When Costanza Cuccaro won the Met auditions, she was one of the youngest contestants ever to win first place. An interview with Johnny Carson was part of the grand prize. “What is your goal?” Mr. Carson asked. Ms. Cuccaro said she wasn’t after money or fame, but rather to be able to sing in her later years as freshly and as beautifully as she was doing then, at 23.
After studying in Rome as a Fulbright Scholar, Ms. Cuccaro began her international career at the Zurich Opera and later became the leading lyric-coloratura at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She sang at the Met, at the Teatro Colon, and at the Toronto, Montreal, Hamburg, Munich and Vienna State operas. In addition to her opera performances, Ms. Cuccaro appeared with the Chicago, Cleveland, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Detroit, Toronto and Tel Aviv orchestras and was noted for her Bach interpretations in Moscow, Prague, Leipzig, Cleveland, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.
Now the Chancellor’s Professor of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., Ms. Cuccaro enjoys a second career teaching voice students. Professor Cuccaro’s students have won Fulbright Awards, Metropolitan Opera Grand Final Awards, MacCallister Awards, and National Association of Teachers of Singing, Bel Canto, and Orpheus Vocal competitions. In addition, her students have attended programs at Adler, Merola, Wolf Trap, Tanglewood, Chicago Lyric, Glimmerglass, Chautauqua, Seattle, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Aspen and Washington Opera/Vilar, among others.
Professor Cuccaro has presented performances, master classes, and workshops at The International Congress of Voice teachers, NATS national conventions, The Voice Foundation, and the NATS Mentoring Program. In an interview with Classical Singer, Ms. Cuccaro shared her thoughts and insights about singing—and yes, she reached her goal. Thanks to her daily practice, she still sings the high F she had in her 20s.
On Technique
CS: What do you consider to be the fundamentals of a good, solid technique?
CC: This question goes to my heart, as I am fascinated with technique. I love this; I am writing a book on vocal technique and exercises.
I had the greatest teacher in the world at The University of Iowa—Herald Stark. He grounded me in such a technical way that I was free to fly as a singer. For four years, all we did was work on fundamentals and exercises. Stark was big on breath management: We had breathing exercises—including inhalation and exhalation—because it is all in breath management.
Another thing we worked on was onset or the “soft deep attack,” making certain that it was healthy, quiet and deep. He also worked on timbre matching: learning to sing from the core of the tone—core to core. We worked on lining up vowels. We worked on resonance, which is the ring in the voice and the carrying power, legato and articulation.
A big thing, which is not taught a lot these days but I really insist on, is messa di voce. And then coloratura of course, diction, communication, posture, range building, and register blending.
Thoughts About Teaching
CS: Is there a key to bringing out the best in a student?
CC: I tell students, “We are going to work together on giving you the best technique we can, and that technique will give you the ‘freedom to fly.’ In other words, the student will be so grounded in technique, so that he or she can go on stage, have fun, and not worry about his or her performance.
I have over 50 exercises that I use. I also create individual exercises for each student, and breathing exercises. This foundation is the most important thing you can pass on to a student.
A good teacher, I feel, needs to have an ideal sound of beautiful singing in their own imagination. I hear an ideal sound that I think is right for each student. It includes things like breath management and resonance. But each individual needs his own ideal sound, too. None of my students sound alike. The only consistent trait they all have is this wonderful “on the breath” sound, because they sing on the breath.
There may be students with problems in an area, such as producing high notes correctly or blending the registers. I will design an exercise for them. I can listen to a student, assess strengths and weaknesses, know what she should sound like, and then know how to fix the problem so she can get the sound that is hers…
*** To read the full interview, go to www.classicalsinger.com/magazine/
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