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I’ve mentioned in this blog before the common (mis)perception that the male voice does not go beyond tenor without, shall we say, surgical intervention.

Recently, while in a hotel restaurant on business, I was eating a fantastic lunch — a nice pumpkin risotto with a glass of white wine, delicious stuff — and about to take a train to the municipal airport to return home when I began listening closely to two businessmen talking about something financial at a nearby table.

I would wager my retirement that the taller, fairer of the two would be a natural male alto. His speaking voice didn’t strike me simply because of its range, but also because of the relatively unremarkable quality of it. It was the sort of voice that one might hear every day, think, “That’s a bit higher than usual,” and then shrug and move on. The sort of “impossible” voice that we’ve all actually heard from time to time without really registering. I can think of one UPS delivery man and one young man I overheard speaking to his girlfriend in an elevator in my living area with similar voices — and this is only in the last few months!

Consider the speaking voices of the following natural male altos (and one male soprano):

Russell Oberlin — billed himself as the only “true” countertenor of his time
Neil Sedaka — yes, the bubblegum pop singer
Steve Perry — yes, the rock singer
Michael Maniaci — male soprano

Now, consider — with the possible exception of Maniaci — how many times you may have heard men with similar speaking voices at work, in supermarkets, in elevators, in restaurants, and perhaps realized that their voices were a bit higher than usual, but nothing beyond that.

I challenge any(!) readers: keep your ears open. Listen. These voices exist; we’ve all heard them. (Even someone with as high a voice as Michael Maniaci; Nature never makes a miracle only once.) Every now and then, one of these voices turns up in the throat of a man with a bent toward music and singing.

And every now and then, it’s accompanied by ambition and talent, and we’re privileged to enjoy what we call a “miracle.”

But the raw materials are far more common than anyone imagines.

Keep your ears open.

For the kid to hit those notes is one thing. His voice hadn’t dropped at that point. But for a 30-year-old male that – by the look of things – had just rolled out of bed and showed up to hit the same notes… even at some point hitting notes higher than the kid. That, to me, is just… special. Hands in pockets, notes pouring out of him like nothing. The poor kid standing there, scared stiff, bless.

Pie Jesu – rehearsals

              I’d rather be baffled than bored by a recording, and a new recording  of songs by Clara Schumann is a baffler. Jörg Waschinski has just released “Ich stand in dunklen Träumen,” a collection of Mrs. Schumann’s lieder on Phoenix Edition. It is a very curious effort.

            Waschinski is a male soprano from Berlin, and there’s nothing surprising in his attraction to the songs of Clara (wife and widow of Robert and for almost half a century the most ardent partisan of his music). And there is nothing surprising in a countertenor or sopranist moving into the romantic lieder repertory. But Waschinski isn’t just singing Clara’s songs, he’s fundamentally rethinking them. The piano accompaniments have been arranged for string quartet, the singing is eccentric, and the disk is presented with the conviction (found in the program notes) that “nearly all the compositions were written at one and the same time for sopranos and male characters.”

            We should be a little skeptical here, especially when the notes also announce that “there have been hitherto no recordings of note” of Clara’s songs. Anyone interested in this repertoire is advised to bypass Waschinski’s disk and start with a Hyperion recording, featuring baritone Stephan Loges and soprano Susan Gritton. The singing is smooth and sensitive and the songs are engaging, sophisticated and emotionally powerful. Loges and Gritton definitely call into question any notion that the songs are adequately served only by sopranos, or that the voice of the poems is easily reduced to fixed gender identities.

            Waschinski’s disk makes a very different and rather bizarre impression. Arranging lieder for instrumental ensemble isn’t new (Lotte Lehmann made some wonderful recordings of Robert’s songs with arranged accompaniments). But the string quartet arrangements heard here tend to  work best for songs, such as the title track or “Die gute Nacht, die ich dir sage,” in which the pace of harmonic motion or piano writing suggest chorale figures. In busier passages, such as the accompaniment to “Das Veilchen” the string quartet (the Aulos String Quartet Berlin) doesn’t add much and is even cumbersome.

              But when you first hear the male soprano with the sustained and somewhat brittle sound of the string quartet, it’s a time warp. The voice sounds old in two distinct ways: like the voice of an aging soprano, and reminiscent of voices captured on early recordings from a century ago.  Which is to say, it is very fey, quaint and otherworldly.

             And so, despite the best efforts of countertenors everywhere to divorce gender from singing—to sing with high but not distinctly feminine voices—Waschinski brings the whole gender thing roaring back. You can’t hear him without thinking that you are listening to a rather precise and precious lady of the old school warble through the songs of Clara with thorough commitment if not perfect technique.

            I can’t recommend this recording to anyone who isn’t passionately curious about every flavor of countertenor and male soprano. But it’s a refreshing reminder that the male soprano can still be an exotic, outrageous and unsettling sound. Though I’d hate for this to be anyone’s sole exposure to Clara’s music, it doesn’t do it any serious disservice. Despite not having a particularly good top, and not attending much to the line or the niceties of phrasing, Waschinski is an expressive singer. And in some weird way, these interpretations feel like they’re born of feminine solidarity, except the woman singing isn’t a woman, and she’s not all that good.

I’m very proud of that pun, by the way.

The LA Opera is putting Tamerlano on, with Bejun Mehta and of course Placido Domingo as Bajazet.

I’m aiming for the November 21, 2009 performance, a nice Saturday night one as opposed to the less satisfying 2pm matinee.

The first time I’d heard of the indefatigable Domingo adding Bajazet to his already brimming collection of roles (and at a boggling 67 years old!), it was in an article that mentioned David Daniels as Tamerlano. I visited the LA Opera’s website hoping that Daniels would be in this production as well, but am looking forward to hearing Mehta as he is unfamiliar to me. I’ll have to do a bit of prepping to become more familiar with his voice now.

Caveat: this article should be considered a work in progress and is under development, as all articles here are. I’m currently in the process of digging up the (badly needed) references and citations. Thanks for your patience.

Falsetto vs. Chest Voice: The Anatomical Difference

If you want to understand countertenors and the high male voice, you’ve got to understand the word “falsetto.”

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the word and what it means, though. To a lot of people, any male voice singing high is a falsetto. Others, and they include supposedly knowledgeable people, may state with great and solemn authority that either men or women have no falsetto voice.

Neither is the case. Anatomically, a falsetto is something that all humans possess and that all humans have used at least a few times in our lives. It’s not simply a high voice, and it’s not specific to men or women.

All human larynges (“larynxes” if you prefer the everyday plural) can produce sound in a number of ways. The most common style and the one that’s used most often in singing is called “modal voice” and is used for normal talking.

In this method of producing sound, the vocal cords vibrate in their entirety. This creates feelings of vibration in the speaker’s chest, which has caused people to refer to it as chest voice. Thus “chest voice” and “modal voice” describe the same thing.

(picture of modal LS image)

However, this isn’t the only way that you can use your larynx. If you are singing and sustaining a lowish, comfortable note for you, try sliding slowly up the scale. After a time, you’ll find that your throat feels the need to “break” or “crack” into another way of producing sound. There will be an area of overlap of about an octave or so, a range in which your voice can go both ways. But past that break point, you’ll find that you can reach those higher notes much more easily. They’ll sound a little thin or flutey to you and be less loud, though.

(picture of falsetto LS image)

That is falsetto voice. It is also called “head voice,” chiefly because the sensation of resonance occurs in the head when a singer is using that style of sound production, as opposed to the modal voice, which creates vibrations in the chest.

When the larynx is producing sound using this method, the lion’s share of the vocal cords are held straight and do not vibrate. Only the very edges of the cords vibrate. Since less mass is moving, the vibrations can be faster and the larynx can generate higher frequencies than in chest voice, where the entire mass of the vocal cords are vibrating. Thus, people can reach higher notes using their falsetto. It’s analogous to why the thick, chunky strings on a piano produce the lowest notes, where as the far thinner strings at the other end produce much higher notes. On the whole, lighter, thinner bits held more tightly mean higher notes.

However, since only the thin, small edges of the vocal cords are vibrating in falsetto, the sound has less power and richness and often comes across as flutey or kazoo-like.

All humans with a healthy larynx can produce sound like this, without exception, men and women both. However, because men’s chest voices are normally so much lower and louder than their falsettos and feature much more richness, the difference between a male chest voice and falsetto is much more noticeable than the difference between a female chest voice and falsetto. Women, after all, can hit fairly high notes already in chest voice and thus have little need of falsetto, and when they transition from one to the other, it’s not as glaring.

Lastly, most men’s chest voices are lower than most women’s, but by using their falsetto voices, most men can manage to hit notes only accessible by women. (Some basso profundo men — think Barry White — may have falsettos that would push them only into the tenor range.) However, since the falsetto is less loud and rich (and often less nimble), such voices are still at a disadvantage compared to the female chest voice, or any chest voice.

That area of overlap where a singer can go both ways is called the passaggio and is the bane of most singers’ existence. Since the quality of sound changes so sharply across the passaggio, a singer can’t simply hop over it without creating a noticeable shift in their voice. One style of singing, yodeling, highlights the change in vocal color via hopping quickly back and forth across the passaggio multiple times. In most cases however, learning to navigate across the passaggio smoothly to keep this transition from sounding like a clunky gear shift takes a lot of training and effort for most singers, especially men, whose voices change much more noticeably when crossing it.

So in summary:

1. Chest voice: Also called modal voice or how you use your larynx to speak normally. The entirety of the vocal cords are vibrating, and vibrations are felt in the singer or speaker’s chest. Because the entire mass of the vocal cords are vibrating, you hit lower notes when you use your larynx this way, and the sound is richer and louder.
2. Falsetto: Also called head voice, which you might use to laugh or when expressing surprise or shock. Only the very edges of the vocal cords are vibrating, and there is little resonance felt by the singer or speaker in the chest. Because only the thin edges of the vocal cords are vibrating, you can reach much higher notes when using your larynx this way, but the sound is less rich and less loud.
3. Passaggio: This is the area of transition that a singer must pass through when going from chest voice to falsetto or vice versa. Negotiating this gracefully is a significant challenge for singers, particularly for men, whose chest and falsetto voices can sound very different.

There are other ways that the larynx can produce sound, but these two are overwhelmingly what’s used in singing. These other ways of producing sound include things like creak voice, grunt voice, and whistle voice. The first two are used in some forms of contemporary music and are very tough on the vocal cords, and the last one is much more accessible to the small larynxes of equally small children (seemingly always outside one’s window at 8am on Saturday).

Overall though, when singing, it’s either chest voice or falsetto. All people can reach higher notes using their falsetto than they can using their chest voice, but some rare men’s chest voices are high enough to equal other men’s falsettos, so you can’t reliably judge whether a man is using his falsetto voice simply by how high he’s going. And while most men’s falsetto voices lack richness, power, and agility compared to any chest voice, some rare men’s falsettos are quite pleasant, although still at a relative disadvantage to a male (or female) chest voice.

Women also possess a falsetto voice, but since many women can already hit fairly high notes, falsetto is of far less use to women. The female falsetto is also not as distinctively different in sound quality from the female chest voice, and hence it’s less instantly noticeable when a woman shifts from one to the other; negotiating the passaggio is less clunky for women. However, it is there and can be detected; witness Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, who uses easily recognized yodeling in her group’s music.

Under the assumption that the change in vocal color between chest and falsetto voices in women is less noticeable, some voice specialists speculate that there are more than a few women who are natural contraltos currently singing soprano simply by using their falsetto exclusively; these would be the female equivalents of male falsettists. Since there is less of a glaring difference between the female falsetto and chest voice, it has gone unremarked. I’d like to find out more about this possibility before accepting it as fact, though. I can’t imagine a voice trainer so incompetent that he or she couldn’t tell whether one of their own students is in chest or falsetto voice.

The High Male Voice: History, Techniques, and Definitions

The word countertenor began to be used in medieval times, when women were forbidden to sing in church (although they did sing in secular settings and in convents, and even their banning from churches was quite patchy due to the fragmented politics of most areas). Typical church music of the time used balanced three- or four-part harmony vaguely analogous to modern barbershop; the harmonies were very different (barbershop uses a lot of dominant sixths and sevenths), but the general structure was the same: three or four voices, all of equal prominence, with the second one down holding the melody, and all working in exact synchrony, no call-and-response or lead singer-and-backup stuff.

In three-part church harmony (“polyphonic” or many-voice harmony), the three parts were as follows:

• The countertenor altus, which was voice that harmonized over the lead — and indeed, the term means “against and above” the tenor.
• The tenor, which was the voice in the middle that held the melody. This is where the word “tenor” comes from, since the word means “one who holds” in Latin.
• The countertenor bassus, which harmonized below the lead — “against and below” the tenor.

In time, the lowest part became known as simply “bassus” or basso, and countertenor altus part was capped with a “superius,” later called soprano, resulting in the four vocal parts familiar to us today of soprano, alto, tenor, and basso. (“Countertenor altus” became “countertenor” when sung by a man, and “alto” when sun by a woman, but occupied the same register space.) However, these were all words used to describe vocal parts in church singing, not individual singers.

Now, since there were no women singing in church at the time, the countertenor altus also needed to be sung by men, and there were a few ways it could be done. A chapelmaster could use:

1. a young boy whose voice hadn’t dropped yet, which would mean one voice would be weaker than the rest, or
2. an adult male falsettist, not as weak as a boy but still weak and a bit breathy, or
3. a castrato, a guaranteed way to get a high male voice, or
4. a naturally high-voiced man, very rare and the most highly prized option even in medieval times.

As women were welcomed to sing in church, a fifth option arose: a woman singing the countertenor part. But most often, you could find a male without testosterone (either boy or castrato), or a falsettist, or a naturally high-voiced man. These were all in the pool that a chapelmaster would choose from to pick someone to sing the countertenor part. If the chapelmaster chose a boy, he might supplement him with a male falsettist singing behind him since the boy’s voice would otherwise be so much weaker than the other three adult voices.

And that was it. The countertenor altus (later countertenor) part could be sung by any of those people.

However, the first and second were weaker than ideal, and the fourth was exceptionally rare. The third, the castrato, was the simplest way to ensure a suitably strong high male voice when one was needed.

The High Male Voice in Opera and its Disappearance

During the early days of opera and for several centuries afterward, the high male voice reigned supreme, as did all high voices — and such voices were almost uniformly castrato voices. The aesthetic of the 1600s and 1700s was solo virtuosity and improvisation; high voices and the people who owned them were loved as extreme and otherworldly, and their owners were expected to dazzle through improvising wildly on a score only meant to be followed roughly. They were the vocal equivalent of rock’s guitar heroes, and the music was written to showcase them.

Arias in operas of the time were structured much like a classic 3-minute pop song: a main theme, a “middle-8,” and a return to the main theme with some flash and dazzle added this time. And there was a great deal of flash and dazzle in these arias, called “da capo” arias, meaning “from the top” and denoting the return to the main theme after the middle-8. Direct transcriptions of performances of the time show a vocal line brimming with trills, scales, grace notes, and all manner of other decoration.

In time however, this aesthetic changed, and composers began to insist that their music be performed as written. Previously, the soloists had used the composer’s work as means of expressing their own artistic ideas, but with this shift the composers began to subordinate the soloists as a means of bringing their own vision to life. Realism was also prized instead of over-the-top spectacle. It was a bit like the shift from the song-and-dance filled fantasy cinema of the 1930s to the grittier, more realistic look of the following decades.

And one of the casualties of this desire for increasing realism and less emphasis on the eye-popping soloist was the castrato voice. Of course, such things must be considered together with the papal banning of castration for musical reasons, but by the time the ban was in place (in the early 20th century!) the castrato voice had already been passé for some seventy years. The tenor, after two centuries in the shadows, became the most celebrated male voice and remained that way for the entire 20th century. (It’s worth noting though, that after assuming center stage, even the tenor’s range moved steadily upward. Many of the parts written for what was called a tenor voice in the Baroque era verge on what we would today consider baritone. The magnetic attraction of the high male voice is apparently sufficient even to pull all “normal” male registers upward in its absence.)

Thus, due to the 19th-century reaction against the extravagance of 17th and 18-century music — a reaction which continued through the entire 20th century as well — the castrato voice went entirely out of style. The devotion to individual singers that it had inspired, along with the desire for blazing decorative vocal lines, attached themselves to the highest of the female voices.

However, when the castrato went out of style, it took all other high male voices with it, including the natural high male voices that came as a gift of nature and not the barber’s knife. Due to the operatic world reacting against the castrati and the style of extravagant, on-the-spot virtuosity associated with them, even natural male altos had no place in the programs of most opera companies for over 150 years.

Over time, this absence became ossified. The belief that such voices belonged to the past became a belief that they could not exist in the present. Opera and classical music shunned them, and thus the only place where they have surfaced for the entire 20th century, with extremely limited exceptions, has been in the world of contemporary music. Parallels of course beg to be drawn between the glory days of the high male voice in the world of superstar-driven operatic extravagance, and how such voices found a home-away-from-home in the equally superstar-driven and extravagant world of pop and rock; the high male voice seems most at home in an over-the-top world of soloist worship. However, these musings are perhaps more within the sphere of sociology than music.

At any rate, such voices were effectively removed from the classical and operatic world for a century and a half and instead found their home in contemporary music. Because of this, any understanding of the natural high male voice must take the world of contemporary voice into account. For this reason, the following article will assume an awareness of and genuine respect for the great high male voices of popular music. It is senseless for the world of classical voice to systematically exclude an entire category of voice and then justify their ignorance of it by stating that it is not within their purview.

Countertenor Taxonomy: Part, Person, or Role & Questions of Vocal Technique

This century-and-a-half long absence has also introduced some misunderstandings in the world of opera and classical voice as well. There’s been a huge revival of interest in operas featuring very high males voices lately — operas of what’s called the Baroque period, (very) roughly the 17th and 18th centuries. However, during the 20th century, many of those old extremely high male roles, when they were sung at all, were stepped down an octave so a tenor or baritone could handle them. When they were sung at pitch, which was rarely, they were sung by female mezzos in male costume.

Nowdays, with the increasing popularity of grown men singing these roles at pitch, the task is to find ones who can. And of course, in the taxonomy-obsessed world of classical voice, the next question is what label to place on them. To make things more complicated, since the high male voice has been out of fashion for so long, the menagerie of classification schemes for it have fallen into disuse, and words that were once well understood to have a defined meaning are no longer quite so well understood.

For the reasons discussed above, the natural male alto is believed nonexistent in the classical world. Adding to that is the fact that falsettists are simply more common, and they’ve always been; every man has a falsetto voice, even if most of them sound like kazoos. Thus, the pool of possible good falsetto voices is just larger than the pool of possible good high male chest voices. Compared to the Whitman’s Sampler of falsettists working in Baroque opera nowdays, there is one naturally high-voiced man, and he sits stratospherically above the female alto range, bills himself as a “male soprano,” and really does need to be considered separately.

For reasons that will be explained later, the word “countertenor” has been dusted off and put into use to refer to the men who are currently singing these roles. Couple that to the false belief that natural high male voices do not exist, alongside the very real fact that falsettists are more common, and what this amounts to is that all men currently referred to by this term are falsettists.

So to a lot of today’s classical and Baroque hardcores, “countertenor” equals “falsettist.” After all, it’s the only high male voice that today’s opera lovers have ever paid attention to for a century and a half, although not the only kind they’ve heard.

However, this presents us with a difficulty. Restricting the term “countertenor” to falsettists-only leaves out the equally high male chest voices — which do exist but only outside of the classical world — who are capable of singing exactly the same operatic roles. Going the other way and broadening the term to include falsetto and chest voices is no better, since this would group two types of singer using two very different vocal techniques under the same term, which is a stretch. At its heart, the conflict is caused by the fact that the alto range is the only one in which men can sing using two techniques.

This taxonomic clash causes a problem because classical voice definitions define not only people but roles, making it possible to match performer to part. For example, Mario Cavaradossi of “Tosca” is a lyric tenor role, sung by a lyric tenor. The dramatic soprano roles written by Wagner are sung by dramatic sopranos. With the same label on role and performer, it’s possible for an opera company director to match one to the other while he or she is planning the coming season.

Therefore, if King Bertarido of “Rodelinda” is a countertenor role, then he should be sung by a countertenor singer. Using a separate term to describe high male chest voices would create a collision between the terms when a man whose label reads “tenor” is auditioning for a countertenor role.

Again though, the techniques used to sing falsetto versus chest voice are quite different. Placing two such different vocalists under the same umbrella term because they can nonetheless sing the same roles is very clumsy. Another narrower term is needed to define a vocalist’s type of countertenor, one that will take the technique-based differences into account and yet still permit the classification of both types of voice as “countertenor” and hence viable for the roles of Tamerlano, Giulio Cesare or Tolomeo, and Unulfo or Bertarido.

Happily, there are such terms, but as the high male voice has been out of fashion, they have gone unknown and unused for a very long time. The term for a man who sings in the countertenor range using chest voice and only using falsetto in his extreme upper end is “tenor altino” or “haute contre.” I will use the first, but the two terms should be considered interchangeable.

So once again, the basic definitions are as follows, with a non-exhaustive list of examples of each type:

Countertenor: Guys singing alto. The three possible types are:

Falsettist: Guys singing alto in falsetto.

Classical: Andreas Scholl, David Daniels, Michael Chance, James Bowman, Alfred Deller

Pop/Rock: Jimmy Somerville, Brian Wilson, occasionally Mick Jagger

To some people, countertenor equals falsettist. And not all men’s falsettos sit in the alto range. Some men with extremely deep voices would probably never reach the female registers even in falsetto, and some men with high chest voices may have falsettos that sit in mezzo or soprano. Most men’s falsettos, however, land right in the middle of the alto range.

Tenor altino: Guys singing alto in chest voice.

Classical: Russell Oberlin

Pop/Rock: Klaus Nomi, Neil Sedaka, Steve Perry, Art Garfunkel

This is an extremely rare voice type. Note that all but one are Americans. I’ve tried to list the pop ones in descending order of range; ranking Perry and Sedaka presents a challenge as Sedaka’s range is completely circumscribed by Perry’s. Perry however used his voice much, much more vigorously, causing it to drop it relative to Sedaka while still circumscribing his range. Garfunkel is a half-and-half, sitting directly between high tenor and low alto.

Castrato: Guys singing alto (or even soprano) in chest voice because they have no testosterone and sometimes no balls.

Classical: Alessandro Moreschi, Radu Marian

Pop: Ain’t none

Moreschi was the last of the surviving castrati, who was recorded a century ago when he was 60 years old. The modern-day Marian is believed to have an endocrine disorder. The other best known names are Senesino (alto) and Farinelli (mezzo), but no recordings survive of them.

All other options also require the absence of testosterone by using either a woman or a young boy. The three options above are the only ones for adult males. The first two are the only options for healthy adult males — you were either born with a naturally high voice, or you squeak your way in by using your falsetto (pun not intended but I’ll take it anyway). That’s it.

There’s one other vocalist around that I should mention. His name’s Michael Maniaci, also an American. His voice is very light and high and sits naturally in the soprano register, far above Oberlin and even Nomi. He’s quite healthy, and unlike Radu Marian, he has no endocrine disorder; his larynx simply never matured for whatever quirk of fate. Consequently, he cannot be considered an endocrinological castrato.

Maniaci was born with a slight facial palsy that resulted in the right side of his face having significantly less nerve insertion that the left and being consequently less mobile. It isn’t terribly noticeable — his features are pleasant and attractive — but if his larynx also has unusual nerve insertion, it may have affected that body part’s ability to respond to his testosterone. Indeed, his voice has transformed partially, but not entirely. As Maniaci himself states, while his “vocal cords did lengthen and thicken somewhat, they didn’t to the extent that most men experience.”

The rest of him, however, most certainly did respond to his testosterone. Maniaci may have the larynx of a castrato, but unlike them, he also has the (rather burly) body of a hormonally normal man. Hence, he does not sound like a castrato. He does not sound like a falsettist, nor does he sound like a typical man, and he doesn’t sound like a woman, either. He could be considered the extreme end of the spectrum represented by the altinos, but he is so radically far above them and so very unique that he really is his own category.

Geographic and Cultural Differences in the Definition of Countertenor

It’s also worth noting that a lot of very well-respected counters disagree on how to define the word, and many of those differences of opinion are geographically and culturally correlated. The up-to-that-point unused-for-a-century word was consciously chosen in the 1950s by falsettist Alfred Deller, the man most responsible for the revival of interest in the male falsetto in Great Britain. As the word was strongly identified with Deller in Britain, it became synonymous with “falsettist” there, despite the fact that it has never been used before to describe falsettists exclusively. There were and are a lot more falsettists in Britain, where they’ve had a tradition of that sort of church singing since the middle ages. Northern Europe has as well; the German Andreas Scholl, who is by far the best of the classical falsettists, adores Bronski Beat and calls the Scots pop falsettist Jimmy Somerville a countertenor. So in much of Britain and northern Europe, the word has altered its historic meaning and come to be identified almost exclusively with the male falsetto.

However, muddying things further, Michael Chance, another British falsettist, says that a falsettist isn’t really a counter, maintains that a true countertenor is in fact a high male and most often castrato chest voice according to the way the term has been used historically, and that he and others like him are better called “male altos,” a term often used to mean “falsettist.” (This term is why I’ve been careful to use the words “natural male alto” to refer to a man singing in that range in a chest voice.)

In the United States, we have never had a tradition of falsetto singing, and so the idea of a man singing high would not necessarily bring to mind that of a man singing falsetto for us. In fact, the American Russell Oberlin, the best known of the 20th century classical altinos, called himself the only true counter since he used chest voice and not falsetto. While there are a number of wonderful ones lately, American classical falsettists are a fairly recent thing; without an historical tradition of falsetto singing, Americans tend to think of it as fake and affected. We’re likely to think that a man singing falsetto isn’t really singing high but is only using a trick.

Miscellaneous Other Voice-Related Terms

Now, there are a few more terms used to define voices, and I’ll talk about a few of them here just for completeness’s sake since they aren’t really germane to this discussion. Two of these terms are called vocal weight and tessitura.

Vocal weight is a stylistic term, and the two words used to describe a singer’s vocal weight are lyric and dramatic. These terms are more significant in a classical context, where singer and part must be matched to one another, but their definitions are of use in a contemporary setting as well. A lyric voice is one that is light, sweet, and relatively nimble. In contrast, a dramatic voice is one that is more forceful, with a stronger declamatory style.

Clearly, these two terms aren’t perfectly defined, in a classical or a contemporary setting. Some singers such as the highly flexible mezzo Maria Callas were known for moving easily back and forth between the two. Others, like Beverly Sills (not always but most often lyric) and Deborah Voight (strong dramatic) are happier sitting in one or the other slot. Other examples might be Pavarotti (most often lyric) versus Caruso (dramatic). If it isn’t obvious from these descriptions, lyric voices are often more flexible in weight provided they don’t spend too much time on the dramatic side of the fence, whereas dramatic voices seem happiest right where they are.

In order to understand these words in contemporary terms relevant to this discussion, one could consider Art Garfunkel to be a lyric voice, while Steve Perry is a dramatic one. Interestingly, this places Perry in an even rarer category as the vast majority of altinos are lyric voices; classical altino Russell Oberlin began his career as a high lyric tenor and only began to refer to himself as a countertenor when it became clear to him that it was within his ability. Perry as a dramatic altino is in an extremely small category; the only other voice that might come close is that of Freddie Mercury, who lacked Perry’s precision or control, although he had a lovely, very pure vocal color and considerable power.

At any rate, these two voices (Garfunkel and Perry) function well to distinguish the two weight types in contemporary terms for audiences unfamiliar with the operatic singers mentioned previously. In general, lyric voices showcase their sweetness, whereas dramatic voices showcase their power. And the two terms are somewhat subjective and of course overlap one another. Garfunkel’s voice was capable of respectable power, and Perry’s could be quite light. As in opera though, Garfunkel’s lyric voice could more easily verge temporarily into dramatic territory, while Perry seemed most at home in forceful declamation. Even vocally, it’s easier to put on weight than to take it off, although not for extended periods of time without strain.

The second term, tessitura, is used to describe the subset of a singer’s full range where they feel most comfortable. It’s a highly subjective term and of most importance to the singer themselves, often influencing the roles an operatic singer will choose, and the music written by or for contemporary singers.

Differences in Vocal Strength and Quality

And since I’ve mentioned them, I should also bring up castrati. These are what you think they are — men with no testosterone and often no balls. This kept their voices artificially high, but it had other effects on their voices and bodies as well. The larynx remained youthful, but it also did not shift its position in the throat downward with the onset of puberty as the larynges of healthy adults of both sexes do. This means that the larynx of a castrato remains closer to the resonating chambers of the head than it otherwise would have been. Also, the throat and chest remain narrower than those of typical men. Thus, the castrato voice is not only very high but almost aggressively bright and completely without the texture given a normal male or female voice by the resonating chambers of the lower throat and chest.

This near-total absence of darker vocal tones made their voices (in my opinion) a lot squeakier and less rich. Frankly, to judge from the rare very old recordings of the last surviving castrato and the few men around today who sing that high due to hormonal issues, they sound like ringtones. Senesino may have been castrated to hit the same notes that the popular altinos mentioned above hit naturally, but while his classical training would have outstripped them (I’ve never in my life heard any of them even come close to a good trill or — excepting Garfunkel — a messa di voce; they’re just not common modern techniques), Senesino’s voice would likely have lacked their richness and resonance due to his not possessing a healthy, normal male throat, head, and chest.

The altinos, including the much higher but otherwise perfectly normal Maniaci, sound a lot richer and more resonant since they are healthy, normal men with healthy male bodies. They have unusually high voices for whatever reason, but their larynges are properly positioned in their throats and their bodies are also properly proportioned. During medieval times, such voices were prized even over the castrati. The advantages the castrati had were over the boy sopranos (since boy sopranos had identical light voices but lacked adult lung power) and the falsettists (since falsettists had breathier voices and less power, though greater power than the boy sopranos). However, while the castrati had adult lung capacity, they lacked depth and richness for the reasons mentioned above.

So, falsettists have high voices but are often breathy and less strong. Boy sopranos aren’t breathy, but are weaker still and lack depth without healthy adult male resonance. Castrati aren’t breathy and are strong, but also lack depth.

The altinos alone are the males with the triple crown of a naturally high voice, adult lung capacity, and well-structured adult male bodies. Thus they are the ones that make people rock back on their heels a bit and have for centuries since their voices are extremely full and beautiful. High, but with a nice stripe of darkness beneath them that keeps them from being piercing as some high female voices can be. The female counterpart to them is the equally prized female contralto (Annie Lennox, Aretha Franklin, the great Marian Anderson, Carly Simon, Ewa Podles, etc.) — low but bright, nimble, and clear, without the muddiness that often mars the low male voice.

Now, it can be a bit hard to tell a falsettist apart from an altino if you’re not used to male voices that are that high; I’ve heard even Perry’s stentorian voice casually referred to as falsetto, which it is absolutely not. But if you hear these men talk, it’s instantly obvious who’s singing how. The good falsettists are nearly always low tenors or baritones when they sing or talk normally. The increased depth of their speaking voices is part of what keeps their falsettos from sounding like kazoos.

Altinos on the other hand have extremely light, high natural speaking voices. You may have a hard time telling Oberlin apart from Scholl if you aren’t used to hearing a man singing that high, but if you hear them talk, you’ll know immediately. Scholl, along with the other falsettists, has a deep speaking voice, and Oberlin (similar to Perry, Nomi, and Sedaka) has a much, much lighter and higher speaking voice.

Although predictions based on someone’s body are not always trustworthy, you can often tell the difference by looking at these men as well, or at least get a general idea of who might be a falsettist versus an altino. Altinos tend to be of slighter build while the best of the falsettists are downright big. It’s no accident that Scholl, Daniels, Bowman, and Chance are all large men, whereas Oberlin, Nomi, Sedaka, Perry, and even Garfunkel are all of much slighter build. Again, it’s not a guarantee or else falsettist Drew Minter would be an altino and Maniaci a falsettist, but it is a predictable general trend.

Even when they sing, an attentive listener can tell the difference; a falsettist isn’t using all of his vocal cords to sing but only the very edges. As a result, the voice is weaker and breathier and more easily swamped by an orchestra. That’s why it was most often accompanied through history by a single lute or a very tiny chamber orchestra. It’s also why so few falsettists have ever worked in operas to be honest, even back when high male voices were in fashion; a falsettist has a hard time filling your typical concert hall when working alongside baritones, tenors, and sopranos who are using their full voices. Balancing a full orchestra and four or five chest voices with one guy singing at half-strength is a juggling act. A falsettist may be able to sing the old Senesino roles at pitch, but it’s still a workaround, and everyone else has to ratchet down to keep from swamping him. (Lately, the best falsettists have been working on this, and have made great strides.)

However, an altino is using all of his vocal equipment and hence he can sing with much more power. Such men can be backed by full 110-piece orchestras (or amplified four-piece rock bands) and still be easily heard over them, even taking their own microphones into account. In a decision that created some bad blood a few decades back, Oberlin as an altino was chosen over British falsettist Alfred Deller to sing Oberon in Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when the opera debuted in Covent Garden, despite Deller having originated the role. The producers feared that Deller’s falsetto would never be able to carry in a large hall, and that Oberlin’s full voice could, hence their decision to use the American altino. And there are stories of Perry filming a music video with his old bandmates (the legendarily bad video for the equally good song “Separate Ways” ) and singing while doing so to keep from feeling awkward. He handily drowned out the recorded music that they would play to keep everyone synchronized during the filming, something no falsettist could have done.

The Final Wrap-Up and The Future of the Term

So, in summary:

• A tenor altino is a healthy adult man who sings in a chest voice substantially within the range called alto when sung by a woman.
• A falsettist is a man who sings within that range in a falsetto voice.
• A countertenor is a man who sings within that range, period.

The only other way for it to be done is to remove testosterone from the equation.

Nowdays, due to the resurgence of the more common male falsetto in opera, “falsettist” and “countertenor” are beginning to be equated to one another, even in the US where they have traditionally been seen as separate.

In my opinion, this is a temporary state of affairs. The altinos mentioned previously (two of which, Perry and Garfunkel, are greatly respected contemporary voices) handily demolish the false belief that natural high male voices no longer exist, which makes me wonder if any of the classical and opera cognoscenti who promote this belief have ever listened to the radio. The same “expert” who blithely states that such voices don’t exist anymore will nonetheless drive home from work, switch on his car radio, and sing along with “Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do” one octave down without the slightest awareness. This belief, which is only ever dented and never punctured by modern exceptions “like this one over here” (and that one, and that one, oh and that one as well … ) has simply got to give way.

The current resurgence in popularity of the high male voice in opera will begin attracting talented, ambitious altinos who will start performing the legendary castrato roles at pitch, in chest voice. These men are rare but not impossible, and their rarity in the classical world is only due to their having been rejected by it for a century and a half.

Another Oberlin will surface, and the next Nomi, Sedaka, Perry, or Garfunkel may, especially if he isn’t a songwriter, feel a pull toward classical voice rather than pop or rock. (Indeed, Klaus Nomi sang Henry Purcell as well as other early music male alto staples.) I imagine the man in question, whoever he may be, is in college at the moment and calls himself a high lyric tenor. He probably anticipates a career in the high Rossini repertoire. He will attend a party with his music school friends and be dared by one of them to sing “Vivi, tiranno” at pitch, and he’ll do so, surprising them and himself.

The second this man pops off a “Furibondo” or “Dove sei” at pitch in a well-known venue, the words “a real countertenor” will start surfacing in reviews, and all but the very best of the falsettists will find themselves placed at an immediate, permanent disadvantage.

And as the world of opera finally begins to adjust to the existence of such voices within its purview after over a hundred years of absence, the definition of “countertenor” will shift again. It’s just a matter of time.

A shout-out to classical audiences everywhere: if your hearing aid is squealing with feedback to the point where the entire audience and several performers are handing you dirty looks, turn it off. This is equivalent to taking someone up on an offer to share their hotel room without bothering to inform them that you snore. The messa di voce from “Dove sei?” should not have been turned into a duet between one of the world’s greatest living voices and a hearing aid. Yes, it would be a pity for you — but now it’s a pity for several hundred other people, including NPR as they were apparently recording the concert.

Moving right along, the concert was nevertheless quite wonderful only because the blood-and-guts verve of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the celestial beauty of Andreas Scholl’s falsetto can apparently vanquish any obstacle in their path. It is truly a mark of their talent and professionalism that they cruised brilliantly on despite that distraction.

The first impression the orchestra made on me when they came out was that with only a few exceptions, they were all awfully fair. I suppose that makes sense for Australians, but if they are typical of their countrymen, they must use a lot of sunscreen Down Under. No tuxedos or ball gowns were in evidence, either; the performers stood in black pants, with black button-down cotton shirts on the men (and a few gelled fauxhawks) and long kimono wraps on the women. Good thing they stood, too — from the first note, it was clear that these people were there to take the bit between their teeth and run. On the way up to Santa Barbara (a 90 mile drive for me), I had been listening to some music, including a few of the downright polite examples of Russell Oberlin’s Handel Arias, recorded in the 1950s. The contrast between the two styles struck almost physically, and the infusion of adrenaline into a form of music that has always been interpreted too stuffily is one of the best things to come out of the current Baroque revival. I’ve seen four-piece rock bands who didn’t attack their music with this much ferocity. I have a tendency to close my eyes or look down when I listen to music, but I made a point of keeping them open and up more frequently, the better to enjoy the vigor of the performers and all those sawing and bouncing bows.

The first piece was a Vivaldi Concerto Grosso (Op. 3, No. 11, R565), and if you’ve always considered Vivaldi to be stodgy music for dead indolent royalty, the Aussies would have changed your mind quickly. The entire audience, a fussy bunch if I’m any judge, sat stunned when they were finished, and it took a while for us to applaud, with great enthusiasm. The music was immediate enough to taste, and the bass violin nearly made my sternum vibrate.

The second part of the program was what I had really come for, though: a selection including many of Handel’s top arias for Senesino sung by the premiere falsettist in the world today, Andreas Scholl. He was similarly casually dressed compared to what one might expect: black slacks, a black button-down shirt, and a slight five o’clock shadow. He seemed in good spirits, grinned naturally, and looked happy to be there. He appeared to have a very pleasant relationship to the other performers, more relaxed than the typical “diva”-like interaction between top operatic vocalists and an orchestra, which was a bit more of what I saw last month at Disney Hall. Make no mistake, Daniels was extremely gracious and engaging, but there was definitely a little more of a boutonniere-and-lifted-pinky feel to it, at least on stage.

Scholl began with the magnificent “Dove sei?” from Rodelinda and again, it’s a testament to his voice and his musicianship that he was able to deal with the above blot on the performance like an Olympic athlete flicking off a bug in mid-long jump. Happily, they didn’t simply start off with the aria proper but began in each case with the recitative lead-in, in this instance, “Pompe vane di morte.” (I had my fingers crossed that they would.) It was not only performed beautifully but acted beautifully as well, giving Scholl the air of a storyteller standing on stage and spinning yarns for the audience with musical backup. The venue probably played a part in that, cozier than Disney Hall if acoustically grittier and giving the performer the opportunity to make real eye contact with the audience.

The following aria was “Se parla nel mio cor” from Giustino, which was bouncier but one with which I’m unfamiliar. Another opera to look up, now! Scholl handled it beautifully, with all the nimbleness that everyone has come to expect from him, and that is so uncharacteristic from any falsetto. That’s Scholl’s gift — that his falsetto doesn’t have even a hint of the clunky, flutey Miss-Piggy quality that usually mars the voice. It’s as close to a chest voice as any falsetto can get, and even if his upper register rang considerably more than his lower, he wasn’t swamped by the orchestra even once.

The third nearly had me clapping before it started. The program had listed “Va tacito” as the first aria to be performed, but when Scholl and the ACO started off with “Dove sei?” I supposed that they had removed the Cesare aria for some reason. I was thrilled when, after “Se parla nel mio cor,” a grey-haired man with glasses and a round face stepped onto the front of the stage carrying a french horn. I didn’t punch the air, but I came close.

Sure enough, I heard those first release-the-hounds strains, and I wasn’t disappointed. This entire aria came across perfectly, with all the cheek and cojones that Handel imbued it with. It’s a strutting aria, after all, and both Scholl and the horn player (Rob Johnson who is also Principal with Sydney Symphony) had more fun with the da capo than I’ve heard in the past. I suppose the ornament added to the da capo is influenced not only by the vocalist but by the entire flavor of the performance itself, including the orchestra, the venue, and even the time of day. In a smallish venue in a rather “live” room, not nearly as cold and overly “perfect” as Disney Hall — and with a posse of gutsy Baroque guitar heros behind him — Scholl’s da capos for all the arias were inventive, syncopated in places, and slightly modern, featuring a very mature rubato as good as anything I’ve heard in contemporary music. Nowhere was that more evident or enjoyable than in “Va tacito,” both on Scholl’s part and Johnson’s. Magnificent.

Next in line was “Aure, deh, per pieta” from Cesare, led into with “Dall’ ondoso periglio.” I suddenly got a bit of an impression during this aria that Scholl may have been fighting a cold; if so, he sang through it with minimal bumps in his path, and it speaks well of his voice and his acting that I didn’t notice before then. His musicianship is such that he can dance around almost any obstacle and make his performance come across as graceful and natural. (Well, I did say that this review might be an incoherent gush!)

Following this was “Oh Lord whose mercies numberless,” which was beautiful but did not move me as much since I tend to be more attracted to the acted operatic pieces with stories and characters behind them that I know, and I’m unfamiliar with Saul.

The last piece was of course the standard crowd-rousing closer: “Vivi, tiranno.” He owned it, singing and acting the aria with all the brashness you’d expect of a usurped king who has lost his last thread of patience with the man who stole his throne. I got the impression that the audience around me may have included more instrumental fans than opera fans, at least to judge from the “What’s a countertenor?” and “Falsetto, what’s that?” conversations I heard during the intermission.

But if they didn’t know exactly what that aria was about after Scholl effectively told them on stage through voice and gesture, I’d be shocked. Tone, acting, energy, and unimaginably nimble singing are all demanded by that aria; you don’t touch it if you don’t have what it takes — and he blew it into powder to standing cheers. I can only hope that, for the audience members who were unfamiliar with Scholl or countertenor-range voices, this concert had to have sent them running to iTunes or Amazon.com.

Following the intermission was Symphony No. 44 in Em by Haydn, a composer with whom I’ve been unfamiliar up to this point — and that’s going to change. This one was definitely a late-Baroque example, when the fussy ornamentation of high Baroque had begun to get infused with some more modern sounds, and it was a hand in glove fit for the ACO given their meaty style of attack. It was one of the best live musical performances I’ve ever heard — and seen! If they have this on CD anywhere, I’ve got to get it. The only more blood-quickening performance I’ve ever witnessed was an impromptu drum session during a renfaire that ended up getting several hundred people pounding on everything in sight and which included an enormous, drunk man as wide as he was tall slamming on a kettle drum that he could have climbed into. I don’t suppose even the ACO will start featuring that in their performances.

The final piece was by a composer I hadn’t even heard of before last night: Rameau. It was a fairly long one, the suite from Dardanus, not the standard allegretto-largo-allegro triad, and using the French markup that still trips me up when I see it outside of dance. Again, they knocked it out solidly and brought everyone to their feet — or would have had they not left the stage so quickly! I wonder if it’s not a standard crowd strategy for them, to finish and clear out immediately.

They did come back out and take their bows to standing applause, though. And I got home and immediately found their website. From there, it’s a short hop to Amazon!

So all in all, even with the above teeth-gritting annoyance, it was a great night. A pretty, cozy setting, lively performers that made a great impression, brilliant music, and one of the world’s best working voices alongside one of the world’s best chamber orchestras. I hate to single out any one part of the orchestra, but the cellos and bass violin made me feel as if I were sitting in the music. I imagine they’ll also delight the audience this weekend in Berkeley.

(Hopefully, since the hearing-aid feedback was pretty pure-tone, someone at NPR will be able to subtract it from the performance, or at least mitigate it, and it will be deemed fit for broadcast. If so, I will link it in here.)

• Event Page at the Lobero Theater
• The Australian Chamber Orchestra (official site with links to CDs and a DVD for purchase)
• Andreas Scholl Society (a very comprehensive fansite)
• Decca’s site for Scholl

The prelude to the whole night was a very nice dinner that I found in a restaurant called The Palazzio within easy walking distance of the Lobero Theater. If you go there, you must get the grilled salmon. The portions are enormous — this would have been enough for two. The salmon came literally carpeted in meaty, tender tomatoes with roasted garlic and fresh basil. Tons of fresh basil. I could have made a meal out of just them, but the fish itself was absolutely perfect and flanked by piles of fried sliced potatoes, not at all greasy, and delicious roasted vegetables (squash and carrots). I topped it with a glass of riesling, but I would have gotten a pinot grigio if I’d been able to find one on the wine list. A light red would probably have gone well, too.

Anyway, it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had out, and I look forward to returning to Santa Barbara someday very soon, possibly this weekend, and repeating the experience. It was a beautiful way to start the night.

The English Concert, with David Daniels, March 24, 2009 at Disney Hall in Los Angeles

Lovely, lovely concert. I wouldn’t call it utterly perfect, but this is live music we’re talking about, and a minor unusual moment or two is not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps the audience aware that they are listening to something as it happens and not tapping the screen on an ipod to hear something that sounds exactly the same as the last twenty times they heard it.

I’ll admit that the Handel is more to my taste than Bach, although there is never anything wrong with Bach. The emotion and intensity in his choral music surprised me, as his instrumental music has an (undeserved) reputation for being intellectual and hence cold. Why those two things are always polarized, I have no idea, but there you have it.

At any rate, I’m thrilled to have been exposed live to Bach’s choral works, and by such a stellar voice as David Daniels. The English Concert themselves were also magnificent, and I don’t want to stint on them; the richness and texture of their music was glorious; there is such a thrill in closing one’s eyes in anticipation of the first few notes and being stunned at the living quality of something being performed before you, hearing the immediacy of it.

But the nature of the voice is such that a good one will almost always take precedence in the ears of the audience over almost any instrument, no matter how skillfully played. And Daniels was wonderful, of course. His voice is very rounded and floral and impossible to mistake for anyone else’s; it’s not even necessarily to my taste, as I prefer the slightly icy clarity of a Scholl-type voice. Daniels’ voice is more ornamented and romantic.

He was quite trim-looking in a nice, well-fitted dark suit, and I understand he has been doing a bit of personal training to enhance his stage appearance (Deborah Voigt and other large women singers are not the only ones laboring under a requirement to look attractive). He’ll never be a slim or small man; none of the best falsettists ever are. However, he did look very dashing, much to the delight of many members of the audience, and seemed in good spirits during the performance.

His interpretations of “Schlummert ein” and “Erbarme dich” were genuine and touching, perfect proof to anyone who thinks otherwise that Bach’s music can indeed be emotionally touching and moving as well as mathematically beautiful. Both pieces were stunning, although the orchestra seemed to skate a bit on some parts. I’m not sure why; there seemed to be a bit of a rusty honk to some of the lower strings in places, although the upper strings and the woodwinds were clear as a bell.

The second half, devoted to Handel, began with the A major Concerto Grosso (you can find the numbers at the LA Phil’s website) that absolutely delighted me. I think I grinned through the whole thing. It was chock full of everything one can love about Handel — the confidence, the precision, the slight cheekiness, and that gorgeous call-and-response business that reminds me so much of what would with the passage of a couple centuries become American country fiddling. That’s really a good part of the appeal of Handel’s music — the way that it showcases so many features of music that all later forms would grab and run with; you can find the genesis of everything from hoedown fiddles to four-piece rock-band keyboards and R&B chord progressions in it. Handel’s music is like a little complete universe of its own in which you can find all other music; peer closely, and you’ll make out Ashley MacIsaac, Gregg Rolie, and Luther Vandross staring back at you from a sea of faces.

The next piece was one of the Handel Top Ten Hits, “Ombra cara,” which was of course wonderful, although it was most obvious in this piece that falsettists are rowing upstream when singing against an orchestra; Daniels did get swamped by them a bit from time to time in this and other pieces in a way that a tenor or a natural male alto wouldn’t have been. Now that the higher male voices are back in fashion in the world of opera, hopefully we’ll see a genuine altino popping up from time to time and get the opportunity to hear a full chest voice taking on some of these old arias.

The next piece was scheduled to be “A dispetto” from “Tamerlano,” but was replaced by a scorching “Furibondo” from “Partenope,” which Daniels knocked clear to the Moon. The entire audience, myself included, was left in shocked silence for a second afterwards and then began cheering and clapping as if our lives depended on it. To use the jargon of my 80s teenage years, that song kicked major *ss. He was as precise as a neurosurgeon and as quick as a hummingbird for the whole thing, and strong and passionate throughout. It’s not a subtle aria and combines both rapid-fire exactness and full-blown fury, both of which he hit dead center. The orchestra was also dead on, stretching and cutting short everything that needed it, hitting the color and the timing perfectly in all cases. If John Gielgud ever played a part that required a loss of temper onstage, this is what it would be like.

The next was an instrumental piece, the act II passacaglia also from “Radamisto.” This came as a welcome surprise to me, who hadn’t looked as closely at the program as I should have. I’ve been listening to Scholl’s “Ombra mai fu” CD in the car lately, which features this piece. It’s become a favorite of mine as I sail (or more often creep) along the LA freeways, and I was thrilled to hear it live by such a good orchestra. Still a bit of a skate lurking somewhere in the strings (I want to say viola but I could be wrong), but otherwise fantastic.

The last piece on the program was the “Orlando” mad scene, which Daniels also acquitted himself well on. He was at all times a very dynamic performer but still self-possessed. He is very clearly an operatic singer giving a recital as opposed to a recitalist singing opera, and he must be a very engaging stage performer. I hope I have the opportunity to see him live in a full opera someday.

His encore was also from “Radamisto,” and he turned around for the da capo and sang the rest to the rear of the theater, toward the cheaper seats. The people sitting back there had been staring at the back of his head the whole night, and he made a point of singing the second half of the encore directly to them. It was a very kind and thoughtful gesture.

He was available to sign the companion CD to the concert in the lobby afterwards, but unfortunately, I was tired and had to get home to get to sleep, so I wasn’t able to stay. I wish I had, but them’s the breaks when you go to a live performance on a weeknight. I do wish I’d been able to thank him directly for tolerating the necessary fuss and bother (long plane flights, strange hotel rooms, etc.) to share his gift.

So. A wonderful evening all around. Again, I very much look forward to seeing him in a full role someday.

(BTW, I need to get used to the names for the period instruments that aren’t found in modern orchestras or risk losing whatever tiny scrap of musical cred I have. I can’t keep looking at a theorbo and calling it a “sneetch” in my head.)

LA Times Review of the concert

Andreas Scholl

David Daniels

Jimmy Somerville

In the following clips, falsettist countertenors demonstrate their low-tenor-to-baritone speaking voices:

Andreas Scholl

The third part of an interview wherein he discusses his love of pop music, for which he is well known.

David Daniels

Promotional clip for his upcoming Bach CD, featuring his speaking voice.

Jimmy Somerville

Midway through this clip, the first part of a wonderful documentary on countertenors, linked in its entirety at the end of this post.

Non-falsettist male sopranos/altinos/hautes contres/countertenors/however you choose to define it demonstrating their much higher natural speaking voices:

Michael Maniaci

Describing his voice and a bit about its classification.

Russell Oberlin

Discussing and demonstrating the difference between a falsetto and a full voice, and the relative rarity of very high male voices due to their having fallen out of fashion. In another interview, he and a second guest explicitly address the inherent contradictions of vocal gender-marking, falsetto versus countertenor, and the blurriness of the boundary between high tenor and counter.

Michael Maniaci

Russell Oberlin

It’s worth noting that while both men sing full-voiced, with no falsetto at all, the first bills himself as a male soprano and not a countertenor, and the second has explicitly stated that he was the only true countertenor of his time. Clearly, Maniaci (whose voice sits considerably higher than most countertenors) and the highly respected Oberlin do not agree at all on whether the proper definition of countertenor should even include falsettists, much less be considered equivalent to them.

It’s also worth noting explicitly that Michael Maniaci is not a Martian by any means, and while he may sit at the extreme end of the high male spectrum, itis a spectrum, and there are other people on it. Maniaci is unusual, but he’s not nearly as bogglingly unique as many people seem to feel, although his voice type has for a long time been ignored by the world of classical voice.

As I said in my earlier post about Maniaci, Mother Nature never does anything only once, and when we confront something as if She has, it’s only our own perception that has shifted — in this case, not into the future, but into the past, and into a genre of music that is often ignored by critics, cognoscenti, and lovers of fine voice — though never by the owners of the voices themselves.

Neil Sedaka

Steve Perry

Below, two male pop and rock singers demonstrate similarly unusually high speaking voices, clearly indicating that while Oberlin and other male altos/mezzos are unusual in opera, they are not at all unusual in general, and modern audiences have become used to such voices appearing far more often in popular contexts than classical ones:

Neil Sedaka

An interview relatively late in his life, but his unusually high speaking voice is quite evident and becomes more so as the interview continues. He discusses his songwriting process in some detail.

Steve Perry

One of the 20th century’s most revered voices reminiscing about a Journey performance at Soldier Field in the late 1970s. Interview takes place in the 1990s. Again, when compared to Scholl, Daniels, and Somerville (as well as Bowman and Chance in the links below), his voice is clearly a completely separate animal.

A lovely 1999 documentary on the South Bank Show (available for purchase) features commentary and full performances by many of the best countertenors currently working, as well as discussion of what the voice is, where it disappeared to for the past century, and where it’s appearing now.

In this documentary, you can note the amazing depth and darkness of Bowman, Chance, Scholl, and Somerville’s speaking voices compared to the very high Maniaci, the quite high Oberlin and Sedaka, and the moderately high Perry. Clearly, these are two very distinct categories of voices, and their defining boundaries are drawn with absolutely no regard for the barriers imposed between pop/rock and classical music.

Note also that the more sources you pick from in the controversy that is the definition of the high male voice, the more confusion you encounter, from falsettist Michael Chance’s use of “male alto” as opposed to “countertenor” to Scholl stating that Somerville is a countertenor precisely because he is a falsettist, and from Russell Oberlin’s claim to have been the only “true countertenor voice” because he was not a falsettist to dominant classical opinion that voices like Sedaka and Perry must never be classified as countertenors precisely because they are not producing sound using a falsetto technique (and are also popular vocalists and hence inherently unclassifiable). I have even read reviews of Maniaci’s performances where he is called a “countertenor,” and others where the reviewer takes great pains to state that he is not a countertenor but is instead a male soprano, as indeed Maniaci bills himself. While “male soprano” is used by Maniaci to refer to a chest voice singer, “male alto” seems to be used most often to refer to a falsettist. There is obviously no consistency in the meaning of “male insert-female-voice-type.”

And in the interview linked to above, Oberlin makes quite clear the gauzy way that the high tenor shades into the counter voice, and how impossible that boundary is to define in a rigid way.

Ultimately, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that there is no current agreement, even among the owners of the voices themselves, on how to define the word “countertenor” in terms of the vocal technique used. Some include falsetto — some exclusively, some explicitly exclude falsetto entirely, while others consider it effectively impossible to tell where the high tenor ends and the counter begins. It’s looking as if the only terms that should ever be used in this context are “falsettist” and “altino”/”haute contre.” Nothing else seems to have a consistent definition except those terms.

Obviously, the discussion will continue as the world of classical voice, with its obsessive-compulsive fascination for taxonomy, comes to grips with this new/old type of voice that has been out of fashion for over a century in their world, and only extant in the (taxonomy-free) world of popular music.

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En av Händels många härliga operor.

Här sjunger countertenoren Bejun Mehta en aria ur denna opera. Härlig röst och härligt sväng!

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Chinese opera has several forms, but perhaps no other takes the art to such a degree of refinement as Kunqu or Kun Opera. A recent festival of its best-known pieces, organised by Taiwanese writer Pai Hsien-yung, highlighted its variety, and also introduced audiences to the sound of a 1,200 year old instrument. That instrument is a guqin, known as the “Jiuxiao Huanpei”. It was made in the Tang dynasty and was used in the imperial court during the coronation of Tang Taizong’s third son in 756 AD.

One thing no-one will ever call Australian director Baz Luhrmann is “understated”. As viewers of “Moulin Rouge” or his version of “Romeo and Juliet” will recall, he’s a pull-out-all-the-stops, take-no-prisoners kind of director. As its title suggests, his most recent movie “Australia” takes on a big theme: the story of his homeland. It was, by many, eagerly awaited. It was also, by many, considered a disappointment when it arrived. Film reviewer Gary Pollard wasn’t that disappointed, but he did not have high hopes in the first place.

“Re;animating” is a mixed-media installation exhibition at the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre in Shek Kip Mei, and organised in collaboration with the City Festival. The exhibition echoes the rejuvenation of the old factory building into an arts centre. Eighteen local artists have been invited to create mixed-media installations. Their works are all made of industrial material such as plastics, thread, wood, fabric, wire, clay and metal.

For centuries, some male musicians made what could be considered the ultimate sacrifice to achieve a purity of voice, undergoing castration to become the so-called castrati. Composers wrote music especially for singers to sing in the castrati range, which is – broadly – similar to that of a female mezzo-soprano. That rather extreme path to musical ability has long since become illegal – the last castrati was recorded at the turn of the 20th century – but the music remains. And much of it is now song by male singers who have undergone training specifically to develop the higher ranges of the voice.

One of them, Jorg Waschinski, was performing at the City Hall with the City Chamber Orchestra and conductor Jean Thorel, on the day of our show. We caught up with him at rehearsals the day before, and spoke to him about his art.

To see a streaming video of the show please click here.

Andreas Scholl

Go to the bottom of the page.

I am actually smug right now, which would surprise no one who knows me, I have to admit. I’m delighted. I’m also the proud owner of an A-section ticket in the front-center.

Not only that, but David Daniels will be singing at Disney Hall the month before. Now, all I have to do is add Drew Minter, and I’ll have accumulated what I consider to be the Countertenor Triple Crown. Michael Maniaci live would be the icing on the cake! Or crown, if I may mix my metaphors.

A review (or an incoherent gush) will of course be forthcoming after the recital. He will be singing a number of the Handel Top Ten for Senesino, including “Va tacito” and the celestial “Aure deh per pieta” from Giulio Cesare in Egitto, and “Dove sei?” and “Vivi tiranno” from Rodelinda.

(He will also be singing four days later in Berkeley for those who find the Wednesday night inconvenient.)

I’m embarrassed to say that Scholl was a slow acquisition for me when
I first began investigating countertenors. I sampled all the better known counters one by one, and yet found myself returning to Scholl here and there, with his voice improving in my estimation every time, until at this point, he resides somewhere in the stratosphere. I would not class him as a miracle, as his voice is very much the perfect “dumbbell”-shaped countertenor’s voice — a baritone speaking voice over no good tenor, with a magnificent falsetto way at the other end. Scholl’s voice is not only not a square-peg voice, but is instead the most perfect voice of a very well-defined type that I’ve heard. He is almost singlehandedly responsible for the recent redefinition of the term “countertenor” to mean “falsettist” exclusively.

Most people adore his resonant, bell-like lower register (which may be why he’s so closely associated with the Senesino roles), but for me it’s his upper that stuns me with its delicacy. It’s absolutely feather-light, with none of the piercing quality of the typical falsettist who finds that he has to shriek the higher he goes in order to force the notes out. Scholl’s high register is every bit as varied and enjoys the same dynamic range as his lower (in my opinion), and can be either powerful without being piercing, or as delicate as that of any chest-voice soprano without losing its clarion nature.

He is also one of the few performers I’ve heard who seems to openly share my own convictions that popular music has played an enormous role in the popularity of the very high male voice, that such voices are much more common in popular music, that they should be recognized and respected for this, and that a natural connection exists between such voices and the world of the operatic countertenor. Quote: Scholl comments that in pop music the audience are used to androgyny and high male voices. “Pop audiences don’t have a problem, but even now some classical audiences, when they first hear a counter-tenor, say, ‘What’s wrong with him? He sounds like a woman.’ “

Should Scholl ever put out another collection of pop songs, I would be thrilled to hear a cover of “Stay Awhile” or “Sweet and Simple,” with Perry’s impeccable cadenzas left in place and a quartet or a very abbreviated chamber orchestra backing him. (“Wheel in the Sky” would be fascinating, but perhaps more of an academic exercise since I’m not sure even I could adjust to Scholl singing something quite so syncopated.) Not only does he seem to share these convictions, but he’s quite happy to mention them in just about every interview he does.

At any rate, Scholl has grown steadily on me until I now rate him extremely highly and am quite excited to have purchased a ticket to see him live in four months time. His voice is brilliant, his musicianship unimpeachable, and I confess that I like his ecumenical approach to music in general.

And luck permitting, I hope to be seeing him in New York in 2011 for the planned performance of Rodelinda. The version that I know is the Glyndebourne one, and I’m sure the staging will be different and quite exciting.

Ännu en ny bekantskap för mig. En grekisk countertenor vid namn Nicholas Spanos sjunger så här gudomligt vackert ur Händels opera Tamerlano.

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It occurred to me that I have been using various terms without actually ever stating what they are clearly. I think a keen reader could have pieced together proper definitions from what I’ve said so far, but it’s worth it to state a clear definition that puts it all in one place.

There are four basic voice types or “registers” that roughly correspond to high and low female and male voices. They are soprano, alto, tenor, and basso (sometimes written bass and pronounced “base”). Soprano and alto are the higher and lower female voices, and tenor and basso are the higher and lower male voices. However, other finer definitions are used for people who don’t quite fit into these categories, the most familiar of which are baritone (between basso and tenor), mezzo (middling soprano), and contralto (beneath alto). The most obscure one is countertenor (above tenor), a male voice type that has only recently come into its own again after over a century of obscurity.

Register Definitions: Range, Technique, and Style

At its most basic, these registers define people based on their vocal range — where on the scale they sing. If you sing low and you’re a man, you’re basso. A woman who sings low is alto. Now, “low” can be defined in a variety of ways — “low” for an alto is quite high for a basso, and the ranges overlap significantly despite most people’s belief that they don’t. Tenors and sopranos overlap at their edge by a large chunk. Sopranos and bassos actually overlap as well, and these ranges themselves don’t have precise definitions.

Other terms muddy the waters further, like lyric, dramatic, coloratura, etc. These are more stylistic terms although some tend to be used more often with certain ranges; lyric and dramatic describe what is called vocal “weight,” and make a distinction roughly similar to that made by the terms “soft rock” and “metal” when used in popular music. Coloratura is usually used to describe a soprano, never a baritone.

This seems strange to people outside of the operatic world — to them, it’s an acoustic definition. Just use acoustic specifications, problem solved. However, the “problem” being solved isn’t what an outside listener might think of as the problem. Opera is theater, and the purpose behind classifying human voices isn’t just to satisfy the human drive to categorize things, addictive though that might be.

The purpose behind classifying operatic voices is to match vocalist to role. Opera companies will develop their program for a given year, and each role will come with a label attached to it. In order to cast the parts and hire any outside singers who might be needed, the company director needs to be able to run down a list and state, “We need seven sopranos, two of which are mezzo, a contralto, nine tenors, four baritones, and two bassos.” (The classifications that define singing technique and style come into it as well; if you’re casting for Wagner, a soprano used to doing Baroque won’t be your best choice.) Companies don’t really care about acoustics in terms of a frequency spectrum; they aren’t engineers. They are casting a year of plays and need to find people who can manage the roles they’ll be assigned. Given that most of the roles are broken down by gender, they must also use different words for men and women to preserve gender — although there are also defined areas where these can be broken and routinely are.

Therefore, frequency range isn’t all that has to be taken into account. Style, gender, vocal weight, and technique are also all part of the definitions as well, which complicate things even further.

The Countertenor: Range and Technique

The one vocal register that seems to act as a focus for all of these issues, especially in popular music where there are a lot more such voices than in opera, is that of countertenor. There is a revival of interest in the world of opera lately in extremely high male voices, but for the most part, there are lot more simple tenors (voices like Pavarotti, Domingo, Florez, etc.) working in opera than counters. With the relegation of the castrati to history, the very high male voice was seen as a curiosity in the classical world.

At the ground floor, considering range only, a countertenor is defined as the highest possible male range, essentially a male who sings within the alto to mezzo register. There are a number of techniques an adult man can use to sing that high, and this is where things get complicated.

The most common technique — and nowdays this is overwhelmingly what people are referring to when they use the word countertenor — is falsetto, a very high Tiny-Tim sort of voice. If you begin singing a low-ish note that is comfortable for you, and slide up slowly and gradually, eventually you will feel your voice needing to “break” into another way of producing sound. The resulting sound will be thinner, less acoustically complex, and not as rich: this is what is called “falsetto” or sometimes “head voice” since the word falsetto has some lowbrow, tacky connotations.

Most men’s falsetto voices are indeed less pleasant. Some men however, usually baritones when they sing “normally,” have a very rich, powerful falsetto that they can use very nicely. These are men like Andreas Scholl and David Daniels; nowdays, their voices are what come to mind when people use the word “countertenor”: men with baritone registers and good, strong, nimble falsettos. Rarely to never is there a tenor register sitting in the middle. The typical male counter has a double-ended voice — a baritone register (and usually a low tenor or baritone speaking voice) with a rich falsetto on top and no good tenor in the middle. The fact that they are baritones when speaking or singing “normally” prevents their falsettos from sounding kazoo-like, as the technique does for most men.

Even excepting the kazzo effect, the voice type has some problems since many men tend to sound a bit owly when they sing falsetto; think of Frank Oz voicing Miss Piggy for that hollow, woody sound. It’s a vocal flaw that can be corrected with training, but it causes most people to roll their eyes when they think of counters and has given the voice type a bad reputation for wood-bell concavity. As I’ve said earlier, once your brain thinks of Miss Piggy while you’re listening to an aria, it’s not an easy thing to unthink, and taking the music seriously at that point isn’t really an option.

There have also been men in the past who have sung in alto or mezzo and even well in the soprano range without using falsetto — castrati, men who were castrated as children to preserve their high, boyish voices. This is what most people outside of opera think of when they think of a really high classical male voice. Without testosterone, the male body remains youthful and the larynx never moves through puberty. The body doesn’t deepen or broaden very much either, so while the lung capacity increases with increased body size, the resonating chambers of the chest, head, and throat don’t masculinize, and the low frequencies provided by them also never materialize. The two best known castrati of their times were Farinelli (a mezzo) and Senesino (an alto). These two voices were greatly beloved, the superstars of their generations. Some of the best composers in history wrote specifically for them; others did not. Mozart for example didn’t care much for the castrato voice and while he did write some pieces for them, he preferred to write for female sopranos.

A very few recordings survive of one of the oldest castrati, Alessandro Moreschi who had been castrated before it went out of fashion (it was illegal even in Farinelli’s day, but poor families would come up with excuses like a fall from a horse). In these recordings, he is old and not at his prime, and the fidelity isn’t good. However, a listener can get a general idea of the voice type, and it is extremely high indeed. In my opinion, it was not a pretty voice and lacked acoustic complexity. It’s high, but brings to mind Christmas cards that play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” a very thin and uncomplicated sound without much texture.

There are men today who can sing in this range without recourse to falsetto because their bodies simply did not respond to their testosterone for medical reasons; these men’s voices are similar to the castrati of old — extremely high and lemony and acoustically simple. They may have sung as children and simply kept singing after it became obvious that their voices were not going to drop. The best example of this voice type is Radu Marian.

The third type is that of an otherwise healthy, adult male whose voice for whatever reasons simply remained high; only one known example of this voice type exists in opera today, male soprano Michael Maniaci, and his range is well above even the typical countertenor range. He is a normal, healthy male whose vocal cords simply never thickened up to the extent that most men’s do. Another similar but lower voice active in the 1950s belonged to Russell Oberlin, who began as a lyric tenor and then moved up to sing in the alto range once he realized that he was able to do so with a full chest voice.

While the voices of such men and the castrati are similar in both range and technique, they do not sound alike as there is a significant difference between a high voice in a normal, completely developed adult male body and a high voice in the artificially immature body of a castrato. Both Marian and Maniaci’s voices are high and they both have adult lung capacities, but Marian’s entire body is very boyish while Maniaci’s is that of a normal adult male, giving him the resonating chest and throat of a man and putting a thick stripe of darkness beneath his mezzo-soprano that Marian lacks. Neither man uses falsetto at all; both sing soprano with the same full-voiced techniques used by any other vocalist, male and female both. Marian’s speaking voice is extremely light, and Maniaci’s quite so, but with the added resonance of coming from a stocky male body.

Three Types of Countertenors: Falsettist, Endocrine, and Miracle

Hence, while “countertenor” is used at a basic level to refer to a man who sings within the range of soprano, there are several ways in which a man can manage it:

• Falsettist: A man with a baritone or low tenor speaking and singing voice who can manage a powerful, clear, and acoustically pleasing falsetto that sits within soprano range. This is the most common form of countertenor in classical music.
  (Examples: Andreas Scholl, David Daniels)
• Castrato: A man who sings soprano because he was castrated in youth to prevent his voice from dropping at puberty, or because his body has not matured for other hormone-related reasons.
  (Examples: Alessandro Moreschi, Radu Marian)
• Tenor altino or haute contre: A (modern) man who, for non-hormonal reasons, simply has a light and high speaking voice naturally and can sing alto or mezzo without recourse to falsetto. In popular music, where this voice is much more common, this type is often left under the umbrella of “high tenor” or “dynamic tenor.”
  <!–
  (Example: Russell Oberlin)
  (Example: Michael Maniaci)
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Male soprano Maniaci is on the extreme high end of the last category, but his voice is significantly higher than any altino, and hence he bills himself as a separate voice category. Since natural male sopranos are so uncommon, there is no pat term to describe one, unlike the term altino or haute contre which is used to describe the natural male alto/mezzo.

The falsettist is the most common, and usually causes people to blink in surprise as these men do not sound effeminate when they talk and can be a bit on the large side physically. The castrato tends to make people wince, and again is not acoustically complex.

It’s the altino that usually causes people to rock back on their heels a bit, as they tend to be extremely beautiful, without any of the breathiness of the falsettist nor the ringtone-like squeakiness of the castrato. They simply have high voices housed in natural and healthy adult male bodies, with all of the tonal richness and resonance that implies. Such voices consist of a textured pool of lightness that avoids the shrill quality of some high female voices thanks to a sweet, thick stripe of masculine darkness running underneath like the molasses in a shoo-fly pie.

The female counterpart to this is the equally beloved excellent low contralto, voices like Marian Anderson, Carly Simon, or Annie Lennox. Such voices consist of a rich, thick pool of warmth and darkness that avoids the muddy and indistinct quality of the low male voice thanks to a light layer of sparkle above it all. Both voice types — high male and low female — are well-rounded, textured, and complete and avoid the pitfalls of either gender, easily the best of both vocal worlds.

Counters and Popular Music

For the past century, counters were seen as historical curiosities, very out of fashion. Falsettists were considered tacky and naturally high male voices were thought physically impossible since the abolition of castration for that reason. Alfred Deller, the early 20th century English counter, once met a French woman who exclaimed to him, “Monsieur, vous êtes eunuque!” (“Sir, you are a eunuch!”) He replied, “I think you mean ‘unique,’ Madame.”

As a result, the only place where people have found extremely high male voices during the 20th century is popular music, and more of these voices (in American popular music especially) have been altinos than falsettists. Some have, such as the Scots Jimmy Sommerville, who must be classified as a falsettist countertenor to avoid breaking the definition into a million pieces. Others like Steve Perry and Neil Sedaka have both the range and speaking voices of altinos.

Using classical register definitions for popular vocalists however is a bit fraught. Popular singers need not be matched to equivalent roles, and there are a lot more vocal techniques used within popular music than simply chest voice versus falsetto — classical singing techniques are very limited. Crooner, screamer, creaker, belter, falsetto, and grunter are all recognized, tuneful, and skilled techniques in popular singing, although they are all used to describe male voices only; despite the fact that Barbra Streisand is indeed a crooner, most popular music fans would not want to use that word to describe a woman’s voice. Joan Jett is a screamer, but most rock fans would rather use the world to describe Lou Gramm.

The terms have even shifted and changed with time. While “crooner” is used nowdays to describe simply a more chest-voice style of singing, it originally meant a style of music a bit like Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore” and was used pejoratively. Currently, Luther Vandross is called a crooner, and no one thinks twice about it.

As a result, some care should be taken to keep vocal technique in mind when using classical voice register definitions to describe popular singers. I do believe that, since there are so many extremely high male voices and low female voices in popular music compared to opera, using the terms “contralto” and “countertenor” is unavoidable in the popular music world. However, it’ll take some time for the terms to be used appropriately to avoid flat-out contradicting the established (technique-based) register definitions.

Hello Readers. We have a special treat today. David Walker – Julius Caesar, has agreed to be interviewed for our blog.

Robert Motley: Opera fans here in Kansas City may not have had the chance to experience Baroque opera recently. What is the first difference you think they will notice?

David Walker: I think they will first notice the standard usage in Baroque music which is the da capo aria. This type of musical usage, or language if you will, was the absolute standard during this musical time period. The da capo aria is basically an aria where a musical section is presented (usually referred to as the ‘A’ section), then they introduce a different musical section (usually referred to as the ‘B’ section), then they return to the ‘A’ section again to end the aria. The texts for the A and B sections are different.

OH!  And they might notice that there are two countertenors singing in this production!  That is an usual voice type for companies that don’t often use these voices!  Countertenors are men who sing higher than tenors, in the female alto or mezzo range.  There are even higher male singers than countertenors who sing in the female soprano range, and they are called male sopranists!

RM: Some children grow up thinking they want to be actors or singers when they “grow up,” but I think opera is less common (although no less appreciated and certainly no less difficult!)  How did you come to opera?  Why did you choose this as your particular form of artistic expression?

DW: When I was growing up I was very drawn to the arts–music, art, acting, etc.–and it just seemed to be a natural part of me.  I did, like you say, want to be an actor or singer, or even be in a rock band.  But those were just dreams at the time.  I kept the arts as my favorite hobby throughout my life (painting, singing in choirs, performing in musicals, playing the french horn) and continued to focus on my education and trying to get good grades in school!  I excelled in science and mathematics, so I went to Lafayette College in Easton, PA, to complete my Industrial Engineering degree.  It was while I was working as a Business Manager that I decided to take my first voice lesson–I was 24.  That first voice lesson changed my life.  It was then that my voice teacher and I discovered that I was truly a countertenor, and we began to work on repertoire immediately.  This is when I discovered the operatic repertoire.  I had known of the main, standard operas, but I had never really explored that form of music.  After getting a few professional gigs on the east coast, a close friend of mine suggested that I return to graduate school to complete a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance.  I wasn’t sure I could do this, but with a lot of research, hard work and determination, I left my job and completed my degree at Florida State University.  I have never looked back!

RM: When you say you are “truly a countertenor” are you saying you didn’t “start out” as a baritone or bass?

DW: Indeed, I was singing in choirs and musicals as a tenor- well, more of a bari-tenor!  I was able to sing fine in these registers, it’s just that when we discovered I was a countertenor, it meant that this is where the truest part of my voice is located within my vocal abilities.  My voice was more complete there, it was more full, and it could navigate almost all of the technical requirements for singing.  So, with studying and practicing it become even more supported and reinforced.  I can still sing in my tenor, or baritone, range and I often use these ranges while performing.

RM: I’ve had the chance to listen to some other countertenors in the run up to Julius Caesar. In comparison, I think your style and voice are among the best. How did you come to train for being a countertenor?

DW: Thank you, that is very nice of you to say.  I appreciate that.  Fortunately for me, from my very first voice teacher, I have had voice teachers who would only teach me how to sing properly–they didn’t try to teach me differently because I was a countertenor.  They were insistent that I learn how to sing just like everyone else, with proper technique, resonance, ring, lyricism, breath control, etc.  I feel very fortunate for having these kinds of voice teachers.  So, I practice, practice, practice!  I mostly practice so much because of the repertoire I sing–Baroque music requires every ability of vocal production (agility, lyricism, bravado, emotion, etc.) so I definitely have to stay on top of my vocal technique!

RM: Personally, I enjoy watching operas where the performers are also “acting” and not just singing.  I feel your performance as Caesar conveys his character through your dramatic approach, both in voice and action.  How did you prepare to portray this character to achieve that result?

DW: Well I think I am an unusual opera singer.  I really, really enjoy acting.  That is not to say that other opera singers don’t, it is just that I really, really like to act.  In fact most of my performances I am acting first, and then singing secondly–I know it should be the other way around, but I really feel that more emotion comes through my performance if I am acting first.  I have done a lot of ’straight’ theatre pieces with no singing, some musicals, and a lot of operas, so I really enjoy acting.  To prepare for a role you have to research the character, if they are not fictional, and discover what he/she did in their lifetimes.  If you can bring that to the opera in which you are singing, then that is a bonus.  Most of the time you have to act and react within the confines of what the composer and librettist have defined within the opera.  It may not matter if an historical character behaved a certain way if the composer/librettist has not included that in their opera.

RM: I understand you are staying down in the Plaza area, right? Have you been enjoying your time here in Kansas City?  What have been the highlights of this visit?

DW: Well, I have been enjoying Kansas City as much as I can, but being the title character I have had to be at almost every rehearsal!  Which means that I have only had our two days off so far to really see any of Kansas City.  I did go to the Nelson-Atkins museum which was really nice.  And I have been able to see some of the town while driving around to rehearsals, the grocery store, Target, etc.  And naturally I have walked around the Plaza area.  I have been enjoying the fall colors in the leaves…

Den i mitt tycke bäste nutida countertenoren. Blodfull!