
I hope that those kids will get the help they need! They have potential! And I just want them to STOP PLAYING THEY ARE IN LOVE! it is not acceptable, in my opinion. Siblings should not have to play that...
I was of the mind that they couldn't be saved.. but the more I listened, the more I discovered their talent.. and then their physical beauty cannot be disregarded.. they are marketable. But what a reclamation project it would be... TEN years at least, you have to change the mind before you can change the voice.. and it's obvious that they think they're singing.
Their teacher should be shot.. it's sad how that's one of the pitfalls of the business.. bad teachers are common. No one should be allowed to teach anyone unless their singing has been judged proficient by a group of their peers.. like some Guild of Singing trials or something, lol
"Trains, planes, automobiles.. you better have my DOUGHnuts.." -Delonte West
like, their diction is... well, not there. and the vibrato is way warbly. but they're singing with so much passion and not-bad musicality (like, they're not just singing forte the whole time!)
it's a shame what a bad teacher can do... one reason i'm so aprehensive to get into teaching privately more, is because i'm so scared of screwing up a student!!! it's such a big responsibility.
.. in our world, so many teachers have the "answer".. some special placement/technique or way of singing everything through one vowel.. there's no magic bullet, and if anybody tries to sell somebody on quick fixes and the like, they're probably selling Lunar real estate too!
You'll be a good teacher.. just based on your humility alone.
"Trains, planes, automobiles.. you better have my DOUGHnuts.." -Delonte West
I think I'm actually aprehensive to a fault, though, which is no good!!! Haha.
I've been meaning to start a small studio for over a year since I finally feel pretty comfortable with my own technique, but it still hasn't happened! Maybe when I'm pressed for money next year when I'm trying to find work in NYC (quitting my current teaching gig to focus on singing... and be totally broke...!)
after seeing this, i looked through some of their other youtube postings (until i couldn't handle it anymore) but was watching one where they were interviewed on dutch tv for 7 minutes! unreal. the dutch have taste (i thought). anyone know dutch want to say what that interview says? i don't get how they would get on a tv show with their lack of skills in a country that appreciates good classical music.
I remember the last time this family made the rounds on nfcs. Yikes. And come on, can we not see siblings in love with one another? It makes me feel ooky.
_____________________________
"It's like they say, there's no damn business like show business. You had to smile to keep from throwing up." -Billie Holiday
"My Chomanah Mymy"? What the hell kinda pronunciation is that?!?!?! And that wobble - damn, you could drive a truck thru that shit!! Those poor kids... unbelievable!!?! And people think those deluded kids on American Idol who sing hideously and then get all freeky upset when the judges call them on it, are faking it. I'm sure they are not - having seen/heard (oh the bleeding of the eardrums...) these two, and the Angel T. trainwreck...
I agree with TS's phrase "Daliesque nightmare" - I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone or something. It's so creepy! Very good voices somehow brainwashed into singing in this unbelievably strange manner...ack!
It's driving me crazy! It's "uh" all the time. I do like the girl's sense of line, though. I think both of them have potential, though, but they need a better teacher- that's all.
This message has been edited by marguerite23 on Jun 18, 2009 10:54 AM
"In a couple of years they will be as good as Moffo, Rothenberger, Corelli in his best days and keeping their own sound."
Obvious he's trying to get the boy to copy Corelli...
"most of the time you make the sound right where it belongs in the throat"
"Don't think I am arrogant, when I say I could learn you something, because nobody can teach children better to sing than I. I don't ask you to agree, but wait."
"One last remark: first you have to know how to use your voice, then you can make to right words, never the other way around."
....Then why are they performing stuff with words?
Basically, I wrote a message through YouTube saying that, as a professional singer I couldn't sit idly by and let them ruin their voices without saying something. I listed my credentials and education, tho remained anonymous, to hopefully lend some weight to my words, and begged them to get with a real teacher.
The response:
"Thank you for your sincere reaction, sir. But first of all, I want to say that you need more text to introduce yourself. I am sorry, nowadays hearing many singers, it's no guarantee that it is good. Listen to Edita Gruberova, you could learn from her perhaps. Let the future tell. Many singers nowadays destroy themselves, probably by singers like you who obviously believe in what they are saying. If you are so convinced of yourself, give us the opportunity to speak for ourselves and let us know who you are and where you can be heard on youtube. So we can tell you our opinion of your singing, sir. Otherwise good luck with your singing in the choir or second roles or perhaps leading roles, but no guarantee nowadays that it is good. Good luck."
More often than not when we hear someone singing badly (meaning singing with bad technique, wrong style, incorrect pronunciation, not just an uninteresting or less that beauftiful instrument) we tend to think "why doesn't someone tell them." That assumes that no one has. More often than not plenty of people have. I stopped watching the early episodes of American Idol (actually I stopped watching the whole thing several years ago for different reasons). Some people just aren't very good singers. They don't have a voice that would allow them to be professional singers just like not everyone can play professional sports. But some of the worst singing came from people who had "coaches" and who would argue with the panel about how they didn't know what they were doing. A lot of the same goes on in opera.
You are a better person than I am. I haven't heard the clip. Maybe I will over the weekend but I doubt it. I wouldn't have bothered. I save my energy for people who are worth it, namely people who are doing the right things and need positive reinforcement that many of the things they are doing are very good. A couple of years ago now a friend emailed me a link to a clip of a singer who was quite young (undergrad) who sang a true legato line. I mean the old school Italian singers on 78 recordings totally legato singing that you almost never hear any more. I had to comment because Cruise forbid she lets this go in pursuit of overenunciating consonants or some other foolishness some idiot teacher or coach might ask her to do down the line. (btw, her diction was perfectly clear but part of the line as it should be in legato singing. Anyone who messes with that for her should be shot.) Anyway we had a pleasant exchange and I'm a big fan now. I wish her well. (And won't embarrass her by outing her.) That was worth tons of my time because I want to hear more singing like that.
People who sing very badly will just argue with you if you point out corrections. Why bother? Yes, I know. You and the rest of us care about our art form. You mean well. And it's not bad or wrong of you to reach out. It's just a waste of your time. Cast not thy pearls before swine.
Houndentenor
"Get the trash off the street and back on the stage where it belongs." -- Bette Midler
The guy posting the video is not one of the singers in it. He is their father. He teaches his children to sing like this and promotes the horrifying result on YouTube. It is not a matter of one person singing badly but of a delusional freak who is ruining the voices of certain young people who, being his children, are necessarily under his influence and authority.
Baritonobasso
"The students are overstimulated. Willie, remove all the colored chalk from the classrooms!"
Okay I just listened. I made it for about 20 seconds. I hope it got better. I skipped ahead to hear her.
What the fuck was that?
I think somewhere in there are some very good voices but the entire concept of vocal production is not just wrong but the opposite. It's like every note is its own entity. That's not how we sing opera. At least it wasn't how opera was sung by the people who are great singers. How can their father hear that and then hear Caruso and Gigli and Pavarotti and Tebaldi and Callas and Freni and think this is what they were doing.
sigh
This message has been edited by Houndentenor on Jun 20, 2009 8:59 AM
...you are supposed to enjoy singing, yes, but they're eating up their tone and swallowing it whole. Obviously Lonne can't sing a decent /i/ and has been told it's ok to just substitute /a/ and it's all good...but she missed the part where that's only supposed to happen in your highest range.
And what's with the Maria Callas shoulders? That is the scary part to me. Walther is not carrying himself that poorly--if he would just sing a pure vowel for the whole duration of the note! But Lonne looks like she's working too hard, physically, and it looks like she's going to ruin her voice.
It's actually a very negative interview; they're responding to the huge amount of criticism they've apparently been getting. Turns out dad has created himself a nice little cult, blocking the kids from the rest of the world and forcing his technique (I use the word loosely) down their throats. He doesn't want them to go to a conservatoire because they will be "broken" there. Boy, let me get out my Psychology 101 here - dad wouldn't have been told he was a crap singer by a someone who knew what he was talking about would he?
The big guy at the table is a popular Dutch opera singer who said pretty much the same things as this forum - their voices aren't too bad, but you can't understand a word they're singing, they've not the faintest clue about interpretation (given their upbringing I'm not surprised), he hates the Callas & Corelli mannerisms and they have don't give a rat's arse about the music. He actually said they were raping the great composers' music, particularly seeing how this nutbag is giving his 13 (!) year old kids Puccini rep. I must say, I started watching this out of amusement and vulgar sensationalism, but I'm truly horrified now. The poor kids think they're the best thing to hit the opera world since Callas - imagine the ridicule and desillusion they'll be going through. That deranged, disgusting gobshite shouldn't have been allowed to breed.
I was wondering what was going on in that interview--Dutch means next to nothing to me.
To kind of paraphrase what others have said and add some of my own blend of herbs and spices:
These kids are fairly musically talented, especially for their age. The tenor is doing so many horrible things, and yet is also doing things (somewhat successfully) I couldn't have hoped to accomplish at his age. The soprano singing "Mi chiamano Mimi" has a fairly nice instrument, but is also doing such wacky, destructive things with it that I almost fear for my own life when I hear her sing!
Furthermore, they're also quite attractive kids, which is nothing to sneeze at in today's opera world. We'd all be kidding ourselves if we failed to acknowledge the role looks plays in casting these days.
They've got a lot of advantages, but seem to be throwing them all away based on the advice of their batty father. It's a real shame.
... my "this is not right" senses are tingling on so many levels!
The whole situation with the father secluding the kids to teach them his "technique" is just bizarre. Not to mention his replies to any negative youtube comments!
I wonder if there is a mother in the picture?
