By ALEX MANSOORI

At a master class in Room 305 on March 30, Victoria Clark worked with voice students Meredith Lustig and Matthew Morris. (Photos by Jared Slater)

“You don’t have to worry about your voice.” The words echoed off the walls of Room 305 as Victoria Clark looked at the four singers in her master class on March 30. “Is that shocking for me to say to you? I can’t say that to everyone, but you are all technically advanced enough to know that.” This was not the typical speech a singer hears in a master class. But this master class was anything but typical.

If some might think Victoria Clark an odd choice for a vocal master class, they’d be dead wrong. Her training began at Interlochen, included time in Austria with the Italian mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato, and at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz. Soon she moved into the world of directing at N.Y.U’.s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program. A casting director saw her act in a piece there, and offered her an audition for Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George. Since then, she has been working steadily as a musical theater actress. In 2005 she won a Tony for her portrayal of Margaret in Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza, and most recently won rave reviews as Sally in a concert version of Follies.

Ms. Clark started off the class by explaining her background and what the class was going to be like. She described what she works on as “acting while singing,” and though the techniques she teaches are geared toward musical theater, she offered several comments about using them in classical repertoire. She emphasized to the audience that this class was not about performance, but about the process. Her aim was to create a safe environment for the students to take chances. The four singers had each been given an hour with her earlier in the week, to meet and discuss repertoire as well as what would go on in the class. “But,” she said with a little smile, “I did save some goodies for today.” Doctoral candidate in collaborative piano Nate Brandwein was on hand to accompany the singers.

With the introduction out the way, Ms. Clark set to work. One of her main goals was to try and get the singers not to “perform.” This is a common enough idea at vocal master classes, but not all teachers know exactly how to help the singers achieve the desired presentation. Ms. Clark was up to the challenge. To get baritone Matt Morris to appear breathless, she had him sprint down the hall five times and then return to the room and sing the first phrases of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Younger Than Springtime” from South Pacific to soprano Jennifer Sheehan. She got Jennifer to sing “Unusual Way” from Maury Yeston’s Nine as if reliving a past relationship by having Matt act out making her breakfast, an old memory from a past love. Before I sang “I Believe in You” from Frank Loesser’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, she had me give myself a pep talk—which is the actual point of the song itself. The exercises helped the performers delve into the real meanings of the songs and dispense with unnecessary emoting.

Ms. Clark didn’t give any of the other performers a rest, either. Typically in a master class, one singer gets up and sings, works with the teacher, and then sits down, as the other performers wait their turns. Ms. Clark used the singers to help each other out and, hopefully, teach them something in that process as well. When soprano Meredith Lustig sang “The Red Dress” by Ricky Ian Gordon, Ms. Clark asked her to direct it to me, as if I were the old flame whom she missed. At one point she also asked Meredith to imagine that a descending piano phrase was a joke a past lover used to tell, which gave her something to respond to.

During my personal session with Ms. Clark prior to the class, she talked about the importance of connecting to the music, not just to the vocal line. “What is that?” she asked as the piano had a repetitive phrase in “Welcome to the World” from Ahrens and Flaherty’s A Man of No Importance. “That is your heartbeat. I need to see and hear that.” She also discussed the importance of the length of notes, whether in opera or musical theater. “When Mozart writes a half note and a quarter note, it’s not because that’s what he wanted to hear, but how much time you should take to say what you’re saying,” she explained. While working on “I Believe in You,” she had me speak the text while Nate played the accompaniment. She wanted the words to still fit the music without the aid of duration of notes. It made me think much more about what I was actually saying and how to say it.

I enjoyed working throughout the entire class; not only did I stay focused, but it also gave me an up-close view of the work my colleagues were doing. During the class and the various exercises, it was clear that Victoria Clark had one thing she was trying to get us to do while performing: be honest. She admitted that she was the first person to say it’s not easy—but when an artist achieves it, the performance reaches a whole new level. “The fun thing about music is that it has all this deep emotional resonance with text,” she said. “Our job is to add the text in. But you can’t overpower the instincts you have that are based on music.”

Tenor Alex Mansoori is a master’s degree  candidate  in voice.