Jackie Evancho: The Phenomenon

Jackie Evancho:  The Phenomenon

 

 

 

I had to think long and hard to decide how such an article as this, on a 13 year old child, could be framed.  The problem is knottier than I had imagined.  Jackie is a child—a talented one, to be sure, but a girl. She is extremely famous, and almost unbelievably successful.  Does that make her fair game for reviewing?  Some writers and critics have begun to review her work, and I find that to be inappropriate.  I could not and would not do such a thing myself.  I rejoice In her fame and fortune, but I strongly feel she should be left alone to be a little girl  a while longer.  Her day will come.  It’s not even clear what path she will  follow.  Opera?  I doubt it, personally, but I could be wrong.  Theater?  Broadway?  Pop? She just did her first movie, with Robert Redford.  Will she be an actress?  Do you see the problem?  What, exactly, is one reviewing?  I say let’s let her be a little girl while she can!  Later.  Later.

 

I first heard of Jackie in 2009, when her mother wrote to me and sent me a recording of Jackie, then age 9, singing “O Mio Babbino Caro.”  I get a lot of mail of this kind, and I always take it seriously and give it my close attention.  It was immediately apparent that this was an extraordinary voice for a then 9-year old girl.  I remember telling Mrs. Evancho that I was most impressed with the voice, but I doubted the wisdom of letting Jackie sing high Bb’s.  A nine-year-old voice is a VERY delicate thing. Pre-pubertal girls and boys have to be treated with the greatest imaginable care.  I also said that unless my ears deceived me, or unless puberty played a game on us, we were looking at a potential contralto or mezzo here one day.  I recommended the aria be transposed a third down.  I’m happy to say that when Jackie appeared on “America’s Got Talent,” she did sing this aria down a third (minor third, if I recall), and the rest, as they say, is history.  The sound this produced was phenomenal, and it’s that phenomenon, that sound I wish to direct myself to, in a purely analytical way, simply to see if I can touch on something meaningful.  I would only add that I was most impressed with Mrs. Evancho, a careful, caring mother, who explored all the reasonable means at her disposal to get Jackie heard.  She wrote to many people, I was only one of many, and gathered advice.  A careful, sensible procedure.  Jackie was, and remains, in good hands!

 Most of you may have heard it, but the Jackie story really begins with her “America’s Got Talent”  appearance.  Here is a video, viewed by over sixteen million people, of that magic moment:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKhmFSV-XB0

Piers Morgan’s comment, after the aria, “Are you sure you’re not 30,” pretty much sums it up!  That is, of course, what it’s all about.  There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance here.  That teeny, beautiful, 10 year old creature opens her mouth and out comes a near contralto sound.  And this to an audience who had no idea what was coming.  This “Jackie” sound is a result of having developed, early on, what in the voice training business is called a “cupola,”  which is to say a large “hood” in the mouth which results from what is basically a big yawn, creating a kind of echo chamber—an imprecise term, but I’m sure you see the effect I am describing.  It is the quintessential operatic sound.  It is the opposite of that which is open and piercing.  It could also be called “cover,” which in an adult voice is the result of a lowered larynx.  In adults, we are used to it.  Not in 10 year old little girls.  That, simple as it is, is a huge part of the Jackie vocal phenomenon at that age.  It was the ultimate attention-getter.  (And, not coincidentally, one of the benefits of singing in Italian!)

 Let’s change a few factors:  a little more age, go to English, raise the tessitura just a bit:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJb1Eb2uxc&list=ALGLx1orRGw4XP4P3cmxZH3s0MHHktwEaU

 

Very winning!  That doesn’t change.  Suddenly not very operatic, however.  The cover has been lifted slightly—English will do that!  The voice is, correspondingly, “whiter.”  No problem at all, but a slightly different category starts to come to mind (and ear):  “cross-over.”  And this is, in fact, a word used often when describing much of Jackie’s singing.

We need to hear Jackie today.  This is a fairly recent video, and it shows what may—repeat may—be a sign of things to come.  This video is five minutes long, and you may not wish to hear it all, but a couple of minutes will speak adequately to what we are trying to evaluate here, and that is simply a description of the phenomenon:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw7e_qvPgks
 

 

This is pretty straight-forward pop, with a slight cross-over quality on top.  :  whiter voice, much less covered, but remarkably pure.  That is perhaps  the most remarkable thing about Jackie’s voice:  from the beginning, there has not been a single hint of harshness, shrillness, edginess, or faulty intonation.  This makes the matter of the seeming “contralto” sound of age 10 irrelevant.  What we have, consistently, over the period of 3 years, is amazing purity of intonation and quality!  Where the voice will go is not for me to say.  On a guess, I’d say crossover/pop.  If this were the 1930’s, I’d say movie singer.  Whether today’s movie market—I’m thinking of Chloe Moretz in Kickass and Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, inter alia-- will support Deanna Durbin-like singing children is anybody’s guess!  There are trailers on Youtube of “The Company You Keep,” in which Jackie has a part.  The movie is pretty grim.  Jackie’s part is small but important, and she does a good job. Redford was impressed with her.

There are of course other factors in the Jackie phenomenon.  One of the most important is that she is extremely beautiful.  NOT an inconsiderable factor!  Also, she is obviously a very nice kid, being very well raised by her parents.  This shines through in everything she does.  All this makes one mightly little package!  Let’s wish her very well.  She has some tough years to navigate, but given how well she’s handled the last three, and how well her parents have done keeping her centered, my instincts tell me she’ll do just fine! 

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Comments on this particular article can only be accepted if they are written in the spirit of the article itself, which is to say celebratory, not critical.   This is not a review; I will never review the work of children who are currently performing.  Edmund StAustell