How did Franco Corelli teach singing?
This rare interview—excerpted from Franco Corelli and a Revolution in Singing, Volume 3—features operatic historian and tenor Stefan Zucker speaking with Enrique Pina, a longtime student of the legendary Italian tenor Franco Corelli. In this intimate and technical conversation, Pina offers a behind-the-scenes look at Corelli’s vocal training methods, his philosophies on singing, and what it truly took to study with one of opera’s most electrifying voices.
SZ: How do you make that diminuendo?
EP: It’s a result of a floating larynx. I position my larynx midway down and then lower it slightly to make the diminuendo.
SZ: For how long did you study with Corelli?
EP: For six years. I traveled from Rome to Milan every week to take two lessons with him, until he became ill in 2003. The most difficult thing was in the first year and a half, getting the larynx to stay down. It’s like touching your toes: at the beginning your back doesn’t like it. For six months my neck hurt and my voice was unhappy. Corelli said, “You don’t perform with the larynx lowered as far as it can go, but you have to lower it that much at the beginning.” He had me stand in front of a mirror and lower my larynx and the back of my tongue but without singing. For the first eighteen months I didn’t sing songs or arias but only exercises to make the throat muscles stretch and become more flexible, to help lower the larynx and the base of the tongue. In the end he had me lower the larynx all the way for loud high notes but not for notes in the middle voice. By contrast Del Monaco-type singers always keep their larynxes lowered to the maximum. Watching Corelli at His Zenith helped me because it gave me a good view of his larynx in action. “Remain conscious of the distance between your tongue and your soft palate,” he used to say.
SZ: In a radio interview with me Corelli said he believed in smiling while singing. Did he have you smile?
EP: Corelli never had me smile or raise the corners of my lips. He wanted me to sing with my lips covering my upper teeth. “The upper teeth never must be seen,” he said. But he wanted me to bare my lower teeth. On the tape of his 1981 comeback in Newark you can see what he had in mind. He was proud of that performance.
SZ: Many mechanistic teachers train the registers separately and have students sing in falsetto. Did Corelli do this?
EP: No, he did not train the registers separately or have me sing in falsetto.
SZ: Did he teach you a breathing method?
EP: When I came to Corelli I already had one that involved pushing out with the diaphragm. I had learned it from my first teacher, in Santo Domingo. Corelli concluded that my breath support was working well and decided by and large to leave it alone. He wanted my voice to be “seated on the breath”. But on extreme high notes he had me push with my thighs. He was against breathing through the nose, saying that it reduces squillo.
SZ: Olivero told me she always breathes through the nose-and she is not alone.
EP: Corelli maintained that if you breath through the mouth the throat opens automatically, but if you breath through the nose the throat remains closed and it is more difficult to open it.
SZ: When Corelli taught at Opera Music Theatre International some students protested that they didn’t want to study with him because his teaching was too extreme. What was the most aggressive thing he did as a teacher?
EP: He pushed down on my Adam’s apple while I was singing. Many who studied with Corelli didn’t stay long enough to learn his method in depth. He himself said, “It’s not something you can learn in a day. It takes years and requires a great deal of patience.” Corelli made no mistakes with my voice. He never pushed it and never made my throat feel tired. He cared about my voice.
SZ: What was Corelli’s objective?
EP: For every note to have squillo.
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