Personality of the Person,
or Personality of the Voice?

e are now in an era where there is a great misunderstanding about the importance of the personality of a singer. In my experience, no great performer was ever an angelic figure. Yet the stories are legend about the great singers of the past. With glee we read about their excesses of all kinds, and somehow many of our current singers—especially in the popular field—are living these kind of lives.

The one big difference is so many of the current singers have not learned their craft. They rely on their personalities and egos to get ahead. In the classical world this simply could not exist. There was a standard to which all were held. The voice had to have personality before the singer was hired for a job. I repeat—the VOICE had to have personality. 40 years ago the singer would not be hired unless this was true.

Have we forgotten this standard? The thrill of singing was in the color of the singer’s voice—the clarity, the brilliance, the ease. With the passing of Pavarotti was have lost a great vocal treasure. This voice had a personality so unique that if could never be duplicated. Who cares whether you liked or didn’t like Pavarotti as a man, that’s beside the point. But that voice! 

Will we ever return to the standard of judging a voice on its own merit? Or are we mired down in a place where even the judges have forgotten what a natural voice is supposed to sound like—not look like! Always look for the personality of the voice—not the personality of the performer.

By Tom Schilling