Dear Deborah & Listers: For thirty years I've collected recordings, autographs and images of the great contraltos: Schumann-Heink, Homer, Butt, Onegin, Braslau, Gerville-Reache, Klose, Ferrier, Chookasian. I also have some of Podoles, Stutzmann, Bean and Theobald. The reasons I've been given range from the sublime to the ridiculous. I will relate to you a sampling: Weldon Whitlock informed me the "normal" voices were Soprano and Baritone. All other fachs are a bit rarer and Contraltos are indeed the true rarity! Whitlock had a huge studio and taught over a nearly 60-year tenure. He had two contralto students! He was fortunate to be able to hear and personally be acquainted with Schumann-Heink, Homer and Braslau. He informed me he didn't hear Clara Butt because he somehow missed the opportunities when she appeared here in the USA. I am a bass-baritone and have been since 1970 a church organist and choir director. Baritones grow on trees! Not a single contralto in that tenure and only THREE mezzo-sopranos! The other "altos" I've worked with, as we've discussed ad infinitum on this list, are "short-ranged sopranos". I had one lyric coloratura soprano in this tenure. I personally heard contraltos sing on one occasion. This was at a Black Gospel Choir Concert at my church custodian's church! He personally invited me to attend this concert and, low and behold, the men sat, the women stood and, on the bottom of the chords, I could still hear "male" tone! These ladies were real contraltos! Not since have I heard the "real thing". I have heard a number of mezzos who have had the word "CONTRALTO" printed after their names, but this simply isn't the same thing. Gian-Carlo Menotti summered with Samuel Barber at Louise Homer's "Homeland". Menotti described the Homer instrument as a Dramatic Soprano on top that was wedded to a Dramatic Baritone on the BOTTOM!! Menotti and Barber heard Madame "running the scales" every morning on those now long-ago summers! Schumann-Heink's Great-Granddaughter in San Diego, CA is annually dissappointed with the "Memorial Concert" at Balboa Park. The singer is invariably a mezzo or a soprano! "Where ARE the contraltos?" "Honey! They're eating strudel with Madame in the heavens now!" is my usual reply. Ruth Theobald, an English contralto, told me that people don't eat as many Irish Potatoes as they used to, so we have fewer contraltos. Lili Chookasian told me all the singers want to be divas, sopranos! There are more wive's tales for why we don't have contraltos in abundance these days than Carter's has pills! I have a theory. We're inundated with macho in this (US) society! Parents want their daughters to sound like Charlotte Church or Brittney Spears. Period! If they hear a dark, masculine tone issuing forth from their daughter, the kid will be pulled out of any singing whatsoever and taken in the family SUV to the local craft store and given an embroidery kit before being taken to band practice, tap dancing, gymnastics, etc, etc, etc! We live in a very different time from the time when the great contraltos of the 20th century grew up and were encouraged! Kathleen Ferrier didn't like to hear her name even spoken in the same sentence with that of Clara Butt! "I don't sound a bit like Clara Butt!" she complained to her sister, Winifred Ferrier. Basses are pretty rare, but we do have them. I have heard many in church choirs and two in concert settings. The contraltos? I don't think we'll see an abundance there anytime soon! Ed
---------------------------------
|