# Early Rejection Faced by Famous Singers



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Can anyone recount any stories of now-legendary opera singers facing discouragement and rejection while trying to launch their careers? I'm thinking of things along the lines of what a casting director apparently wrote about Fred Astaire at his first audition: "Balding. Can't act. Can dance a little." :lol:

Here are a few I've heard:

-- Jennifer Larmore (mezzo-soprano) was told by the head of department at her college that she'd never have a career because her voice had too many technical problems.

-- Sherrill Milnes (baritone) has said that as a voice student he was "a great contest loser" and that during his first MESSIAH, as a teenager, he sounded like "a thin, nasal tenor."

-- Renee Fleming (soprano) suffered from depression, had a humiliating master class with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and almost ruined her voice (not as a result of working with Schwarzkopf but because of bad technique she'd learned elsewhere).

-- Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone) has said that during his student days he didn't really seem to have "any talent."

Any more? I always find these kinds of stories strangely inspiring.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

pages could be written about Callas's early and pre career with regards to this subject


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

Not a singer, but a nice anecdote... Verdi was refused as a student at the Milan conservatory, which now bares his name. What irony !


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I think Ileana Cotrubas was told early on that her voice wasn't good enough for a professional career.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Dongiovanni said:


> Not a singer, but a nice anecdote... Verdi was refused as a student at the Milan conservatory, which now bares his name. What irony !


Double irony: I heard it was his fugue that was judged to be inadequate, and as we all know his great FALSTAFF ends with a fugue.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> pages could be written about Callas's early and pre career with regards to this subject


Please, do write one for us.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> pages could be written about Callas's early and pre career with regards to this subject


 Really? Clearly you know something the rest of us (and her biographers) don't.

Previous to returning (briefly) to the States, she was the leading soprano with the Greek National Opera, with whom she first sang before she was 18!

True, America took a while to come round, but America is not the whole world, and she left because the *Turandot* she was about to sing at the Chicago Opera failed to materialise because the company went bankrupt before the season even opened.

We should be thankful that it did. Once she moved to Italy and Serafin took her under her wing, things started to move quite nicely. Her Italian debut was as Gioconda at the Verona Opera in August 1947 (at the age of 22). The following year she sang roles such as Turandot, Leonora (in *La Forza del Destino*), Isolde, Aida and Norma in such cities as Venice, Trieste, Udine, Genoa, Rome, Verona again, Turin, Rovigo and Florence; not bad for a 23 year old!

So, if she was already singing leading roles in Greece at the age of 18, which early and pre career are you talking about?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> Double irony: I heard it was his fugue that was judged to be inadequate, and as we all know his great FALSTAFF ends with a fugue.


Maybe that was Verdi having a joke at their expense.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Really? Clearly you know something the rest of us (and her biographers) don't.
> Previous to returning (briefly) to the States, she was the leading soprano with the Greek National Opera, with whom she first sang before she was 18!
> True, America took a while to come round, but America is not the whole world, and she left because the *Turandot* she was about to sing at the Chicago Opera failed to materialise because the company went bankrupt before the season even opened.
> We should be thankful that it did. Once she moved to Italy and Serafin took her under her wing, things started to move quite nicely. Her Italian debut was as Gioconda at the Verona Opera in August 1947 (at the age of 22). The following year she sang roles such as Turandot, Leonora (in *La Forza del Destino*, Isolde, Aida and Norma in such cities as Venice, Trieste, Udine, Genoa, Rome, Verona again, Turin, Rovigo and Florence; not bad for a 23 year old!
> So, if she was already singing leading roles in Greece at the age of 18, which early and pre career are you talking about?


you are right. in retrospect, it was kind of a dumb comment on my part. I was mostly thinking of twisted relationship she had with her mother and the rejection she faced therein, but this thread is clearly referring to early _professional_ rejection of famous opera singers.



> Maybe that was Verdi having a joke at their expense.


not gonna lie, that would be pretty tempting. success is the best revenge :devil:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> you are right. in retrospect, it was kind of a dumb comment on my part. I was mostly thinking of twisted relationship she had with her mother and the rejection she faced therein, but this thread is clearly referring to early _professional_ rejection of famous opera singers.


The psychological effects of the relationship with her mother could indeed be the subject of a whole thesis!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Phillippe Jarousky was told by his first voice teacher he would never be a countertenor.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

In trying to recall some of the anecdotes told by various opera singers in the book _Great Singers on Great Singing_ by Jerome Hines, I seem to remember that young Birgit Nilsson had an extremely hard time figuring out vocal technique. I think she had an unhelpful teacher who for some reason made her stand by the piano and sing one high C after another, and other things like that. Then, when she was engaged to sing a major Wagnerian role (Brunhilde?) in (I think) Stockholm, she caught cold and was forced to figure out her vocal technique totally on her own, and quickly. That's when the crucial concept of "forward placement" (where the tone resonates in the "mask" of the face) finally clicked with her, and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> In trying to recall some of the anecdotes told by various opera singers in the book _Great Singers on Great Singing_ by Jerome Hines, I seem to remember that young Birgit Nilsson had an extremely hard time figuring out vocal technique. I think she had an unhelpful teacher who for some reason made her stand by the piano and sing one high C after another, and other things like that. Then, when she was engaged to sing a major Wagnerian role (Brunhilde?) in (I think) Stockholm, she caught cold and was forced to figure out her vocal technique totally on her own, and quickly. That's when the crucial concept of "forward placement" (where the tone resonates in the "mask" of the face) finally clicked with her, and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there.


That sounds right to me too. No one knew how to train her voice so she did it herself.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Dongiovanni said:


> Not a singer, but a nice anecdote... Verdi was refused as a student at the Milan conservatory, which now bares his name. What irony !


"(at the Paris Conservatoire) *after failing to meet the requirement of earning a competitive medal in three consecutive years, _____ was expelled in 1895.* He turned down a music professorship in Tunisia then returned to the Conservatoire in 1898 and started his studies with Gabriel Fauré, determined to focus on composing rather than piano playing. He studied composition with Fauré until *he was dismissed from the class in 1900 for having won neither the fugue nor the composition prize*. He remained an auditor with Fauré until he left the Conservatoire in 1903." (Maurice Ravel, conservatory days


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## BaronScarpia (Apr 2, 2014)

Joyce DiDonato (my personal hero) had a _terrible_ time! She was told by a judge of one famous competition (I forget which) that she had _*"nothing to offer as an artist"*_. Her career really took off in the 2001/02 season, at the grand old age of 32, when she toured France, auditioning for ten or eleven opera companies, getting ten/eleven "thanks, but no thanks"s and eventually being asked to sing Rosina in Paris!


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