John McCormack-- The TRUE Redeemer of Bel Canto

Of all the great singers of the Bel Canto genre, Irish Tenor John McCormack was the most versatile. He made his operatic debut at Savona in 1906 and continued to dazzle audiences throughout the world until emphysema rendered him unable to perform in 1943.

The great Polish tenor Jean de Reske had been McCormack’s predecessor as the dominant singer on the international scene. De Reske attended all of McCormack’s appearances at Monte Carlo during 1921 and 1923, and even invited the Irishman to his own villa to sing to his pupils. After McCormack obliged the gathering with a private performance Jean de Reske told his pupils: "That is how I want you to sing." He followed the meeting with a warm letter praising McCormack’s greatness as a singer, saying:


"YOU ARE THE TRUE REDEEMER OF BEL CANTO."


Though McCormack pronounced his words clearly as he told the story of each song, he didn’t imitate any other singer or try to sound like an Italian. Some university teachers might tell you that learning to sing Bel Canto means to "purify" your pronunciation of vowels so that you sound exactly like a certain Italian way of speaking. Those teachers are mistaken.

Jean de Reske had the experience and knowledge to recognize that the very Irish sounding Irishman John McCormack sang with VOCAL FREEDOM and that he made his performances about the storytelling, not tones and sounds. He personalized himself for the audience in a magical way. That’s what made McCormack the "Redeemer of Bel Canto."

"The Art That Conceals Art":

I love this quotation from an old Dublin Grand Opera Society program:

Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1862-1936) described [McCormack] on many occasions as the greatest singer of his time, and she had heard all the great singers over her career of more than 60 years.

Author and critic Ernest Newman in the London Sunday Times wrote a week after McCormack’s death: "He was a supreme example of the art that conceals art, and sheer hard work that becomes manifest only in its results, not in the revolving of the machinery that has produced them."

(Taken from "John McCormack– a Centenary Tribute" from a program of the Dublin Grand Opera Society, Spring Season 1984, at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin)

“What Bel Canto Means To Me...” (By John McCormack’s heir)

In an e-mail letter to me dated October 15, 2003, Count John McCormack, heir and grandson of Irish Tenor John McCormack writes:

Bel Canto speaks for itself – beautiful singing – and one of its greatest exponents was my grandfather, Count John McCormack.... The secret to Bel Canto, some say, lies in the continuity of tone and the art of sustaining passages to create a beautiful line. John was an expert at delivery, phrasing and had uncanny breathing ability, quite often leaving his audience gasping while he sailed effortlessly on.

The sheer simplicity behind the theory of allowing a voice to develop in its own individual and distinctive way could well be learned and understood by many modern singers who force their way through songs while desperately attempting to sound like their favourite singer. Why do we spend so much of our lives trying to be someone else when what we have is so divinely unique?

It gives me great pleasure to know that the tradition of Bel Canto is continued with success through the Bel Canto House in Dublin. My grandfather’s legacy will remain and the lessons that can still be learned from listening to his mastery will, hopefully, continue to be of benefit to hundreds of future students.

How My Singing School Follows McCormack’s Bel Canto Tradition

I teach my students at the Bel Canto House School of Singing to work for the goal of VOCAL FREEDOM. Each student’s voice is unique and the task of Bel Canto training is to open up that unique and unrepeatable natural voice to reach its fullest potential, and never to force the voice to imitate another person’s sound. Students of authentic Bel Canto learn the expressiveness and beauty of singing through telling the story rather than getting lost in a series of mechanical exercises that only serve to distract students from their own individuality. Other “methods” of teaching singing are only an attempt at merely physical singing to produce a sequence of tones and sounds, but true Bel Canto teaches students to communicate the human spirit clearly with true art.