gsanders@b... wrote:
gsanders@b... wrote:
> Operatic countertenors have exactly as much right to use
> their fachname as tenors do theirs.
>
> Can we please get this correct. Fach is a subdivision of a
> voice not the voice type.
How I wish we could, Graham! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like
countertenors have been given the same sort of treatment within the
fach system that other voices have. Most attempts I've seen to
include it add it as an afterthought to the "tenor" infragroup, which
to me ludricrous, and would probably make Reg go into convulsions ;-)
Of course countertenor is not a fach, but it is treated that way -
size, tessitura and color don't seem as important as "can he sing the
notes?"
Most countertenors have been expected to do the same roles. I've seen
sopranists do Oberon, for instance. Things are getting better, at
least in practice - higher CTs are doing Sesto, Nero, lower ones are
taking Rinaldo, Oberon, but I don't think there's any official
recognition to these differences in CTs sizes and ranges within any
house's rosters. Wasn't the fach system was devised to protect
singers contractually, so singers wouldn't have to hurt themselves at
the whim of a house? CT deserve that sort of consideration, but it's
not there yet, as far as I know, anyway.
The irony is that there is almost as much variety in countertenors as
there are in all female voices, let alone a range group, like mezzos
(of course, there don't seem to be enough "dramatics" out there to
warrant that category for CTs, at least yet). I tried to categorize
David Daniels last week as a "medium lyric countertenor" (to be more
specific, I would have like to have said medium lyric mezzo-sopranist
countertenor).
It's hard enough to get people to recognize it as even a legit
operatic voice as a broad voice type, let alone start having people
think of us as "lyric alto countertenors" or whatever. One step at a
time!
Tako
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