--- Joel Figen <natural@w...> wrote:
(...snip..)> But on the subject of castrati, which has
come up
> quite a bit
> recently, what do we really know about them, other
> than the
> range of their voices and (sometimes) the parts that
> were
> written for them? (...) Anybody(...)
I can imagine countertenors have some legitamacy
performing Bach or other religious music, because this
realy seems to have been been done in the past.
Besides that, the accoustics of churches compensate
partly for the fact that the CT-sound is poor of
harmonics other than the first.
But the idea of countertenors as the true heir of the
castratos, never made any sense to me. Three remarks:
1. Schonbergs 'The Virtuosi' has a chapter about
castrato's. He also mentiones two women alto and
soprano, that were real competitors of the castratos
in their time. If they were able to compete with them,
it is likely that they have sounded alike. Schonberg
(a former NYT-critic) also says about the castratos:
they had the voices of women, but the lungs of men.
(So they might have very well sounded as Sutherland,
but more beautiful; also other writers mention that
their voices sounded like female voices, but much
stronger, louder) The castratos were very good at
singing never ending phrases: this something counter
tenors are not good at.
2. Gluck has, when the castratos disappeared,
rewritten his Orpheus-role to be sung by a tenor. So
there are only two authentic ways of singing this
role, either by a tenor, or by a castrate! Why is it,
people nowadays always use a CT or an alto? It is
simply against the wishes of the composer! Gluck must
have been aware of the fact that there were
countertenors, singing in churches, and he must most
certainly have known that there were female altos,
nevertheless he preferred a tenor. Why? Probably
because the bright sound of a tenor was what he
needed.
3. Allthough we only have the before mentioned record
of what is suposed to be the last(?) castrato, which
shows us a bird like, at least a very bright, tone
quality (which is not very CT-like, is it!), all
writers mention the fact that castratos were able to
make enormous dynamic changes, from pppp to ffff. I
just want to remember here of the often mentioned
musical duel Farinelli held with a trumpet: Farinelli
won! (because he was louder)
Now: show me the countertenor that rivals a trumpet,
and I want to believe countertenors have anything to
do with castratos, other than some strange ambuigity
about their gender and sexual prefereces.
We all now that after the castratos, the soprano's and
tenors became the true stars of the stages. Nobody
ever thought in that time of bringing countertenors on
the operatic stage. I think that the people at that
time, who knew the castratos very well, were also very
well able to hear what was able to replace them.
By the way: there is still one living and singing
castrato: it is black guy, who had some kind of
fysical misfortune. It is a pity that he sings blues
or something like that, but his biggest problem is,
that nobody hears he is a man, he just sounds exactly
like a woman, and most certainly not as a
countertenor!
If he would have had a better training, he might have
developed qualities like some more famous castrati
had, but he surely would not have started to sound
like a counter tenor!
Best wishes
Dre
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