LONDON - When he was 23, Paul Robeson attended law school and played
football, professional singing still a few years in the future.

A 23-year-old Londoner, Rodney Clarke, who sounds like a young Robeson,
sang in Wigmore Hall today, to tremendous, well-deserved applause.

Although his official debut may take some time, there he was, singing
Charles Stanford's "To the Soul," to Walt Whitman's complex, magnificent
text, and then gave a rip-roaring performance of George Gershwin's "Just
Another Rhumba," bringing out every nuance of Ira Gershwin's wicked text.
Appearing as member of a spectacular master class, Clarke was lauded and
embraced by the man whose name on the program attracted a full house.

Thomas Hampson - whose opera performances, recitals, lecture-demonstrations
and teaching have all been in the headlines for many years - headed a
master class that was the most exciting and rewarding such event in my
experience.  I've seen others correct, censor, approve, modify, improve
the work of their young charges.  Hampson did all that and something
significantly more:  he inspired, made a difference, created lasting
impressions.

Seven super-talented postgraduates of the Royal College and Royal Academy
of Music took part in the event - an all-American program - sponsored by
the Association of English Singers and Speakers.  Hampson - on fire, and
stretching the planned two-hour event to over four - changed and improved
every one of them on the spot.

With emphasis on communicating the essence of music, taking risky and
ultimately effective shortcuts to remedy physical problems, and bringing
vast knowledge and enormous love of music to the students and to a
fascinated, happy audience, Hampson provided education and support to the
singers, education and entertainment to the listeners.  He decried "the
morbid preoccupation with celebrity" as audiences discuss star singers and
can't remember the music they performed, and called for "getting back to
why we sing in the first place."

Hampson spent the least time with Clarke because there was the least need
for improvement.  In spite of being the second-youngest participant in the
Sunday event, Clarke is among the most experienced among them, with opera
and concert performances and eight major prizes in the past three years.

Hampson worked with him about diction and posture, advised Clarke - as he
did with some of the others - "not to let the lips hang on the teeth" and
tried to move him off from a rather rigid stand.  Hampson had spectacular
successes in the same department with others tonight - instant, dramatic
improvement in posture and breathing - but Clarke stayed with his stance
pretty much.  After he brought the house down with the Gershwin, Clarke
escaped Hampson's more invasive treatment.

The other participants:

* Mezzo Julianne Young, 26, born in Scotland, raised in Cape Town. She sang
"Crucifixion," from Samuel Barber's "Hermit Songs."
* Baritone Jared Holt, 26, from New Zealand - Barber's "There's nae Lark"
and "Solitary Hotel."
* Soprano Martene Grimson, 22, from Sydney - Barber's "Nocturne" and
"Nuvoletta."
* Mezzo Alexandra Sherman, 25, Russian-born, from Melbourne - Charles Ives'
"The Circus Band" and "Tom Sails Away."
* Soprano Claire Surman, 28, from London - Barber's "Sure on this shining
night."
* Baritone Shannon Foley, 24, from Queensland - Copland's "I bought me a
cat."

This last song, with its imitations of animal sounds, was performed
hilariously by Foley in the first place, and then became an unprecedented
duet.  Hampson first gave a quick "American lesson" to the Australian
singer, then asked him to repeat the song, leading him in a walk around
the stage, feeding Foley the lines in form of questions.  The result was
an instant mini-drama, utterly natural "singing speech," just the way
Copland must have heard it when he created it.

Movement was a key element in Hampson's work.  He spent a half an hour
reversing Sherman's slight leaning forward, by making her realize that she
is "excessively right-handed," and when she was made to stomp her feet, the
left was much weaker.  There came a public lecture about anatomy:  when
Hampson asked Sherman to sing with one finger pointed to the top rib and
one to the bottom one, instructing her to "get your ribs out of your hips,"
the audience laughed, and had to face by the consequence from the stern -
if entertaining - teacher.

He asked everyone to rise and explore the position of the ribs.  Many
audience members realized for the first time that these cover a lot of
territory - from the collar bone to numbers 11 and 12, moving unattached
and in the neighborhood - indeed - of the hips.  The audience might have
gotten some knowledge out of this, but the singer - her throat opening up,
shoulders held back by Hampson, face squeezed, sounded vastly different
and better than just a few minutes ago.

Hampson's focus on language, the effective communication of his own love
for the poetry used in the songs made a big difference.  Holt, for example,
sang Barber much better after Hampson's loving emphasis on the l's in
"lark," "loves" and "lift." "Consonants are your friends," he added a
practical point to his advocacy of poetry.

Hampson - who uses no jargon, despises the words "relaxed" and "support,"
and insists absolutely on clear communication of the text and the music -
insisted on "beginning the music before singing it." He stopped the
student accompanists time and again as he demanded to know:  "Was he
(or she) ready, did you hear that he already sang in his head?" Hampson
heard clearly - what the musicians and the audience realized only on the
retakes - that the pianist just started playing when the time came.  "If
you don't hear the music and breathe into it before you begin, you're only
reproducing notes," he told pianists and singers repeatedly.  Along some
amusingly strange statements - "Anglo-Saxon women don't know how to say a's
and e's" - Hampson also illuminated simple, useful truths:  "In speaking,
you separate wovels, in singing, you don't."

He quizzed all singers about the text of the songs, their origin, meaning,
significance.  Few singers did well on that, but when Hampson worked
through the text with them, adding background and anecdotes, performances
improved immediately and a great deal.

The most significant - and moving - change occurred when Hampson combined
his attention on the physical, the text, and the sincerity of presentation.
Surman (and her pianist, Lindy Tennent-Brown) did a fine initial
presentation of "Sure on this shining night," but Hampson was relentless
about getting more from both of them.

He helped to correct Surman's posture by making her lift a chair while
singing, he conducted and sang to the pianist, he had them repeat the
brief work over and over again, explained the deepest meaning of the poet,
took apart the text and virtually made love to each word, roared that "the
wonder of the return of the stars is infinitely more important than singing
phrases" - and then, after what seemed both a lengthy agony and instant
action - the performance became transformed and Surman's originally
competent singing now brought tears to many eyes.

For four and a half hours, a mastersinger imparted his art to young artists
who will surely follow Hampson in his footsteps.  At the very end, he told
the singers - whom he never met before - that he wants them to keep in
touch and ask him for whatever assistance they may need.  He clearly meant
it.

Janos Gereben/SF
In Europe to 11/22
www.sfcv.org