Video Transcript

Laura McHugh:

(singing).

Ben Zander:

Great. Great, great, great. Now, this is very exciting. So she starts off in the same mood she was in. In the recitative she’s anxious, she doesn’t know what to make of this. Her husband is about to have an affair with her servant girls. They’re about to change clothes. It’s a totally confusing situation. And she’s anxious and she’s angry, and she’s all those emotions of confusion. Then she starts the aria and she begins in the same state of despair that she started before. She’s just as _… and full of nostalgia for Why couldn’t it be the way it was before? And you notice, you did that in two and it’s a real andante and it’s the same tempo. Isn’t that interesting?

Laura McHugh:

Yeah.

Ben Zander:

There’s no question about it. It makes perfect sense because she’s in the same mood. And there are a couple of things I want to say about it. But then what happens is extremely dramatic. So let’s just begin the aria right from the beginning. And it’s a _… Right. That you achieved better than before and it can still be more. It’s a four bar phrase. It’s not two and two. It’s a four bar phrase. And that will be helped very much by that feeling of moving in two.

Laura McHugh:

Okay.

Ben Zander:

Start to think of bars as beats, not as separate things. I mean, you obviously do, but if you can always think of a bar as part of a phrase. It’s either the first bar, it’s the second bar, it’s the third bar, or it’s the fourth bar. I’m going to conduct it that way and you’ll see how that works.

Laura McHugh:

(Singing).

Ben Zander:

Yeah, move it a little bit more. Just one second.

Laura McHugh:

(Singing).

Ben Zander:

That’s the way to sing it, right? You think, two, three, four. It’s a beautiful way of thinking of music. It’s the way it’s constructed. Try it again without me conducting.

Laura McHugh:

(Singing).

Ben Zander:

Now long line.

Laura McHugh:

(Singing).

Ben Zander:

Now, doesn’t this silly Mrs. Cavalieri seem like a fool compared to this?

Laura McHugh:

Yes.

Ben Zander:

I mean, this is the deepest expression of a humiliated, sad wife with every note expressing her despair, her nobility, her hope, all of that in the most as only Shakespeare could have done. Perfect. Now, what happens? Something very dramatic. She suddenly realizes that she can change this situation and she can take control and turn the whole thing around. And she does it in a 4/4 allegro. And I think you can do it _… If I were doing this, I’d do it much faster.

Laura McHugh:

Really?

Ben Zander:

Oh, like the wind.

Laura McHugh:

Okay.

Ben Zander:

One, two, three, four. And the excitement when she suddenly realizes, oh my god, I can take over. Right? Because all the women in Mozart are much smarter than the men.

Laura McHugh:

Absolutely.

Ben Zander:

It’s true in life too. But yeah, so she realize she doesn’t have to be a victim. And this is the moment in that pause, which is one of the most powerful pauses in Western art. No, I think it probably is true. In that pause, she goes from a listless, despairing teenager to a powerful woman who takes control of the whole opera. And take that frown off your face, all right, when you sing it.

Laura McHugh:

Okay.

Ben Zander:

It’s so exciting and the tempo is going to make it even more exciting.

Laura McHugh:

Okay.

Ben Zander:

Okay. So let’s go from the allegro. Where are we here? Here we go. All right. So one, two, three.

Laura McHugh:

(Singing).

Ben Zander:

Yeah, the audience should be clapping. Great. Isn’t it interesting that in the end, tempo is so powerful? Tempo controls the mood. And when you get that that’s a true allegro scampering away. And you can get there and you become totally powerful. From that moment on in the opera, you are in charge. Isn’t that great?

Laura McHugh:

Yeah.

Ben Zander:

And you are taking all of womankind with you. It’s a great moment. Transformation. And the more you can get that contrast between this listless, hopeless kid to becoming a truly powerful woman, and it has to be in your body and your face. And it was, nobody missed that. They didn’t have to know the Italian to know that something big had happened. You are really amazing.

Laura McHugh:

Thank you.

Ben Zander:

You’re amazing musician, gorgeous voice, that goes without saying. Tremendous intelligence. It’s wonderful.

Laura McHugh:

Thank you.

Ben Zander:

It’s great. So now there’s another song. Why not? You’re here. You’re here. Isn’t that interesting, now, when we look back on Mrs. Cavalieri, Mademoiselle Cavalieri, and realize that to use a voice to show off is unworthy. Look, there’s nothing wrong with that aria. It’s a beautiful aria. But Mozart was a servant. You know that Mozart, when he arrived at the house of the royalty or the aristocracy, he went round the back and into the servant’s quarters and he ate dinner with the servants. He wasn’t a member of the aristocracy. Beethoven went through the front door. That’s what happened between Mozart and Beethoven.

Beethoven went through the front door and didn’t bow when the royalty passed by. But Mozart was a servant. And so Mademoiselle Cavalieri wanted to show off her roulades. He had to do that. And all the composers did that in those days. They wrote for the singers until The Marriage of Figaro. And then he, like the Contessa, took over and said, “I’ll never do that again.” And he never wrote another note, except in the concert arias, where that’s what it was for. But not in a drama, not in a serious _… serious in the sense of being an important statement. It’s kind of beautiful to realize that, isn’t it?

Laura McHugh:

Yes.

Ben Zander:

And you do it really, really beautiful. So it’s a pleasure to hear you really.

Laura McHugh:

Thank you.

Ben Zander:

It’s just an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Jane, for making me aware of this.

Jane:

I told you so.

Ben Zander:

Yeah, you told me so. Well, you’ve never told me anything that I disagreed with. I wasn’t expecting anything else, but I was very, very happy. Because what is there is not only a beautiful voice and a musical spirit, but a great intelligence. And you notice that when she’s singing, she looks at me all the time and picks up every single little detail of anything that I can suggest with my hands, which is of course, the secret of an effective singer in an opera.

I once went to watch Carlos Kleiber conduct, and I was in the pit, in the orchestra pit, because I was brought there by my friend and former student, Jerry Grossman, who is the first cellist in the Met. And so he said, “Come, come, come, come listen.” And I watched him for about half an hour and I realized after half an hour that I’d had my mouth open for half an hour. And what he was doing was creating that relationship with the singers that you just created with me, which is he did not take his eyes off them and his hands were creating that. And you are aware of that relationship. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you strong. It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?

Laura McHugh:

Yes.

Ben Zander:

It’s wonderful. Beautiful.