keystone | ˈkiːstəʊn |noun
- a central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together.
- the central principle or part of a policy, system, doctrine, etc., on which all else depends.
"La chiave di volta": guess who invented it, and where.
To fight the Nothing that got hold of me, I am here today to ask you to give me a New Name - like Empress Moonchild asked Bastian, the boy who was reading of her as you are reading me now, at the end of the Neverending Story (pt. 1, what a cult movie).
For it turned out I gave myself a bad name, or at least the wrong one.
Thank you for having the patience of reading me thoroughly.
I'll begin with a simple question.
Whenever we post a photo, do we publicly give credit the photographer who captured, interpreted, rendered its content to an audience, every single time we share it? Or do we just pat them on the shoulder in private if the photo gets complimented and we like the way we look in it? Of course we MUST credit the photographer: first because they’d get mad and revoke us the right to use THEIR image if we didn’t; secondly because, living in a visual world, we are very sensitive to visual content and educated enough to its rules.
I wonder: in spite of being professional musicians, are we nearly as educated when it comes to the ownership of rights of acoustic, musical and interpretative contents?
I, Sara Gamarro, born in Mola di Bari in 1981, am the holder of two Conservatory degrees -Singing and Composition; I attended a one-year paid Master in Stage Directing in Bologna, first positioned of only three admitted, where I studied with and assisted Pizzi, Michieletto, Antoniozzi, Livermore, Tiziano Santi, Silvia Aymonino, among others. Twenty years a voice teacher of which twelve focused on the keystone role of Italian diction in Italian Opera, in the making process of an Opera singer, of a production and of the genre tout-court. I am the author of a solid, 10-years-road-tested method that I put in a book and got published by one of the main Italian music publishers. In my background I count a few years of ballet training and many of TanzTheater, nine years of Freudian psychoanalysis held with a luminary of international level, several years of acting in prose theater. I have an extensive knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek (proud winner of translating competitions back in high school), and FINALLY I am ALSO a native Italian person and an expert of Italian dialects, ways, culture. Thanks to my first Composition teacher (Cesare Augusto Grandi) and to my amazing Organ teacher (Livia Mazzanti) I am quite an expert of Gregorian. I am a fluent (though imperfect) English speaker, with full working proficiency. For brevity I won’t mention here my accomplishments as a singer, in more than one musical genre, but mainly as an interpreter of new music, classic-contemporary and experimental, so dealing with the writing process of composers all the time.
That said, do you know what public credit I get when I instruct a singer (or make one from scratch), or the entire cast of an opera? That's correct: zero, nessuno.
The photographer of the performance gets publicly credited, at all times, not I.
I am “the diction coach”, I belong on the last page of a brochure and in the invoices' drawer.
Yet, who follows a show via the radio, who buys a recording of it, who is visually impaired benefits of MY stage direction and support to the conduction of that show. They hear ME sing in the voices of ALL the singers and choir members of that show, they hear MY musical fastidiousness and theatrical inflection in every single staccato and trill. What they hear, together with the conductors’, is MY interpretation of the performed work (musical, phonetical, historical, linguistic, cultural - that in Italian Opera is ONE thing, passing through and stemming from the nature of the language that politically gathered a nation around itself only a bunch of years ago).
Mine is a 360° artistic work that only I on Earth, that I know of, can do the way I do, which is a way that, in fact, I invented: my work goes way beyond the mere restoration and revivification of a so-said golden age’s ancient splendour: I am in fact doing something innovative, contemporary. I bet Da Ponte would be surprised to hear from me how great he himself was, on the basis of discoveries I have made in his works. Things I am pretty sure he himself never noticed, but I daily use in my work to breathe life into my Cherubino, Susanna, Leporello, Zerlina: I can see these friends of mine, smell them, touch them. We dine together daily. They are becoming more and more human, I love them and they love me back.
But what do I know? I am "the diction coach". (Plus I am nothing but a woman: a relatively young, suspiciously tall, inconveniently looking and opinionated one.)
The narration of me being a “coach”, be it “a fantastic coach” or whatever, nearly killed me. I needed to work for a living and any work is sacred to me (I am an insanely hard worker), but my living making almost killed me.
I am an artist, period, and of the most unique kind. Artist is the word.
In spite of how I deeply pity those who call themselves such, denying me of the name of artist for so many years has been an insane theft I allowed at my own expenses, whence the impoverishment, the undernourishment of my soul and body.
I am the inventor of a brand new art form, with a precise profile, indispensable in a globalised Opera market - where replica performances, sound imitation and illiteracy rule, plus the singing School is no longer even nearly of Italian matrix or descent.
I hereby SWEAR not to EVER allow my work to leave my studio again without it publicly carrying MY SIGNATURE wherever it goes and is performed.
This means that my name belongs on billboards and playbills, together with the conductor’s and the director’s, so we need a synthetic enough definition for this art work and keystone role of mine in the modern Italian Opera performing process.
The best I came up with last night was “Italian Maestro”.
NOT “Italian Maestra”, for the point isn't that I am a female teacher who is Italian: I am the Maestro (with all the implications of being called one in the professional classical music environment) who guarantees and takes care of the fact that Italian Opera is being performed at its best and is responsible for connecting its many, many, many dots).
Same for local productions: “Maestro Italiano” should work (for the same reason “maestra italiana” or “maestro/-a di italiano” would make instead absolutely no sense at all).
Maybe “Maestro Italiano” could work in any language?
Composer, librettist, director, conductor, maestro italiano, choir conductor, cast and chorus...
How about that.
Once I am done with the sessions that have already been paid for I am never working privately again and the few private students I’ll occasionally keep will be of my personal choice and kept for free.
I am working for a public service, to preserve a patrimony, bring innovation in it, so to secure its legacy.
Universities, Foundations, Conservatories, Opera Houses, Academies and Festivals are my potential employers.
Not students or private singers, to defend whose right to education (as well as mine to a living) I have coached for less than the price of a haircut.
Page turned.
Let’s find that new name, people. I'll be waiting.
Much love,
La Maestra
“extremely good at this” (Graham Vick)
“bringing the language, the music and the characters to life” (Paul Nilon)
“the foundation of a role” (Jennifer Rowley)
“magic conjunction of vocal technique, musical interpretation and building of the character: a radical rethinking of the act of singing” (Anna Piroli)
“incredible breadth of knowledge” (Heather Lowe)
“magic effect on the voice and our art form” (Jessica Harper)
“opened up a world” (Giulia Zaniboni)
“180 degree turn in my work with the singers” (Theophilos Lambrianidis)
“invaluable: she’ll make a role really succeed on stage” (Ariadne Greif)
“potentially life-changing” (Amy Payne)
“brings life to operatic drama” (Maria Sanner)
“enlightening, professionally and humanly” (Clara La Licata)
“thoroughly prepared and professional” (Marie Kuijken)
“truly unique method and insights” (Jasmine Law)
“a lingual and linguistic genius” (Peter Tantsits)
“entirely devoted to the art of Opera singing” (Ida Falk Winland)
“incredibly informed, consistent, knowledgeable” (Michael Corvino)
“carrying the torch of finest Italian Opera” (Nathaniel Kondrat)
“a crucial basis for all the singers” (David Cowan)
“a cure and a respect of the Music and the words’ musicality that can be learnt so deeply nowhere else in the world” (Matilde Bianchi)
