When a Show Permanently Damages a Performer's Singing Voice.. — Page 2

Oh my God, I never heard that something like that could happen, let alone the chances. A feather wrapping itself around something way back in your throat. I heard the Cariou story before and as for some other cases, I doubt it was the score of a show that damaged the performer, but rather their technique in a lot of cases.

---

Pinkins is hoarse, and throaty on the recording of Caroline... I think she played the entire run with that voice... very painful at times... but somehow... somehow it worked.

God knows I'm not a fan of raspy, forced, painful singing, but maybe because her soul was actually on stage, for all to see, I didn't mind.

Sutton in Little Women... the musical director kept on making her straight tone and completely BELT those E's in Astonishing. The woman's not God. Only a demi-god.

Amy Spanger is interesting.
In TTB, she was screachy, and and bit forced.
In Kiss Me, Kate! She was in full voice, and singing incredibly well, and when I saw her in Wedding Singer, she was having vocal problems on a song that wasn't necessarily difficult. (Less so than KMK or TTB).
Hmph.

Anything Can Whistle kind of ruined Angela's belt. She's strainging a bit on the OBC (which I lost and I am NOT happy), but she couldn't really do it when the Sondheim Tribute came along. She never really belted again.. never as clear and fresh as she did on the ACW OBC.

---

The Anyone Can Whistle recording was made quickly the day after the show closed. Yes, Lansbury is a bit raspy here and there, but I don't think she suffered any permanent damage. She certainly sounds great on Mame, Dear World, Gypsy and Sweeney Todd...

Surprised that no one has yet mentioned Nathan Lane in The Producers. To have to sing, scream, clown around as much as he had to and THEN, go and sing "Betrayed" so late in the show...

---

Grrrr. Beat me to it, smaxie. Nathan Lane jumped to mind immediately.

In the case of Idina Menzel, if you listen to the various performances Wicked did in public over the course of the run (Letterman to the Tonys) you can DEFINATELY hear a change in her voice, and not necessarilly for the better. Love or hate the show, Idina worked her *ss off with a spotless performance record... and that's bound to do something to your voice. I agree that the damage doesn't sound like it was permanent, but at the time I was assuming she would take a nice, long rest to recover- and she hopped directly in to the Rent movie instead!

As for JLY, I still stand by the idea that the "rasp" people are hearing is intentional. Frankie Valli does this weird growl thing- especially when he was younger (ie: the original recording of "Big Girls Don't Cry")- and John has been emulating that. You can argue that the cast recording sounds much different from the Tony performance, but I think at the time of the cast recording John just hadn't added that aspect to his vocal performance yet. When the album is recorded before you've performed a single preview in New York, things are bound to change.

---

Pretty much everyone who played Rutledge in "1776" during the original run had vocal problems and ultimately had to leave because of them.

I remember feeling terrible when I was playing the part years later, until I asked Mary Bracken Phillips, who had replaced Betty Buckley in the original Broadway show. She told me they ALL had trouble with it. Every single one.

The problem is that it's a one-act musical, and no matter how well or how much you warm up before the show begins, if you're playing Rutledge, you basically sit relatively quietly on stage with a line here, a line there, and a bit of singing (not much to speak of)... and then comes your big 11 o'clock moment, which consists of about a 6-minute-long rant, power-belt song, and vocal slave auction that stops the show. It's a "let it loose" mini-marathon, and you really have to shake the rafters with it to pull it off effectively.

...And then you walk off the stage and (basically) collapse when it's done.

It has to do with the show's construction more than anything, and no amount of vocal training or preparation is going to help you with that. You sit in silence for 90 minutes, and then bellow and moan for 6 minutes solid.

It's kinda like not talking for an hour and a half, and then singing Sweeney Todd's "Epiphany" full-out.

I worked very carefully with my own voice teacher (who was formerly with the New York City Opera), and he did his best, but said, basically, quit the show and your voice will get better. He helped as much as he could, but short of me doing "warm-ups" ON STAGE while the show was going on, he said he couldn't help.

I'm sure the specific difficulties of other roles mentioned have played into the problem, just as much as bad vocal technique.

---

---

I worked with Len Cariou when he appeared in "Dance A Little Closer". His voice was clearly in bad shape. I remember, when he sounded bad in rehearsals, people would say, "Len always sounds like that in rehearsals, he'll be fine in previews." When he sounds bad in previews, people said, "he'll be fine by opening night." On opening night he still couldn't sing it, and we closed.

I think Sweeney had a lot to do with it, but also Len was a hard drinking kind of guy. He would sound crummy during a preview, then go to a party after the performance and drink scotch. He never seemed aware that he was having problems, and everyone was too afraid of him to mention it.

---

I've read multiple times that the feathers happened Charity, come on now. There is a HUGE difference from her voice on the Charity OBC and her other recordings.

Then I thought during Chicago she had a throat infection.

Searching google "Gwen Verdo throat infection" all the results seem to relate to Chicago
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gwen+verdon+throat+infection&btnG=Google+Search

And then the feathers seem to relate to Charity
http://www.angelfire.com/musicals/gwenverdon/quotesgwen.html bottom of that page

LeeFlower, that is a very interesting post about Len!

Jennifer Holliday's voice has never been the same since Dreamgirls. Her year plus singing that score the way she did has done PERMANENT damage to her voice. She's now singing everything down a few keys. (Yeah, I know, she's getting older - but she still doesn't have the oomph she used to) She never should have been doing 8 shows a week. 5 or 6 MAXIMUM.

---

c'mon now, it's a given that no one should be singing 8 shows a week, no matter who you are. It's just not healthy. Isn't that one of the biggest arguments in the opera v. musical theatre debates? All the opera based voice teachers I've had have always made a strong point about how it's just not good for any performer to be singing so much 8 times a week for months on end. Maybe it's just my corner of the world that people feel that way...

What's the story with Ann Reinking? I've never heard that one

---

How is DRS ruining Norbert's voice? Is isn't a very vocally demanding role, at least it doesn't seem to be. The only real "song" that Freddie sings is the ending song and "Love Is My Legs."

Let's not forget that he has to do a lot of screaming, and he sings a lot during the show. A lot of his lines are meant to be said in an obnoxious way, which are much different than he normally speaks. Obviously something is vocally demanding or else he wouldn't have developed that node.

>>That is actually much more known story than the Reinking one. Which is another sad story, but I didn't know what show that happened during.

I take it you mean Ann...what did happen to her voice? It was lovely in "Annie" and then I heard her sing later on and it was a lot raspier than I remembered it being.