“Some Strangeness in the Proportion” — Vocal Beauty and Opinion

Maria Callas

Titta Ruffo

Steve Perry

Marian Anderson

“There is no excellent beauty,” said Francis Bacon, “that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” This is often said of physical beauty, and computer modeling of human faces has shown that exaggerating some features within limits (the size or tilt of the eyes or mouth for example) produces faces judged more beautiful by observers. Many famously beautiful people were once mocked or considered ugly for the very feature later praised as making them uniquely beautiful, be it height or thinness, a long nose, very full lips, or an oddly shaped mouth. Humans seem to dislike exaggerated difference as well as finding it fascinating, and this goes for all senses. Distinctiveness both attracts and repels.

Music is no different. What one person considers flaws in a voice (Maria Callas’s blatant changes in timbre, Ruffo’s metallic lower register and diamondlike upper, Perry’s extremely flat open vowels, Anderson’s woodwind-like baritone) another will consider a mark of individuality or even a “beauty blemish,” a small blot making the rest of the voice seem more beautiful by comparison. Where the small blot stops being a blemish on beauty and instead dominates the impression made by the voice is a matter of judgment, but most judgments do tend to cluster; there are certainly voices that are judged by large numbers of people to be extraordinarily beautiful, even if those groups of people don’t always or often overlap.

For example, I find Callas “interesting” like a single-malt scotch, but equally undrinkable; many, many illustrious others disagree with me and vehemently, calling her “La Divina.” Others consider Perry’s uniquely expressive vowels fodder for caricature, whereas I consider him, along with Ruffo and Anderson, one of the 20th century’s three miracles.

Even the concept of a “beauty blemish” can be argued. It seems to assume that there is one perfect, Platonic ideal voice against which all voices are compared, or perhaps more generously a Platonic ideal for each singer’s voice for which they must strive individually. Forgotten is the fact that voices live within human bodies and are part of them, that the body itself is the instrument. I’ve called it a soft, wet piece of meat, and that’s precisely what it is. Independent of the meaty, sinewed, fluid-filled body that is the voice, a voice does not exist. “Beauty blemishes” are not spots on voices but as much a part of the voices themselves as any other feature. (The only sin universally judged as unforgivable is the sin of being off-key.)

Maria Callas

Titta Ruffo

Steve Perry

Marian Anderson

Cleansed of her blatant changes in color, Maria Callas’s voice would not exist, and among other qualities, it’s those changes in color that create her voice separate from anyone else’s, granted I have no taste for it. Freed of the huskiness that “marred” his lower register and the hard sparkle of his upper, Ruffo’s voice would no longer be identifiable as his — and one of the most damning things that can be said about any performer is that the listener can’t tell who they are from hearing them. Trained into a proper Italian vowel system, Perry may well have become a very serviceable — and equally forgettable — choral high tenor, though a useful one as he could have handled mezzo without recourse to falsetto. Trained out of her lower register, Marian Anderson would have disappeared as merely one more not very distinguishable mezzo soprano. (Trained into contralto-only, she would have disappeared as well, into the “witches, bitches, and britches” roles that are the staple of the contralto to this day, assuming that the color-based social tensions of the time would have permitted her that much success.)

To use another point of comparison, no one would ever have heard of Cindy Crawford had she had that mole removed. One must look or sound beautiful, but a bit of individuality gives the viewer or listener something to remember, particularly in highly competitive disciplines where just keeping on day after day winnows away all but the most tenacious. Callas began singing at the age of 5, and was thwarted repeatedly by people who were unwilling to tolerate her unique sound. Ruffo was born into both a relatively non-musical family and substantial poverty as the son of an ironworker, and spent years travelling Italy before apprenticing as one himself; he discovered his voice and found his training entirely on his own. Musical from a very young age, Perry labored for almost the entirety of his twenties in unrelieved obscurity before finding success, spending a portion of that time building turkey coops and most of it sleeping on other people’s couches. Anderson was stymied continually by social injustice to the point where she had to abandon the country of her birth to move her career forward.

Many thousands of others were similarly challenged both by circumstance and by the monumental challenge of sticking out above the crowd; it was the strangeness of their proportions that made the four voices listed above unforgettable and suited to success — as well as the bullheaded insistence on the part of the vocalists on putting one foot in front of the other despite the universe repeatedly putting its boot in their faces and insisting that they find something else to do with their lives.

Clips illustrating the vocal “flaws” of the above voices:

“Casta Diva” — Maria Callas. Note the substantial shifts in vocal color as she moves around in her range, relatively smooth in the middle (beginning), flatter and a bit hollow in the low end, and piercing in the high end (1:04 and 1:08). A bit like a downhill skier, she gives the impression of singing by the seat of her pants.

“Gioconda Duet” — Titta Ruffo eclipsed by tenor Beniamino Gigli in 1924. There’s still a good deal of power left but it’s unremarkable, and the glittering sparkle in his upper register had hardened, turning dull. Contrast with:

“Credo” — Ruffo earlier on in 1914, where his upper register is merely clear as a bell and absolutely precise, with his signature surgical vibrato (2:39-3:00). The bland weakness in the lower notes (ordinary at 1:01-1:27) is still there but has not yet begun to creep upward, and the diamonds in the upper end haven’t yet turned into shrapnel.

“Lovin’ You Is Easy” — Steve Perry, with very wide /a/’s and /ae/’s, and razorlike /s/’s and /t/’s that are still occasionally parodied. A scatlike succession of flat vowels at 0:49 identifies his voice as unambiguously as a thumbprint and would likely have been demolished by any well-meaning vocal trainer. (Ignore the video quality; codec problems make it unwatchable.)

“Hear de Lam’s a-Cryin’” — Linked to already, Anderson’s version demonstrates a very oboe-like quality, to be contrasted with male baritone Roland Hayes‘s comparatively silky and feathery baritone as he sings the same piece in exactly the same key and register.

Titta Ruffo — baritone, triumph, and tragedy

Titta Ruffo

There is an ineffable quality about a fine voice, apart from any other instrument. Other instruments can be pointed to, tuned, cared for like fine machines, but not a voice. A soft, wet piece of meat, what it achieves for the listener is impossible to define, transporting, beyond the realm of description. We are a social species, and the voices of others of our kind are arresting, even in conversation. A fine speaking voice can bring people to a halt, and a fine singing voice can create a religious ecstasy.

A fine instrument is also nothing to treat lightly; specialists still study the minutest details of every Stradivari or Guarneri to determine the qualities that create such a surpassingly beautiful tone in the devices made in these two craftsmen’s studios. Pianos are also studied in detail — hammers, dampers, strings, harps, and wooden bodies, to determine what makes one suited for Debussy, one for Chopin, and another for Scott Joplin.

However, these are all machines, which can be studied using the full arsenal of scientific and medical devices — x-rays, MRIs, CAT scanning, material science studies, etc. A similar study of a fine human voice would require the full examination of a body as a musical instrument, not merely the larynx. The head, the shape of the mouth, sinuses, throat, lungs, chest, posture … all of these things plus the artistry and instinct of the singer combine to create a fine voice. The number of variables required to settle why one human body can create heavenly sound while another cannot is simply too great and depends on too many other variables. Compared to the tortuous shape of human sinuses and nasal cavities, the shape of a violin body is kindergarten acoustics. Vocal quality is an emergent property, impossible to predict or quantify in any but the roughest terms. (And the one thing such an analysis can never measure and never will is ambition and the willingness to work hard.)

Most bittersweet of all, voices are transient. An instrumentalist can find a new instrument should they need to do so, even as much as they may love their favorite. A broken instrument can be replaced. And while playing an instrument incorrectly can result in injury (carpal tunnel syndrome is the bane of any musician), playing one correctly usually results in greater strength. The more one plays properly, the more one is capable of playing, health issues like arthritis aside.

This is not the case for the voice, where damage can only be mitigated and never entirely avoided. Some styles of singing damage the voice more than others, but there is no way to sing without damage, at all. Every note a singer hits is a note they will never hit again in quite the same way. Instrumentalists use their hands, but vocalists do not use their voices. They use them up.

This makes performing as a high-powered vocalist nerve-wracking for the singer, and it makes mentoring the singer and conserving the voice of primary importance. This is often the downfall of unmentored, self-taught singers with natural gifts, “miracles” as they are sometimes called, and the chief reason why such miraculous voices have characteristically short careers.

One such tragically short career belonged to the legendary Italian baritone of a century ago, Titta Ruffo, “Voce del Leone” or “Voice of the Lion.” Born in 1877 in Pisa as Ruffo Cafiero Titta, he was renowned for his magnificent, hall-filling power and dramatic presence. Ruffo threw absolutely everything he had into every performance, achieving the operatic equivalent of stage-diving. He thrilled audiences at every chance who could barely believe the sparkling power in his higher register or the energy of him. He was the only other male operatic vocalist who could command fees on the order of the great Caruso, and as a result, the two men rarely sang together as most opera houses could not afford to pay both of them at the same time.

They were known to have recorded two duets, one of which survives, the magnificent “Si Pel Ciel” from Verdi’s Otello, a duet between Otello (Caruso) and Iago (Ruffo). Each man was clearly looking to raise the bar for the other, and given the nature of the subject matter, the competitiveness brought the recording to amazing heights even with the poor fidelity of the technology use to record it. Caruso is recognized as brilliant, but the lesser-known Ruffo’s voice is breathtaking, with a richness and penetrating clarity uncommon in a baritone, awesome power, and a tingling vibrato nimble enough for any mezzo-soprano.

Ruffo was, however, self-taught and as a result, had no good idea how to safeguard his voice. The fact that his voice had already begun to decline by the time modern recording technology had moved from acoustic to electrical recording has a great deal to do with the fact that he is not today as well known as his countryman Caruso. When asked why he did not teach after retiring, he stated famously that, “I never knew how to sing, that is why my voice went by the time I was fifty. I have no right to capitalize on my former name and reputation and try to teach youngsters something I never knew how to do myself.” As his career declined, his voice retained its power but lost its richness and beauty, with his lower register growing thinner and more metallic. By the time technology had made it possible for Ruffo’s voice to be shared with those who had never heard it live and would never have the chance with much greater fidelity, the lion’s voice was a pale shadow of its former glory. That glory can still be heard in the acoustic recordings made earlier in his career.

The also legendary Italian baritone Giuseppe De Luca famously said of Ruffo, “His was not a voice but a miracle.” An untrained miracle, it was also sacrificed to hard, untutored use, and burned with a heavenly brightness before finally burning out.

Titta Ruffo — Wikipedia article

Clips illustrating his singing voice:

“Si Pel Ciel” — Duet with famed tenor Enrico Caruso from Otello, the only one of two duets to survive with Ruffo and Caruso. Brilliant, piercing power in the high end. Considered to be one of the most perfect voice recordings ever made, and with good reason. Vibratos at 0:46 and 2:30 beyond what is normally heard in baritones.

“Largo al factotum” — Well-known aria from “The Barber of Seville” wherein said barber brags about how famous and in-demand he is, including the plea, “One at a time, for pity’s sake!” Bless Rossini for writing comedies!

“O vin, discaccia la tristezza” — From “Hamlet,” a signature role for Ruffo.

“Di Provenza” — An abbreviated version. The vibrato will raise the hair on the back of your neck.