by A child speaks in complete darkness: “That is my voice.” Clear articulation, delivery only slightly rushed. As we descend in a group through the Linbury Theater auditorium, other voices – older, more obviously gendered – speak the same refrain. Some sound confident (“That is My “Voice,” one trumpets), others less so. Some overlap and speak almost in chorus. All are unmistakably individual.
There are three scrims hanging in the main performance space. “What does it mean to have a voice?” The question appears silently, white writing on black fabric. “And what does it mean to lose it?” In the week that Google released Gemini Live, an AI voice assistant that allows users to have “natural conversations” with its chatbot, and months after Afghan women responded to the ban on female voices in the When the Taliban responded to publicity by posting videos of themselves singing, such problems are critical. But in a space often filled with the sound of highly skilled operatic voices, audience conversations and critical opinions, the questions posed by The Sound Voice Project’s immersive installation are unusually confident.
The answers are given in the form of three short videos, each featuring people with voice loss. In “Paul,” two men, both dressed in a white shirt and black pants, stand and look directly into the camera. The “double aria” they play is like nothing I’ve ever heard. Baritone Roderick Williams sings the long, expressive lines of Hannah Conway’s score, accompanied by the majestic strides of piano chords, as he urges us: “Listen carefully, I will whisper. “Let me sing for you in your dreams.” But with his The operatic voice is that of Paul Jameson, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2017. Jameson’s delivery is slow and careful, with some consonants out of reach. “This is my voice,” Williams sings, “and it sounds to me” – “like my life and my soul,” Jameson adds, effort evident on his face.
Jameson now speaks with an artificial voice based on a recording he made himself several years ago. “My recreated voice is a good likeness,” he told an enthusiastic audience at an Insights event after the first screening in London, “but I promise it wasn’t that boring and monotonous.” Some will probably disagree…” He laughs heartily. But as he explains, “When you lose your voice, it takes away more than just your ability to communicate. You also lose part of your identity, personality and personality.”
Tanja Bage only had a week to prepare for this loss when she was diagnosed with a rare form of throat cancer and told a full laryngectomy was her only option. “Tanja” begins with a video Bage made this week for her two young children in which she explains what happened. “It makes me sad because you’re so little… and you probably won’t remember what mom’s voice sounded like,” she says, smiling weakly. She assures them that she can still read them stories, sing with them, and make silly noises. Her voice is a warm mezzo, her accent is soft Liverpudlian.
Conway’s score features Bage in a duet with soprano Lucy Crowe. Once again, the combination is almost unbearably poignant. But here it is Bage’s “new” voice – expressed as she touches the speaking valve in the back of her neck – that provides comfort, insisting that “I’m fine” in response to Crowe’s painfully melodic pleas: “Take it all, but please don’t.” my voice!”
The intimate connection between voice and identity is so close that the very idea of voice loss is deeply emotional. This installation is not easy entertainment – but it also gives hope. Bage is a member of the Shout at Cancer choir, featured in the installation’s third video, I Left My Voice Behind. All members suffered a loss of votes; Their vocal tone is gritty, even slightly rough, both when speaking and when singing. In Conway’s score, her rhythmic delivery is counterpointed by two cellos. An excerpt from the beginning of Elgar’s cello concerto is played, but it dissolves into pizzicato and Elgar’s music is forgotten. Later, a “digital choir” of their own so-called natural voices is synthesized with blatant artificiality and given the cheeky vocoder sound of late 20th century pop.
What even is a “natural” voice in an age increasingly obsessed with AI? This is nothing new either: Wolfgang von Kempelen carried out his first experiments with “talking machines” well over 200 years ago. Yet there is no denying that we continue to rely on and remain connected to our voices. “Losing my natural voice is one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through,” Bage said in a Radio 4 documentary. “I’ve grieved over it. I’m still grieving about it.”
• The Sound Voice Project is at the Linbury Theater in London until November 20th.
