"When I was a boy, I was especially fascinated by his stamina, as during the Schmiede-lieder, later by the beautiful sense of style - when I got to know him personally, by his decisiveness and intelligent intuition. Together with Wolfgang Windgassen, he belongs to the most characteristic Wagner tenors of the second half of the 20th century - a phenomenon - in Flanders a unique artist" (GERARD MORTIER)
The beginning
One is born a singer. The voice that you were born with can only be trained. Because my parents were musical, I had lessons in solfège from the age of seven. I had to interrupt these studies because World War I had started. My mother engaged in espionage, which resulted in her and her husband ending up in a concentration camp. I learned a trade and became an art furniture maker. But in parallel with my education, I continued studying because Renaat Veremans had heard me somewhere. He said: "You are a white raven, you must come with me to Hendrik Diels". That was the conductor of the Antwerp opera at the time. I sang a bit and director Sterckens asked if I could sing the cavatine from Faust. Diels was so impressed that he advised me to continue my training. I was then taught by Steurbout and around 1935 my teacher was Weynants, who also taught Queen Elizabeth. I also got to know her and she later arranged for me to be placed in a company during World War II where I could continue my studies. Weynants was an excellent teacher, but his specialty was oratorio. He wanted to mould me into a countertenor. But I myself felt that this did not suit me at all. All this eventually brought me to the opera in Antwerp, where I performed small roles from 1941 on. At the end of the Second World War the opera was closed for safety reasons, because Antwerp was ravaged by the flying bombs. When the Flemish opera reopened in 1945, I was permanently engaged and sang the major parts.
The troupe
At the Royal Flemish Opera, we sang in Dutch back then, but it was often a strange state of affairs, because the translations were downright bad as the words had to fit the notes. When it was really bad, I would concoct my own text, Dutch and words from the original mixed together. I was very much aware of what was happening on the opera scene abroad, and rarely was I satisfied with what was happening in Antwerp, but I was always very collegial. I lived in an ivory tower. I closed myself off from my surroundings. I made sure that there was nothing to criticize about myself. Thanks to this commitment I did not fall into a rut and later I was able to start an international career as a soloist.
The Antwerp opera was a repertory company. We had a permanent troupe and we covered a very wide repertoire. In the course of my career, I rehearsed about eighty roles in this way. At the beginning of the season the director told us what we had to sing. Then we started to rehearse our parts. After a while you were called to the first rehearsal director and he listened to the result of your work. This was followed by several sessions in which we continued to work on the part. I myself felt after a while that it would be better if I had a personal coach. I knew that Father Cluytens (the father of the famous conductor André Cluytens) had retired and when I asked him to work with me, he was very excited. Father Cluytens was particularly accomplished. He would read from sheet every score in all seven keys. For years he worked with me. He had a nervous habit, I remember. Whenever we got to a difficult note, or a sixteenth note, I would see him shake his head a little more, so I knew I had to be careful. He had a screeching voice, but that didn't prevent him from giving excellent advice. In that way, I was a bit on the outside of the normal organization of the company.
After studying with the rehearsal director, there followed a lecture for the full ensemble. Usually the conductor then explained the meaning of the piece. Then we continued working, because we now had a better idea of the interpretation the conductor had in mind. This was followed by the first rehearsal on stage, where we sang with the score in our hands. This lasted as long as the singer was unsure of his part. In the next phase, the director gave instructions on the movements we had to make. On the italiènne, where the orchestra is in the pit and the singers are in a row on the stage, we were asked to sing with full voice to enable the conductor to achieve a balance. At the pre-general rehearsal, when we all knew where to go and where to stand, there were already a number of singers who were also wearing their costumes. It wasn't until the dress rehearsal that everyone was fully dressed. At that point we saw for ourselves what the spectacle ultimately looked like.
If you had a complicated historical costume, you would only wear it for the third time at the première: you were not really used to it. In most cases, however, I wore my own costume. The reason for that was that my wife was a fashion teacher, and liked to design clothes. She would show her designs to the director, and if he approved them, my wife would then carry them out. I also had my own costume with me when I went on tour, and I remember performing as Tannhäuser in Paris in a production where my costume was out of tune, because Paris at that time was much more old-fashioned in its views.
In Antwerp, a heroic tenor had to perform sixty times a year. Beyond that he was allowed to go wherever he wanted, so that I could go abroad to do some singing, for example. That requirement of sixty performances was largely theoretical, by the way. We never had to sing twice in a row. So we sang no more than three times a week. You could perform in three different operas in one week, if those parts were part of your repertoire. When Bolotine was director, she wanted me to finish seventeen roles in one season. That, of course, was unrealistic. Per season I had mastered six to seven roles; these ranged from Egmont by De Boeck to Wagner. If a colleague fell ill, there was always someone ready to jump in. Every day before twelve o'clock you had to come and see what was going to happen that night.
I was not happy with that system and I have to quote Lorenz who said: How can there be communication between singers who find out at such short notice who their partners are? I myself once experienced that I was getting ready in the box without knowing who my partner would be. The most stunning example was in Aida, where I saw my beloved for the first time on stage: I was shocked to see that she was a black singer with a huge wig and quite a bit taller than I was. All evening we stayed as far away from each other as possible so it wouldn't get too ridiculous. Once I was sitting in the box by the make-up table, when there was a knock on the door: there was the conductor, whom I saw for the first time, although a few moments later we had to perform an opera together. The only thing he asked me was: Do you sing with or without cuts? I started to resent such situations, so I finally resigned. You see, I sang Parsifal for twenty-four years in a row (which is quite an achievement), but every year I wanted to prepare for the role. However, I found too little understanding for doing so, because the management felt that I knew the part already anyway and I didn't need extra-time for an additional rehearsal. I don't have to tell you how wrong that view is. I'm a perfectionist and I don't like routine. That often led to conflicts.
Max Lorenz
Shortly after the war, Max Lorenz, the singer I most admired, had come to Ghent to sing Tristan. The Ghent house was quite often troubled by strikes, and that's what happened at that time also. So Lorenz was free, and a colleague told him that a good hero tenor was singing in Antwerp. Lorenz came to listen and after the second act he stepped into my box and he said, "Mein Lieber, was haben Sie eine schöne Stimme." My wife invited Lorenz and his wife to come and stay with us in Antwerp. Lorenz accepted because he was tired of hotel rooms. My wife then immediately suggested that while he was with us, Lorenz would teach some classes and he accepted. This was to be the beginning of a long friendship. I followed him for sixteen years: I visited him in Berlin, Paris, Wiesbaden, Munich, Salzburg and, of course, in Bayreuth. On these trips I also got to know Lorenz's colleagues, mostly Wagner interpreters such as Kirsten Flagstad, as well as conductors such as Elmendorff, Erich Kleiber, Günther Wand, etc. So I worked personally with Lorenz. Lorenz taught on a regular basis. Great singers came to study with him: Del Monaco, James King, Nicolai Gedda. From Bayreuth, Wolfgang Wagner asked if Lorenz would coach Mario del Monaco for the role of Siegmund. But no matter how hard they worked together, the project ended in failure.
Lorenz, the teacher
Lorenz always talked about the Kopfstimme. He had a voice that was beautiful in the high range, but it lacked depth. That was because he was always working with the Kopfstimme. "Good things come from above," he said. You were never allowed to sing to the outside, he told me, something I didn't understand at first. "You must not sing toward the audience, but away from the audience. You have to think that the sound you produce continues to flow constantly at all times. The sound must stay inside." Between the sternum and the nose there is a capital that you had to use very sparingly as a singer. A young singer might be surprised by such words. But Lorenz was absolutely right. We have two main soundboards: the front soundboard and the back of the head. Lorenz stated that the back of the head allows the sound to vibrate well. So the sound we make always continues to vibrate. If you produce the sound inside and let it resonate in the back of the head then the ear tips sing along, as the Germans say. In that way you also become indefatigable. The use of the Kopfstimme naturally relies on diaphragmatic breathing. The breath comes from the bottom. The deeper you think the breath, the better, because then the whole body resonates along. You take care to exclude the vocal cords as much as possible. When I hear people talk about registers, I hear theories that are completely out of date. We have a voice, a head and a body, the message is: sing with that. You cannot allocate the vocal cords, which are an inch and a half long, to all those registers. A chest register, they say, reaches from one note to another. If you get to the highest note, then you need a transitional note. But those transition notes don't exist, because those notes are different with each teacher. I consider this a completely outdated view. In the process, it sounds unnecessarily complicated. For me, only the vocal line exists. In life you should make everything you do as simple as possible. That was exactly the system Lorenz was working on: there is the diaphragm, the head note, the legato and nothing more.
Tristan
Lorenz knew that I myself would be singing Tristan, and we talked an extraordinary lot about that role. He taught me how to make-up for it. Lorenz had composed a character, and we assumed that this was the ideal image of the role. So I tried to imitate his Tristan look. Max Lorenz went back to the original text for Tristan. The Dutch singer Urlus had changed the score quite a bit to make it easier. Urlus avoided the too high notes in this way. Lorenz, of course, resisted that, and that was often what our conversations were about. When I went through Tristan with Lorenz, he would concentrate on the most difficult sections and show me how to sing them with ease. For example, he always started with the third act, also because he felt that singers often left too little time for the end of the score. In that study we were very much involved emotionally. We were always very moved at the death of Tristan, also because Lorenz sang it so movingly. The tears were in our eyes because Lorenz was a man of emotion.
The body of the singer
Lorenz was a fantastic actor: the first thing he asked me was to try to elicit a reaction with my back. Even if you had a big coat on, the back had to be able to be expressive. In addition, he insisted on big and elegant movements. He could spend hours on the position of a finger. He pointed out to me that my eyes were too small, and taught me how to make up to compensate for it. He also initiated me into the elaborate ritual of greeting. That's how Lorenz molded me, and when a critic later remarked: What happened to Vercammen, because there's a completely different personality on the scene, that was simply the result of Lorenz's lessons.
Lorenz, the Emperor
In everyday life Lorenz was an emperor: he had a couple of beautiful villas, one near Munich, another near Salzburg. All these years I lived in that Wagnerian atmosphere: you live with Siegfried, with Siegmund. I myself, like my teacher, wanted to exude authority. I also sensed that the childless Lorenz couple considered me a kind of son.
The first Tristan
For my first Tristan, I worked in Antwerp with the director Hartleb, and things worked out well between us. I was given a year's time by director Bolotine to study the part. Our conductor was Appel, who came from what was then East Germany. At the first meeting Hartleb asked: What do you think about Tristan? I myself had gathered a lot of information about the piece: I had read, I had gone to see performances. I considered all this as part of the preparation. I never asked much of my colleagues in Antwerp. I thought that in order to learn well you have to go to the source and therefore I always went looking for the experts myself. All this entailed that I had formed an image of Tristan. Hartleb then entered into a dialogue with me, providing his own vision, something I found very inspiring. During rehearsals I had to sing continuously, and Hartleb would dissect the text word for word. While that was happening in Antwerp, I was working on the role under Lorenz's direction, something Hartleb was fully aware of. Besides, he had a great respect for the singer, and much of what I had learned there was incorporated into the interpretation. I had fully mastered the Tristan role and sang it countless times. I enjoyed working with different directors who understood and respected the work. I don't like the current generation of directors. I think I would have a lot of problems, because the "why" of much of what I see on stage now remains unclear to me. A director has to believe in the work. From that comes a respect for the actor. When directors want to impose their ideas, the crazier the better, they go overboard.
The heroic tenor
I have been most successful with Tristan. It is said that Tristan is a particularly difficult part, and it is, but after a performance I could immediately start again vocally, and I owe that to Hartleb and Lorenz, who had prepared me so splendidly. After a performance, I would go home with my wife, and unable to break the spell of the music, we would listen to a recording all night long. In those periods I became the character myself, although that is a dangerous statement, because I remember a singer once telling me: Twice in my career I have been so wrapped up in my character that afterwards I was afraid of myself. In Antwerp, director Baeyens claimed that the choir sang better when I was on stage, because I was so strongly imbued with the character that I dragged everyone along with me. By doing so, I inspired the others. I was greatly helped in all this by my wife. From the moment I got up in the morning I was Siegfried, or Loge, or Parsifal. I lived with it, and in that way prepared my performance. It is strange to say this, but had I been told then to make fire like Loge from Rheingold, I would have done it. The death of Tristan seemed to me like my own death. You have to have extraordinary strength to be able to deal with that. The physical condition is of the utmost importance in this respect, so that you are compelled to live a very strict life. For me, everything was a function of the performance.
Of course I also performed the other Wagner roles: Loge in Rheingold, Siegmund in Die Walküre, the young Siegfried in Siegfried, and the old Siegfried in Götterdämmerung. At some point I sang those roles in a span of ten days. That is a unique achievement for a tenor. In other performances of the Ring, these roles are performed by different singers. Of course this required an enormous physical and mental effort from me, but I was never very aware of that, it was always the others who said how difficult it was.
In Antwerp Isolde Burton also came to listen to me. She was the daughter of Ernest Van Dyck, the Flemish singer who sang Parsifal in Bayreuth. She regarded me as her father's successor and when she died she left me a score of Parsifal in which the complete stage directions were written out, so that you can see from it how the opera was originally staged in Bayreuth.
In Antwerp we had director Karel Schmitz, who learned a lot at performances during the war. The Antwerp society of Wagnerians invited the great singers, and this is how we were able to hear Melchior, Lorenz.... Schmitz sat in the audience and wrote down everything he saw: the staging, the colors of the lighting, everything. With those notes, he made his own staging. Antwerp had the reputation of being the Flemish Bayreuth. That's where I learned that when you play a certain role, you also have to know what lighting is used, so you can make-up accordingly. In those days you had to know that as a singer yourself.
In Antwerp there is the tradition to sing Parsifal every year on Good Friday. I have been doing that for my entire career, starting in 1946, so that I have sung the role almost three hundred times. I not only had the voice for the part, but also the right stature, because I had been a sportsman all my life.
Munich
It was not thanks to Lorenz that I came into contact with Bayreuth and the Wagner family. That was a completely different story. At a certain point I received an inquiry through impresario Beer from Munich, whether I wasn't interested in working as a heroic tenor in Germany. It was right after the war, and Munich was in ruins: the station, the houses, the opera, everything had been destroyed. Fortunately, the Staatsoper still had the small Prinzregententheater, which had remained intact. I went there to sing for Elmendorff and the Wagners. The latter wanted to relaunch Bayreuth and were looking for new singers. I had to sing on the second floor of a house without a front door, with windows that had been nailed shut. The audition went extremely well. Beer then said that I could start in Munich for 800 marks a month. In those days the mark didn't mean much, and in Antwerp I earned two, three times more. It seemed tempting, but my contract stated that I had to do first rate work, even though I would only be paid as second rate. I already had reservations about that. The city wasn't very appealing at the time either. We slept in the best hotel in Munich, but even that was miserable: you had to put a chair in front of the door to close it. In Antwerp we lived in a beautiful patrician house and I had an excellent contract. So the exchange Antwerp-Munich was difficult. I knew that it would be very difficult to be among the first rank in Germany. I was afraid of German chauvinism. I decided not to sign the contract. You might think that by being so cautious I was actually sacrificing a career, but nothing could be further from the truth, because later I sang in Strasbourg, Paris, Bordeaux, Cologne, Frankfurt and I received an offer from the Metropolitan. But I never regretted having stayed in Antwerp for many years.
The Wagner family
At the auditions in Munich I met the Wagners. Later Wagner invited me to perform Loge from Rheingold. In the summer I went on a vacation to Obersdorf, and there I was taking lessons from Kammersängerin Mimi Poensgen. She based her method on the old Finnish-Russian system. Each voice had to seek support on the larynx. It is killing for a voice, which is not used to this kind of support. So for me it was the wrong approach, but that course still had a good outcome because Poensgen was a consultant in Bayreuth. She arranged for me to sing in Bayreuth. I arrived there and I saw a long line of people standing along the side wall of the theater. I knew Eichner then, and through him I was allowed to go into the auditorium to listen along. I saw Fritz Wunderlich on stage, but after a few bars of Bohème, he was allowed to stop with a 'Danke schön' and it was the next candidate's turn. I walked up to Eichner and said, "I didn't come all the way from Antwerp to sing two bars, I'm returning home." And I left. Later I got a letter from Wolfgang Wagner apologizing, but in Bayreuth I never went to sing.
With Bayreuth I had a lot of contacts later thanks to Lorenz. I got to know the different members of the Wagner family. After World War II, a war for control of Bayreuth raged. Winifred, a tall, bulky woman who was a chain-smoker, wanted to remain in charge, but she was fiercely opposed by the daughters-in-law in doing so. The result was that Wolfgang took charge. When we sat in the ballroom at the opening night of Bayreuth, the éminence grise, Winifred, sat at the head of the table. The tension there was palpable, for the family members did not look at each other. Because of our contacts we were able to attend the festival every year, and I experienced all the great stagings and performances.
I knew, of course, that I was not working in ideal circumstances in Antwerp, and that the orchestra could not be compared to that of Bayreuth. We had a good orchestra in Antwerp until it was dominated by the trade union. Then came nothing but rules and regulations. One evening when we were rehearsing the Walküre, we were two pages from the end. In the orchestra there was suddenly a cutting si: the sign that time was up. Everything fell silent, and we could forget that last page. I have always said that this was the end of the orchestra. At some point we performed Reinaert de Vos by Welfkens. During the italiènne, a few musicians stood straight up at the start, and the conductor couldn't start. What was the problem? The musicians didn't have a chair, and the technicians didn't have the task of finding a chair. The rehearsal could not start until the conductor himself found enough chairs. A director stayed for only a few years, because that depended on party politics within the city: every three years someone else came, and each time from a different political party. Only Renaat Verbrugge stayed much longer, but that did not prove to be a blessing for the opera itself. All this led to my decision to leave the Antwerp opera forever in 1969.
International career
In 1958 the Paris opera was interested in my Parsifal. The two directors, Hirsch and Bondeville, came to Antwerp to make contact. But the opera was not keen on that idea. When the French gentlemen asked for tickets, they were told that everything was sold out. But they had gone to Antwerp anyway, and managed to get a seat. After the performance, these two gentlemen were waiting for me outside in the cold at the stage entrance. I was surprised that they had not come to see me in my box, but I learned that people had been posted at all the exits to prevent anyone from coming to see me. But whatever the directors tried, they had failed. Their motive in doing so was that it would harm Flanders Opera if they lost me. However, I did not accept the wonderful French proposals, because I wanted to stay in Antwerp for my children. I went to Paris and I was able to talk the management into allowing me to sing some roles as a pensionary at the Grand Opéra de Paris on a regular basis. I sang Tannhäuser there on several occasions. At the Opéra Comique I sang Turiddu from Cavalleria Rusticana.
Paris
What was new for me was being welcomed in as a celebrity. When I arrived in Paris, I was immediately introduced to the press. I was interviewed, about my career, about my vision of Tannhäuser. In Belgium I had never experienced anything like it. I was introduced to the company in a remarkable way. At the Opéra Comique there was an appointment for a regular rehearsal of Cavalleria Rusticana. On stage was the chorus, although it had nothing to do, because the chief Forrestier asked me to sing the serenade of Turiddu, one of the most difficult pages in the repertoire. I felt I was being tested. Afterwards, the musicians knocked on their uprights and the choir applauded: I had been accepted as a "real" tenor. I was given the box of Georges Thill in the opera, which was also quite an honor. When I went there the first evening, I saw that on the table all the necessary things for my make-up were displayed: that was a gift from the management for the new celebrity.
Other than that, the atmosphere was very casual, and rehearsals were poor. The choir never rehearsed in the morning, only from three to five. If it didn't get ready, there was some rehearsal in the evening between breaks for entrances and exits. In Paris I could have performed for a long time, but the two directors got involved in a big financial scandal, and they had to go. In Strasbourg I experienced the absolute opposite of the somewhat sloppy working method in Paris. The director Lalande was a musical maniac. Every day there was a rehearsal. At ten o'clock in the morning each performer found a letter in the letterbox with instructions: the steps you had forgotten to take, the hand that had moved too early. He was extremely strict, but then the results were also very good.
Bis and Assez
In Marseille, I encountered a very different habit. They asked me to sing Don José. Before the première, the dresser asked me if I had already spoken to the chief of the claque. I said, 'no, I haven't seen that man.' You'd better,' he said. A little later someone knocked on the door, and he greeted me with 'Bonjour, Fifi'. And he disappeared again. 'That's the chef de claque,' the dresser told me. 'If you get on well with him then there's no problem, in the other case, you'll just be carried off the stage.' 'What happens then, if I disappear?' 'Oh well, there's already another tenor ready, the performance will go on as usual.' Everything was going very smoothly, until the flower aria, where I heard someone shout, 'Assez'. I asked the Carmen what was happening. 'Stay put,' she whispered, 'and wait.' There was a real shouting competition going on in the hall between two groups, and it went from 'bis' and 'assez'. The conductor himself, of course, knew what the ploys were. He didn't bother, and put down his baton to wait and see what the result of all that turmoil would be. And when all was over, with a victory for the bis callers, he said, "Monsieur le ténor, recommencez s'il vous plait". And I had to sing the aria again. A triumph. When I walked out people tried to cut my tie off, everyone fell into my arms. I sang Parsifal, Carmen, Samson et Dalila many times abroad, because I had a much broader repertoire than the Wagner operas, but Tannhäuser I performed most often.
The singer
As a singer, I enjoyed singing all styles: I was Idomeneo, Samson, Andrea Chénier, I particularly enjoyed singing Wagner, I lovingly interpreted Flemish operas such as Princess Sunshine. The many Flemish operas I sang have now been forgotten, and I regret that. I would like to see scores like Quinten Massijs by Wambach or Princess Sunshine by De Boeck given another chance in the Antwerp opera. The style comes from the music, and if you sense it well, then you should be able to interpret the score. But you also have to know exactly what you can and cannot handle. Wagner never posed any problems for me: I had the ideal voice for it, but Puccini was not for me. Turandot, despite much insistence, I never wanted to sing, and I am convinced it would have been a disaster. For the Zauberflöte I didn't have the lightness of voice. I think today's singers are too little aware of these limits. Very important is also to address the parts at the right time. I was always very careful. For Wagner, too, you have to do the right thing. It was actually a coincidence, but I rehearsed the Wagner operas in the right order. I first sang Lohengrin (1945), then Parsifal (1946) and Tannhäuser (1946-47). Then came Das Rheingold (1948), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1950-51), Die Walküre (1951), Tristan (1955), Siegfried (1963) and Götterdämmerung (1962-63). The biggest challenge is Lohengrin, because you have to stay very lyrical. The most difficult role is of course Tristan: it demands a lot from the voice, but also from your own psychological commitment. You need at least seven years to learn these different roles.
The pedagogue
In 1953 I became a teacher at the Antwerp Conservatory. Later, director Corbet asked if I didn't want to teach voice pedagogy. In Flanders that was a new field, so I went to Germany to find out from Grümmer, Clettenberg. There's a big difference between singers and actors. Every healthy voice has to be able to sing, so I consider it essential that an actor learns to do that as well. When he speaks, he must be able to place his voice just like the singer. But here a big difference occurs: a stage actor consumes more breath than a singer. The singer knows how to make better use of the soundboards, but the actor can't use that in the same way. For an actor it can take years before he can handle all these elements correctly.
While I was teaching, I discovered that teaching gave me great satisfaction, and now I still do it with the same enthusiasm. I can also still sing, so that I can show many pupils what I mean. Over the years my technique has grown, and I can now handle my voice and my soundboards very consciously. Singing is based on knowing. Both an actor's speaking and a singer's singing need constant care and improvement. It still keeps me busy all the time. Singing and speaking are never completely finished.