Creativity Quote by Maureen Forrester

Pretty tone is cheap; intelligibility is the real flex. Maureen Forrester draws a hard line between singing as sonic decoration and singing as communication, and in doing so she quietly rebukes an entire tradition of classical vocal culture that treats words like optional garnish. “Beautiful melodies” reads almost dismissively here, as if she’s heard one too many immaculate, anonymous performances where the vowels are polished and the meaning is missing.

Her intent is practical but also ethical: the singer’s job is not just to ride the line, but to carry the listener across it. The subtext is that technique without text is a kind of betrayal of the art form. Opera and art song are built on narrative, character, argument, flirtation, prayer. If the audience can’t grasp the text, they’re left with mood instead of message, timbre instead of thought.

The line “even in a foreign language” is the tell. Forrester isn’t lowering the bar for translation anxiety; she’s raising it. She’s pointing to diction, phrasing, and emphasis as interpretive labor - the work of making German consonants bite, making French elisions speak, making Italian clarity carry. This is also a democratizing impulse: don’t hide behind the prestige of the unfamiliar. Make it legible.

Context matters: Forrester came up in a mid-century world where big voices and glamorous sound could eclipse textual nuance. Her comment insists that the most sophisticated singing isn’t the most beautiful; it’s the most understood.