Baritones and Basses

Of my chapters on different types of voices this one was actually the hardest for me.  I hope I got it right.

This is here to help you learn about the different types of operatic baritones and basses. It's intended to educate listeners rather than singers.

The bass is the lowest natural male voice.  His voice might extend up to F above middle C and down to low C depending on Fach.  The sub-categories for baritone and bass are many, some very specialized, that a full discussion may prove impossible.  This is proving to be difficult, a learning experience also for me.  We will start with this set and see how far we get.

Lyric baritone
Dramatic baritone
Lyric Bass-baritone
Dramatic Bass-baritone
Bass

If there are more categories, we are ignoring them.  I am now going to describe the sub-categories, but please be aware that the same singer may show up in different sub-categories.  A role may also cross into more than one category.  I have tried in selecting these examples to make sure that the singer is actually of the suggested sub-category.

Lyric baritone

This is a pleasant low sound, basically the voice of the average male.  Sample roles are Papageno in The Magic Flute (Mozart), Marcello in La bohème (Puccini), Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni (Mozart), Figaro in The Barber of Seville (Rossini), etc.  Here is Simon Keenleyside singing "Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja" from The Magic Flute.

Dramatic baritone

Sometimes this Fach includes a sub-sub-category called Verdi baritone.  For me the Verdi baritone defines the dramatic baritone and does not require a Fach of its own.  This voice needs a full tone for its entire range and that special Verdi intensity.  Sample roles are Rigoletto in Rigoletto (Verdi), Scarpia in Tosca (Puccini), Simon Boccanegra in Simon Boccanegra (Verdi), Escamillo in Carmen (Bizet), Conte di Luna in Il trovatore (Verdi), etc.  Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings "Il balen" from Il Trovatore.



I'm calling him a dramatic baritone.  He is for me the greatest of operatic idols:  Leonard Warren singing "Cortigiani" from Rigoletto.

Lyric Bass-baritone

What is a bass-baritone?  He is a baritone with a really full, rich low register.  He might be lower than a baritone or he might not.  It's the sound that matters.  Examples of lyric bass-baritones are:  Méphistophélès in Faust (Gounod), Leporello in Don Giovanni (Mozart), Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), Philip II in Don Carlos (Verdi), Escamillo in Carmen (Bizet), Porgy in Porgy and Bess (Gershwin), The 4 Villains in Les contes d'Hoffmann (Offenbach), etc.

René Pape sings "Le veau d'or" from Faust.



This is Ferruccio Furlanetto singing "Ella giammai m'amo" from Don Carlo.

Dramatic Bass-baritone

I think this is a category invented by Wagner.  He wanted a bass sound with the Dutchman in Der fliegende Holländer, Wotan/Der Wanderer in the Ring Cycle and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg while generally ignoring the upward boundaries of the Fach.

This example is like nothing else in the world.  It is a young (35?) Hans Hotter singing "Die Frist ist um" from the Flying Dutchman. 

Bass

A bass needs to have full resonance on very low notes.  The Fach may extend to below the bass clef staff.  Examples of roles are The Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo (Verdi), Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier (R. Strauss), Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni (Mozart), Hunding in Die Walküre (Wagner), etc.

Here is a wonderful example of a baritone and a bass singing in the same scene.  The older man is Rigoletto, a baritone, and the younger man is Sparafucile, an assassin who sings bass, including a nice low F at the end. Željko Lučić (Rigoletto) and Štefan Kocán (Sparafucile).



This is Charon from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo sung by Paul Gérimon.

Buffo Bass

There is a whole category for men who sing only comic roles called buffo bass or basso buffo.  This is a long tradition starting in Italy.  They are always basses but not usually very distinguished.  Here is a favorite.

 

Some roles for this voice are Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola (Rossini), Leporello in Don Giovanni (Mozart), Dottor Dulcamara in L'elisir d'amore (Donizetti), Rocco in Fidelio (Beethoven), etc.

See here for countertenors, here for sopranos, here for tenors, and here for mezzos and contraltos.

Selfie of the Week

This is Jay Hunter Morris in his makeup for Moby Dick in Los Angeles.

Was ist denn dass?

On the Kaufmann unofficial page:

23.6.2016, Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Lied von der Erde, + sinfonische Musik (beide Stimmen, Tenor und Bariton)

Did you ever hear of such a thing?  Translation.  Jonas Kaufmann will sing both the tenor and the baritone parts in Das Lied von der Erde by Mahler.  Ach du lieber.

Of course I am only aware of a Das Lied von der Erde that's for tenor and MEZZO.

Ariadne auf Naxos from Munich

Conductor:  Kirill Petrenko
Production:  Robert Carsen

Haushofmeister:  Johannes Klama (spoken)
Ein Musiklehrer:  Markus Eiche (baritone)
Der Komponist:  Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)
Bacchus/Der Tenor:  Peter Seiffert (tenor)
Ein Offizier:  Petr Nekoranec (tenor)
Ein Tanzmeister:  Kevin Conners (tenor)
Ein Perückenmacher:  John Carpenter (baritone)
Ein Lakai:  Christian Rieger (bass)
Zerbinetta:  Brenda Rae (coloratura soprano)
Ariadne/Primadonna:  Amber Wagner (soprano)
Harlekin:  Elliot Madore (baritone)

I don't think of Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss as a dark opera, so I was not exactly comfortable with all the black, especially in the second part.  On the live stream it was hard to see.  I think you could fake this with the technology and make it a bit lighter.

We begin in a mirror lined room, like a ballet studio only without the horizontal bars.  People are dancing.  The two entertainments must be performed as one because (as we know from the original Ariadne) the wife has requested fireworks when it gets dark at 9:00.  There is much dressing and undressing, which was wonderfully amusing, by both ballet men and singer men.  Very dark set with almost nudity.  For me this is incongruous.  They almost have to take off their clothes before we can see them at all.

I'm not sure why we love this opera.  Because it's successfully silly?  Or is it because it includes two of the greatest arias in the German repertoire:  "Es gibt ein Reich" and "Großmächtige Prinzessin".  This was an excellent cast from all over the opera world.  For me the highlight of the performance was Amber Wagner's "Es gibt ein Reich."  Glorious.  I can't think of when I've heard it better.  Brenda Rae approached "Großmächtige Prinzessin" more from a sexy/romantic direction than the usual showing off.  She was previously seen in Die Schweigsame Frau.  Both of these women are American.

Musically it was the very best.  Zerbinetta flirted with Petrenko.  Wenn es irgendwas heiliges gibt, muss es die Musik sein.

Otello in HD

Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production:  Bartlett Sher

Montano:  Jeff Mattsey (bass)
Cassio: Dimitri Pittas (tenor)
Iago: Željko Lučić (baritone)
Roderigo:  Chad Shelton (tenor)
Otello: Aleksandrs Antonenko (tenor)
Desdemona:  Sonya Yoncheva (soprano)
Emilia: Jennifer Johnson Cano (mezzo-soprano)

Saturday's Met Live in HD featured Verdi's Otello.  Many consider this Verdi's greatest opera.  I think it requires perfection to achieve that.  There is no sense of transition from recitative to aria, which leads to people calling it Wagnerian.  Bah humbug.

Otello has been the subject of a lot of talk since it opened in September.  People who don't know anything about opera are pitching for casting a black singer to play Otello.  Those of us who know things know that there are probably about 5 people who can sing Otello today and none of them are black.  Russell Thomas may develop into a great Otello, but he has already gone on record that he wants to keep his repertoire varied.

So we have Aleksandrs Antonenko, a Russian tenor with a huge voice who brought a lot of angry intensity to his portrayal.  I need an Otello who covers both ends of the emotional range and shows the transition from love to anger.  Željko Lučić as Iago was theatrically quite wonderful.  I would call him a lyric baritone who is stretching a bit to do Iago, but on the HD screen this was irrelevant.

My biggest complaint about both of these men is the complete absence of any Italian phrasing.  Each slid about 3 times in the whole opera.  Netrebko goes to great lengths to learn how to phrase her Italian repertoire, and you guys could do the same.  I wasn't sure if possibly Yannick Nézet-Séguin wasn't encouraging them in this direction.  A brief rehearsal was shown on the movie screen.  Dimitri Pittas shows a much more natural Verdi style, but the conductor was constantly trying to get him to square off the phrasing.  This is incorrect.  It is also the likely cause of the fact that Antonenko did not project as romantic in the early scenes.  It's less important for Iago who is always nasty.

Sonya Yoncheva sang with absolute perfection in her Italian style.  Never too much, never too little.  She was wonderful.  In the intermission she said that she had decided to portray Desdemona as a strong Italian woman.  It was a thing of beauty.  I wasn't sure I would like her, but I was completely won over.  The death scene did make me think of the issue, "Please remember that Otello kills Desdemona, but Antonenko does not kill Yoncheva."  Very important.  In the bows she tried to choke him jokingly.

I didn't mind the movable glass buildings though they did not project any sense of geographical location.  The plot was easy to follow.  This Otello was generally very pleasing.
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Cumberbatch Hamlet

It was fun to see Hamlet simulcast from the Barbican in London.  This is the version starring Benedict Cumberbatch.  It was very much like a modern opera production with contemporary clothing and furniture.  At one point Hamlet wears a Bowie t-shirt.  When Hamlet is speaking only to us, the other actors freeze in place while Hamlet speaks.

The strongest feature of this production is the intense energy of Benedict Cumberbatch.  He is on stage for the whole first half.  The other actors displayed a wide variety of accents, something I have not experienced for Shakespeare.  Stage English is the standard.  Did this intend to illustrate class in the characters, or was it just a coincidence?

It starts with chandeliers and celebrations and moves through madness and accidental murder to a scene of utter devastation and ruin with dead bodies strewn about the stage.

One of my favorite bits:  Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are standing with the queen and king.  King says to left person, Goodbye Rosenkrantz and then to right person, Goodbye Guildenstern.  Queen then comes up to these same two guys and says to the left person, Goodbye Guildenstern, and then to the right person, Goodbye Rosenkrantz.  When was Hamlet supposed to be funny?

It was fast paced and enjoyable.

Lucia in San Francisco

Conductor:  Nicola Luisotti
Director:  Michael Cavanagh

Enrico Ashton, Lucia's brother:  Brian Mulligan (baritone)
Lucia Ashton:  Nadine Sierra (coloratura soprano)
Riamondo Bidebent, Lucia's tutor:  Nicolas Teste (bass)
Edgardo, Lucia's fiance:  Piotr Beczala (tenor)
Arturo Bucklaw, man Lucia is forced to marry:  Chong Wang (tenor)

The San Francisco Opera presented a new production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor before I was tired of the old one.  There were some interesting features.  The female ghost appeared.  I believe this feature was introduced by Mary Zimmerman in her production, but now it is treated as an ancient tradition.  When Lucia sings about the woman killed in the fountain, her ghost appears.  Nothing else resembled Zimmerman who evoked the Scottish moors and retained the traditional giant staircase.  Here everything either resembled an interior or moved to something like outer space.

This picture is the scene of Edgardo and Enrico quarreling in the clouds.

The mad scene in Act 3 was the creepiest ever.  Everything is covered with blood.  Then Lucia pulls her blood-stained train toward us, revealing Arturo lying dead on the bed.  I was sitting next to someone who was once a super, and we agreed that this was perhaps the great super role.  He must lie there quietly with his pants pulled down halfway and his butt sticking out while Lucia sings her heart out.  Very impressive.  There was an entertaining interplay between the soprano and the flute here that we enjoyed very much.

Nadine Sierra performed this role previously in Zurich and seems to have benefited beautifully from the coaching there.  I felt that both her singing and her facial expressions were a treat.  I liked this Lucia, though her voice is somewhat small for the War Memorial. 

Brian Mulligan, our Sweeney Todd, successfully made the transition to serious opera.  He was if anything even scarier here than his previous outing.  I love Piotr, but his voice may also be a bit small for our acoustically challenged opera house.

There are basically 3 ways to establish a costuming period for an opera.  First is the stated period, here the 17th century; second is the period of the first performance of the opera, here 1835, and last is something vaguely modern.  Curiously, our program says "TIME AND PLACE:  Scotland in the near-future."  This means category 3 and anything goes.  Most of the time Lucia wears a big dress like you see in the era of the American Civil War.  The men wear modern looking suits, sometimes uniforms.  Occasional kilts were seen, always in dark colors.  In the wedding scene the women all wore giant hats such as one might see at a British royal wedding.  People like to think they can pick a fashion period, but that seemed impossible here.

Luisotti was great.  This is the first opera I have actually liked this season.

At the end as Edgardo kills himself, Lucia appears as the ghost to escort him to heaven.  If this is a new tradition, I think I like it.  If it turns out to be an old one, let me know.

Mezzo-soprano and Contralto Chapter

This is here to help you learn about the different types of operatic mezzo-sopranos and contraltos. It's intended to educate listeners rather than singers.

Lower voiced women in opera are usually mezzo-sopranos, but occasionally one hears a true contralto, the lowest female Fach.  Today I know of only two contraltos:  Ewa Podleś and Meredith Arwady.  Mezzos and contraltos will need notes well below middle C, and a mezzo should have a high B flat at least.  I'm not sure there is a sharp line separating mezzo-soprano from contralto, but I will try.  Here is a list of the sub-categories for mezzo-sopranos and contraltos.

Coloratura mezzo
Lyric mezzo
Dramatic mezzo
Coloratura contralto
Lyric contralto
Dramatic contralto

I am now going to describe the sub-categories, but please be aware that the same singer may show up in different sub-categories.  A role may also cross into more than one category.  I have tried in selecting these examples to make sure that the singer is actually of the suggested sub-category.

Coloratura Mezzo

The coloratura mezzo is primarily a phenomenon of the Baroque and bel canto.  Sometimes the male hero is in this Fach, but most of our examples are female roles.  Angelina in La Cenerentola (Rossini), Romeo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini), Costanza in Griselda (Vivaldi) [Wikipedia lists Griselda as a coloratura mezzo when she is barely a singing role at all.  Costanza has all the good singing.], Rosina in The Barber of Seville (Rossini), etc.  This example is Cecilia Bartoli singing "Non piu mesta" from La Cenerentola.



And only La Bartoli runs to the top of the cake.

Trio MôD Convergence

Maquette Kuper, Deborah Pittman, Omari Tau

Trio MôD, seen above, gave a concert at the Guild Theater on 35th Street.  I felt surprised that I had never been here before.

Maki explained at the start of the concert that there is no repertoire for this ensemble.  So there is no Schubert or Bartok on the program.  One familiar name is the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria arranged by Pittman.  This is fun.

My favorite item on the first half of the program was Omari Tau's song cycle Did You Get My Text Yesterday?  Songs are added on an ad hoc basis when he receives a new text from his friend.  It is perhaps post modernist.  I would never text anything this long.

Virtually everything on the program was accompanied by spoken text and/or dancing.  The dancers represented TwoPoint4 Dance Theater, Sac State and River City Taps.  The spoken words were generally on the subject of Oak Park, the neighborhood around the Guild Theater.  The most coherent was the part about the race riots in the 60s.

I think they are interesting and enjoyable, but a bit ahead of their context.

Il Trovatore in HD 👍🏻

Conductor:  Marco Armiliato
Production:  David McVicar

Leonora:  Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Azucena:  Dolora Zajick (mezzo-soprano)
Manrico:  Yonghoon Lee (tenor)
di Luna:  Dmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone)
Ferrando:  Štefan Kocán (bass)

Heard in the theater during intermission of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD simulcast of Verdi's Il Trovatore, "Does it get better than this?"  Followed by, "No!  No, it does not!"  It truly does not.

People get really confused by the plot of this opera, and I think the main reason is because it spends so much time explaining things that took place in the long ago past.  A young prince got sick right after he had been visited by a gypsy woman who seemed like a witch.  When the gypsy woman was taken off to be burned at the stake, her daughter Azucena kidnapped the sick child.  Then seeing her mother burning and her mother shouting out "avenge me," Azucena grabbed the nearest child and threw her own baby into the fire.  She kept the kidnapped child and raised him as her own.  This story gets told twice and then is referred to constantly by the different characters.  We would just rather watch the people we are seeing on the stage.

Azucena is really quite mad and is really quite happy when the son she has raised and loved is killed because at last her mother is avenged.  Yes.  Being avenged is what matters most.  And no one either sings or plays the really quite mad Azucena better than Dolora Zajick who owns this role.  She is the first block in the "four greatest singers" quadrangle required for this opera.

The plot on the stage is just your garden variety love triangle.  Both Conte di Luna and the gypsy Manrico love Leonora.  Manrico serenades Leonora and di Luna just lurks around looking dour.  It isn't hard to grasp why she prefers Manrico.  Enough about the plot.

Two, Anna and Dmitri, of this trio of singers are my absolute favorites in their respective Fachs.  (Or what is the plural of Fach?)  Much fuss was made over Dmitri because he is still in treatment for his brain tumor.  He spoke to us and thanked us for all the love.  His singing was powerful and emotional, a genuine experience.

A year ago after watching the stream of this opera from Salzburg I wrote, "I love Anna and find that she almost achieves the greatness here that she desires and will do so in the future."  I am very pleased to report that she has.  This is the greatest Leonora I have ever seen.  Her gorgeous voice is receiving spectacular attention to detail while retaining all of her wonderful emotion.  She is the opera singer for our age. 

Yonghoon Lee would rate a lot more raves if he were in any cast but this one.  Nevertheless he was outstanding.  It was all in all an emotional day at the opera.

At the end the orchestra repeated their ovation of white roses for Hvorostovsky.  Be well, maestro.

Footnote.  The San Francisco Opera also uses the McVicar production for this opera.