Stanislavsky and Voice Training

Abstract

ABSTRACT Quite often, when one evokes the main contributions of the Stanislavsky System, the “method of physical actions” immediately comes to mind. Voice training remains a little-explored area and is often seen as the last step of Stanislavsky’s work in his opera-dramatic studio. The aim of my essay is to show, on the contrary, that voice training was an early preoccupation for Stanislavsky, who places his search for a natural voice in the wake of a Russian tradition born at the dawn of the 19th century. At the beginning of his career, Stanislavsky was primarily concerned with restoring all the nuances and possibilities that the voice has in life, even if this meant breaking with the codes of decency and with theatrical conventions. The voice is treated like a noise in the sound score and like a mood indicator devoid of clichés and based on the nuances of intonation. Then, as he fine-tunes his System, Stanislavsky develops the sound capacities of the voice and details the laws of speech that he has his students work on relentlessly. The combination of singing and acting training in his latest studio is the logical culmination of a research that has always combined work on the voice with work on the body. In the 1930s, the training by “études” leaves the actor free to find the right intonation, the right strength of voice by himself, because rigorous daily training has given him the tools to use them with as much ease as a singer in front of his score.