I love this guy's channel! He's better than the majority of well known tenors at the Met and La Scala who sing like whiny lil strumpets :lol:

 

Deutsche Grammophon's 20/21 series offers Three Sisters by Peter Eötvös with the 3 leads sung by males.

Alain Aubin (counter-tenor), Oleg Riabets (counter-tenor), Vyatchescav Kagen - Paley (counter-tenor)

 

Max Emanuel Cencic used to have a Youtube outdoor concert when he was young and impossibly gorgeous - say around 25. He sang several arias for sopranos by Bellini and Donizetti I believe. I've only ever heard countertenors sing music written for countertenors. I can't find it anymore on Youtube. It was so wonderful.

 

There are very few roles specifically written to be sung by countertenors, which have risen lately (in the last few decades) to sing male roles in Baroque operas previously sung en travesti by mezzo-sopranos or contraltos. Modern operatic composers have written roles specifically to be sung by the countertenor voice because of its unusual sound - they want the unearthly sounds a countertenor can produce. Some English composers also wrote concert, opera and church music taken by countertenors (Purcell anyone?).

 

Better than any tenors today...

 

One of the great finds on this site this year.

 

Aïs for amplified baritone, solo percussion & orchestra by Xenakis has its baritone in counter-tenor territory:

https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-5279/

"This disc presents volume one a projected complete orchestral works of Iannis Xenakis (b. 1922). They are not for the faint-hearted, being the fullest expression yet of what Xenakis-pupil of Messiaen, apprentice to Le Corbusier-once called "stochastic music", music based on advanced probability theory. All but one work here succeeds (at least given the intellectual framework Xenakis provides for each piece): that comparative failure is Ais, for baritone, solo percussion, and orchestra. The baritone, Spyros Sakkas, pushes the limits of his vocal range into counter-tenor territory as the orchestra crashes and burns all around him. The "libretto" is a collection of whinnies, yelps, and barking sounds, with some actual Greek spoken here and there. Frankly, unless you're a committed Xenakian, it's almost unbearable, and the physical sound of a (this?) baritone in his highest octaves is quite strained. Of course, this may be the composer's whole point-comfort surely isn't one of his aesthetic goals."

 

What's fascinating about her to me is that she is not just an unusually deep female voice singing a male role, but that her technique is actually that of a male tenor: she sings her high notes in covered chest, not head voice. But she also isn't like a pop singer driving full chest up high. To me it's like gold for trying to show the difference between these different coordinations. I suspect it could have been done more widely, but there was no interest in it. She gives a great performance - very musical.

I can easily imagine her in Mozart, though its hard to guage from the recording whether or not she could handle anything requiring much power or brilliance.

Same. I think she could have had a wonderful career as a lyric tenor. To say something favorable about the modern Met for a change, if she came along today I suspect they would give her a chance.

 

This is not operatic but worth a watch. A female baritone.

 

She is a good showman, it was fun to watch, but Ponselle did it better in her Russian Gypsy Song and didn't have the split registers.

 

There's no reason why a woman shouldn't have a masculine voice.[/QUOTE]
e.g. Bea Arthur as Maude LOL

 

There's no reason why a woman shouldn't have a masculine voice.

e.g. Bea Arthur as Maude LOL[/QUOTE]

As spiritualists would say, "they're running too much male energy!"

 

After Stephanie Blythe's voice dropped down to tenor but kept all it's beauty she created an outrageous male drag persona for a pop/opera blend show that was AMAZING. In this clip halfway in she sings in the original key the big tenor aria from Flotlow's Martha ( one of the two operas I saw my sister in live). Blythe had the biggest voice I ever heard live and I wish her Amneris at Seattle Opera was on video.

This is longer clip I just uploaded from that drag show that is longer and better where she starts out by singing Nessun dorma in the original key.

 

Bizarre! I'm not sure she's singing in the original tenor range, it sounds more like she's concentrating on singing in her chest voice (can't be sure). That she's doing a drag show is sad (not that there's anything wrong with that!) - did she lose her voice?

 

No, he doesn't. Sure, he could sing sensitively when he needed to (his sense of contrast was amazing), but he always had a masculine voice and presence.

I seem to remember a TIO video where they played Gigli and Ponselle singing in head voice side by side on the same pitch. The sound was nearly identical. If Ponselle sounds like Gigli, then Gigli sounds like Ponselle, ie a woman. The point is that male headvoice and female headvoice are not fundamentally different, just as the Tebaldi example proves female chest voice is not fundamentally different from male chest voice. So all I mean to say here is that there is not an unbridgeable gap between male and female singers, and that if Helder was able to cultivate a successful voice on the other side of that gap from where most women do, why shouldn't we say she's a tenor? I agree ultimately though that's it's not super important. What's important to me is that it be acknowledged that she is not a contralto in the sense that she doesn't sing in two registers, she sings in one register covered, which is not what contraltos do. We seem to basically agree about her use of registers, so I can live with that.

 

I doubt that anyone coming upon Helder's recording without knowing who was singing would think he was listening to a woman, contralto or otherwise. The losses to the frequency spectrum inherent in the acoustic recording have no doubt robbed the voice of some brilliance and body which, in life, would probably have made it still more masculine in quality.

 

Personally, I notice a big difference. Her voice sounds much more comfortable, speech-like. Tenors singing in that range (I believe Gigli has also sung this piece) carry more energy and pain, while the contralto sounds more relaxed and conversational. The tenor sounds lovesick and tormented, the contralto sounds like a wise woman strolling through the gardens. Similar ranges, but they come off like night and day.

 

I think you guys misunderstood my question
I didn’t ask about men with feminine voices and women with masculine voices (though the discussion that resulted is really interesting).
I asked about singer with “regular” voices who sing pieces outside their fachs, transposing accordingly.

 

I think you guys misunderstood my question
I didn't ask about men with feminine voices and women with masculine voices (though the discussion that resulted is really interesting).
I asked about singer with "regular" voices who sing pieces outside their fachs, transposing accordingly.

Call it "thread drift" or "mission creep."

On topic, I was a tenor who liked to go around singing Bellini's soprano arias. My specialty was "Qui la voce" from I Puritani. That no one ever heard me do this is their good fortune.

 

There are a number of Schubert lied that are transposed up or down for different genders regularly, but I think since they aren't character pieces, that is ok. I am also fairly positive that Rossini reused tunes for different genders. Aretha Franklin did her interpretation of Nessun Dorma. Does that count? Of course Ombra mai fu is done both by tenors, counter tenors and mezzos. Fagioli is the only counter tenor I have heard do this, but he sang Arsace in Semiramide, which is normally done by mezzos, and did it spectacularly. I close with the piece de resistance, a male soprano singing In Questa

. He might not lose his head but then Calaf might flip out when he finds out what surprises this Turandot has in store for him.

 

I close with the piece de resistance, a male soprano singing In Questa

. He might not lose his head but then Calaf might flip out when he finds out what surprises this Turandot has in store for him.

Interesting, but it doesn't compare with the richly nuanced interpretation by Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh. Nothing does.

 

I ADORE Madame Vera. Her repertory just goes on and on! Truly a Soprano Assoluto instrument.

 

Just off the top of my head I think in men you just wouldn't find a straight male singer doing this as it would not be macho enough. I think Nessun Dorma might get some women singers and I think three in a group did so in a concert, but although I remember it I can't find it. Outside of genderless lieder I just don't see the attraction and it is too odd except for perhaps a gay artist. Just my 2 cents.

 

Just wondering, since you seem to be in tune with these things: how many straight female impersonators have there been? Any well-known ones?

There really is no socially sanctioned male equivalent to the tomboy. Straight boys are not clamoring to play on girls' sports teams, and if female actors play Hamlet they are likely never to tell a male Ophelia to get him to a nunnery. Hence it stands to reason that few of us will ever get to hear a tenor sing "Caro nome" or Brunnhilde's Immolation Scene.

Straight men are such weenies.

 

Semi relevant