Recently I lent a willing ear to a friend who's considering leaving her job of seven years and heading back to Maine, her home state. "I've been away from home for almost 17 years. I miss my family," she said, her arms folded against her chest in deliberate defiance of what seemed like a difficult choice -- because there was her job to consider, too. She wasn't sure what she was going to do next. "For all I know, I'll give my notice next week and will be gone in another two. Maybe I'll be in Maine in three weeks. But then again, I might not...do that. Decisions, decisions. Don't you hate them sometimes?"*
I thought, too, that this was how singer Virginia Lee Williamson, whom I wrote about in my January 28 '08 post, must have felt when she was faced with the decision to either follow famed opera singer Mme. Amelita Galli-Curci to New York -- where she was promised personal guidance in the direction of a career in light opera -- or take her chances in Hollywood.
Take a look at this article that was published in the Evening Herald/Los Angeles on Thursday, July 24, 1930. Doesn't it seem to poke a bit of fun at Williamson? Listen, it's not so easy when you're the one standing at the crossroads:
"Girl Spurns Aid of Galli Curci, Picks Calif. For Career"
Twenty-year old Utah singer turns down New York for Hollywood.
If you were a young singer and actress and were given your choice between going to New York, having Madame Amelita Galli-Curci use her influence to place you in light opera -- or of coming unheralded to Los Angeles, with no influential friends, and trying to crash the gates of the talkies --
Which would you choose? Once upon a time there would have been only one answer.
Arrives in Hollywood
But Miss Virginia Randolph of Salt Lake City gave the modern answer today when she arrived in Los Angeles with her mother, and took a Hollywood apartment for the purpose of laying a campaign for the light opera stage and the screen. Miss Williamson, whose voice has been trained by her mother, Madame McCune Williamson, won acclaim in Salt Lake City, both in concert and in dramatic stock, under the name Lavanna Lee. So much so that last November, when Madame Galli Curci was in the Utah metropolis, she gave the young 20-year-old girl an audition.
Offered Scholarship
She was lavish in her praises and offered Miss Williamson her personal assistance if she would come to New York. Newspaper publicity which ensued brought her other offers of scholarships and engagements. But the land of the prologue and the singing screen won hands down over the charms of New York, and today another demure, pretty young girl is offering up her gifts on the shrine of Hollywood art.
*
Hollywood has a devilish attractiveness, but I'm not convinced that they "won hands down." The film industry began courting her before Amelita Galli-Curci was to arrive in Salt Lake -- almost four years later -- and give Virginia an audition. I believe that Virginia flew to New York with the intention of seriously considering Galli-Curci's offer. I can imagine her mother's advice to her: "If you don't meet with Galli-Curci, you might always wonder what might have happened had you traveled to New York to see for yourself whether or not a career in light opera is what you want."Haven't we all received similar advice at some point in our lives?
And the article neglects to mention that prior to her encounter with Galli-Curci, Virginia Lee Williamson struck up a friendship with another Virginia Lee -- Virginia Lee Corbin -- then a famous child actress. According to Victor B. Fisher -- head of Fisher Productions, Inc. of Hollywood -- Corbin's mother brought Williamson to Fisher's attention.
"It seems that about seven years ago these two girls met in this city [Salt Lake] and starred in several playlets," said Fisher. "Mrs. Corbin was so impressed that recently when I had need of a girl who could be developed into a star she mentioned Miss Williamson to me. I have been trying her out for a week, and even in difficult Shakespearean roles which she has essayed at my request, she has more than made good. She appears to have a natural gift for heavy drama, and we shall use her from the start in feature parts. In addition to her natural talents, she has the type of face that films well."
In another article entitled, "Salt Lake Girl to Be Starred in Fisher Films" (dated 1925), Victor B. Fisher says of Virginia, "She has, in my judgment, the makings of one of the greatest emotional actresses in this country."
And, finally, in an interview at the Hotel Utah, Fisher said he spent $175,000 bringing Virginia Lee Corbin to the front and that he planned to do the same for Williamson.
Virginia Lee Williamson signed a contract with Fisher soon thereafter. She was 18 years of age. Was she behaving rashly?
Virginia Lee Corbin in her adulthood.
*
I have more to say about the Williamsons, but I won't say it tonight. And so, until next time, I'll leave you with another essay by Madame Inez McCune Williamson (Virginia's mother) entitled, "Can I Become a Singer?"
If you're considering devoting yourself to vocal artistry, prepare to be scolded! When I first read this essay, I was somewhat taken aback. But having mulled over it further, I realize that what she's really saying, to paraphrase Natalie Goldberg, is that in order for it to work, you have to be willing to go all the way with your singing:
"A beautiful voice does not make the artist. Neither does a perfectly cultivated voice, anymore than a complete instrument wound up to play a difficult composition makes the pianist. A small voice, beautifully educated, with the right temperament as a motive power, will make a career; a powerful voice, all things being equal, will make an enviable career. Not one in 5000 voices, however, is perfectly balanced. There are a number of excellent natural voices, hampered by earsplitting faults, with head or heart lacking. Some have the nucleus of a vibratory temperament that might be nourished, or coaxed, but no patience. Others, with glorious voices, capable of the finest artistic finish to musical natures, full of life and vivacity, start in with energy and apparent determination to surmount all difficulties, but fail to hold out. It is too slow for them; they want to learn something different at every lesson; they tire of being corrected in what seems to them to be such trifles; the same exercises day after day are too monotonous; mama and friend think now that they are taking singing lessons they ought to be able to sing songs and difficult selections. Such pupils might just as well bury their money as to waste it on vocal lessons.
If, however, a teacher recognizes talent under all this and has to combat with ignorance only, it is often worthwhile humoring "mama and friends" a little. Get the pupil to attend some good concerts, etc., that she may see her deficiencies and recognize points that she is constantly being drilled in. The teacher finds more difficulty with parents and relatives than with the students themselves. Many a sensitive pupil loses courage for lack of sympathy or encouragement in her home. I have had pupils, after taking a few lessons, ask how soon they would be able to fill church positions, eager to make money, never realizing what infants they are in the science and art of singing. Impatience occasionally takes the form of antagonism and interferes with their studies. Sometimes I tell them of church vacancies and they apply. After competing with other singers, they either get disgusted and give up altogether, or else study patiently until ready for public work. Other pupils who sing well enough to please a host of lenient friends, producing closed-up throaty tones, resent having these pet tones brought out of their hiding place to be nurtured, doctored, and thoroughly renovated, and when away from the teacher, will still use them. The new way of producing tones is not acquired quickly and does not sound well to them at first, and in their own hearts they doubt it ever will; so they take their lessons, secretly humoring their old way of producing tones, and in consequence, make little progress. All these things are hard to combat, and a teacher should never be held responsible for the singing of a pupil unless at least two years of work has been done. Less time is unfair. Often three years of almost daily lessons are required to get out of old habits and into the right method.
A teacher's eye and ear should be so sensitive to the faintest error of tone emission that its position will be located almost before it is produced, thus preventing false muscle movement. Here I wish to say that pupils should guard against teachers who take advantage of their ignorance and assign songs far too advanced for their ability -- such as songs from operas -- until they have had at least two-and-a-half to three years of training, as this will ruin the best voice in the world if continued.
If one has any voice at all, he has probably sung more or less all of his life, and consequently has many years of bad habits to overcome. Correct tone production must become a confirmed habit -- a part of your very being -- before your thoughts are free to focus upon other deep and absorbing work in the art of singing. In other words, the instrument must be perfect before you can learn to play upon it. Each tone must be equal in volume and quality. You must know how each tone is going to sound before you produce it -- leaving nothing to chance. Perfect control, under all circumstances, must be within your power. A teacher should put you in a groove and faithfully watch and guide you until your voice widens into a great expanse and all danger of slipping out of it has passed. Then comes the interesting work for the pupil (though it is all interesting to a good teacher), when ambition and enthusiasm may be encouraged.
Americans have excellent voices, as a rule, despite their nasal and throaty tendencies, which, with perseverance and correct teaching, can be overcome. Freed from these faults, Americans are invariably good pupils, and often possess individualities that make their voices characteristically beautiful, if carefully and gently treated. Forcing the voice to conform to rigid rules is detrimental to its individuality and is extremely wrong. Individuality must be retained and controlled. Each pupil must be studied if justice is to be done, no two mouths or throats being shaped alike."
*Addendum: I can also see how this essay might give an aspiring singer hope. Perhaps you don't have one of the largest voices. Well, Mme. Williamson -- trained by Mathilde Marchesi, whose own teaching methods were praised by Rossini -- says that even "a small voice, beautifully educated, with the right temperament as a motive power, will make a career." Yours doesn't have to be a blow-out-the-stadium sort of voice to be a worthy one.
