Singers Are Athletes Too…

By Siri Galliano

In New York City, training with Joe Pilates was not a fad, it was a serious self-growth method that had become more important than popular to the singers. The tensions of performing, auditioning, running around catching buses and subways had to be relieved and controlled before delivering an 18th or 19th century aria and a quick 15 minute mat would set them up just right.

“Singers are athletes. If I didn’t do Pilates I would really suffer,” says Mezzo-soprano star Catherine Keene, who recently leased a Gratz reformer to practice by herself while she was on location performing at the Dorothy Chandler in Los Angeles.

Pilates is not new to opera singers. In the October 1951 issue of LIFE magazine, Roberta Peters, America’s Diva Opera Star was featured with Joe Pilates standing on her stomach as she did the Hundreds.

Ms. Peters, who is 78 and resides in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, remembers him quite clearly. “I was sixteen years old and he was on the second floor of an old walk-up. He always wore a tiny men’s bathing suit, had a big open chest and would teach with a cigar hanging from his mouth. I stayed for five years and he was absolutely wonderful.”

Besides standing on her stomach what exercise does she remember most?  “The one I like best, you can’t believe it, was a little windmill with a straw on it. He would have me take a low, low breath. You have no idea how it helped my singing, I could really hold those long notes.”

Another star in her own right, Nedda Casei from the Metropolitan Opera, sent to the studio by her singing coach William Herman, has many memories of Joe, and still has an autographed picture of Joe and Clara on her mantel. She trained with him for seven years three times a week.

“His English was so cute, He wanted to be very stern but was a softy. He shoveled snow in his swim trunks and was bronze all year round with that fabulous white hair, which he attributed to his workout method.”

“He gave us direction, discipline, so many things,” recalls Ms. Casei who translated his mat book into Italian and taught it in Italy and Japan as she traveled the world singing.

“Nothing could keep Joe down and you knew that, he was such a strong character, a powerful man with an enormous energy. He said you could ‘survive anything’ and that is why he called it contrology, self-control. His work, if you took it seriously, could change your life, and he had no time for those who were playing around.”

“In the early ‘50’s refugees of the most superior type, the best artists and scientists came to New York,” recalls Casei, “and the studio was filled with many interesting people, ambassadors, politicians, all the people in the theater, and consul generals from around the world. L awrence Olivier and his wife were there two or three times a week..”

But Joe was concerned about every body. “He always felt badly because he wanted children to start this work. He would stand in the window and watch people and worry about their backs, their feet and their posture and their futures,” she reminisced.

Besides helping her enormously with her own success, Casei credits Joe Pilates with the long life of her mother. “My mom had heart problems, and she suffered a great deal. She would take me to the studio and watch and Joe got her body slowly moving, she did Joe’s calistentics and got better. She did his work until she was 90 and lived to be 102!”

“He was an amazing person, a great asset in my life. He gave me health and a long career, and I pass that along to my students.”

Siri Galliano travels to big and small studios all over the world to teach safety on equipment and the Traditional Work. She is the director of the Traditional Big Bear Pilates Intensive which is being held August 21,22,23 2009 in the mountains of Southern California and can be reached at liveartpilates@earthlink.net.

Tags: joe pilates, Life Magazine, Roberta Peters Opera, siri galliano