Any idea why opera companies won't hire counter-tenors?

[Guest]

My beau and I attended a performance of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro last night. One of the roles is that of a man, the page Cherubino, which was intended to be played by castrati in Mozart's day. These days I would think these roles would be suited to counter-tenors, but whenever I see such roles these days, they're always played by women in men's clothing, presumably with the breasts banded to the chest. Would any of you also prefer these roles be played by counter-tenors? That being said, the mezzo who played Cherubino looked pretty good when dressed as a man. For a split second, I wondered if I might have a touch of bisexuality, but then I thought of Cherubino with breasts, and it made my stomach turn... 🤢

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Unicorn

[Guest]

 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Unicorn

[Guest]

Australian countertenor David Hansen:

Edited February 5, 2023 by Unicorn

[+ WilliamM]

Too bad you don't live in Milan year or New York or Austria or Paris

[+ Charlie]

The problem with countertenors is that many of them don't look like teenagers, so directors would rather cast a young woman in the role. I knew one countertenor who was 6'3" and 200 lbs, so he could only get booked in productions where the audience expected a man.

[+ Charlie]

To clarify for Lucky, the character Cherubino is supposed to be a teenage boy.

[+ sync]

2 hours ago, Unicorn said:

 

 

To my ear Cherubino is somewhat pleasing, whereas Philippe Jaroussky is mesmerizing.  Granted, the choices of music could be a major factor.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Charlie said:

...so he could only get booked in productions where the audience expected a man.

Understood, but I expected (or at least hoped for) a countertenor, not a woman with breasts.... Usually I feel that singers get hired for their voices. I've seen plenty of enormous women singing roles that were supposed to be ravishing young women, or black singers playing roles for European characters. One doesn't see white people playing the role of Othello these days, though. 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Unicorn

[sydneyboy]

I have only heard Cherubino once sung by a countertenor. It was Covent Garden about 3 years ago. It worked quite well.

[+ nycman]

There is only one answer……

Bring back the castrati….!!!!

[jeezifonly]

12 hours ago, Charlie said:

The problem with countertenors is that many of them don't look like teenagers, so directors would rather cast a young woman in the role. I knew one countertenor who was 6'3" and 200 lbs, so he could only get booked in productions where the audience expected a man.

Cherubino vocally lives higher and longer (3 Acts unplugged and over a bigger than baroque pit)+ demands good acting, comic timing and natural physicality. The character is a Post-pubescent horny teenage drama queen, gullible and clever, oodles of charm. Charm is key. He has to be Skeeve-Lite.

 Jarrousky is boyishly pretty enough, with top. Rare combo. Don’t know if he’s done the role on stage. 
 

Meanwhile…  LOW NOTES in high places:

https://bit.ly/3juUxnQ

 

[+ Charlie]

11 hours ago, nycman said:

There is only one answer……

Bring back the castrati….!!!!

The castrati were actually castrated as children, to keep their voices from changing as they matured. Castrating an adult male wouldn't turn him into a countertenor.

[Marc in Calif]

On 2/5/2023 at 11:35 AM, Unicorn said:

One of the roles is that of a man, the page Cherubino, which was intended to be played by castrati in Mozart's day. 

Was that fact written in the program notes? I'd never heard or read it before.

In Mozart's day, castrati did perform in operas such as Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito. But in Figaro, the character of Cherubino was definitely conceived as a female role. 

From a musicological study:

Mozart composed Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492 (1786) for Dorotea Bussani (1763–after 1810). This kept with stage directions from Beaumarchais’ play that Cherubino “can only be played… by a young and very pretty woman” and also continued the employment of female travesti roles. As this practice continued, a fascination with sexual and vocal reversals on stage emerged. We know that “not only was travesti as common a feature of seventeenth-century plots as it was in the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, but further oddities were gratuitously introduced in the writing for the voice
and in the casting.

[Marc in Calif]

8 hours ago, jeezifonly said:

Meanwhile…  LOW NOTES in high places:

https://bit.ly/3juUxnQ

Blythe said she has had in her vocal register a “C below the middle C” for a long time, but she’s never used it. Now she’s putting it to good use.

“I don’t see why when a woman’s voice changes that all of a sudden she has to be considered ‘less than.’ The bottom (range) has always been my bag. I’m happy now to have the opportunity to explore this.”

Blythe is working with several composers to write songs that capitalize on her lower range for future concerts. She also recently sang the tenor role of Don Jose in a concert version of Bizet’s “Carmen” with Chicago Opera Theatre.

She is now much in demand for concerts by her comically pompous but uber-talented alter-ego “Blythely Oratonio.” Blythe created the drag character Blythely — an over-the-top opera tenor she performs in a false beard and mustache — for a fundraising concert for Opera Philadelphia in 2017. Blythely how has his own PBS special, recorded at New York’s Lincoln Center last year, titled “Blythely Ever After.”

[Marc in Calif]

https://blo.org/blythely/

Blythely Ever After
May 6, 2022 | 7:30 pm
Boston Lyric Opera

Directed by John Jarboe
Music and Arrangements by Daniel Kazemi
Co-written by John Jarboe & Stephanie Blythe

Featuring:
Stephanie Blythe as Blythely Oratonio
Blythely Oratonio’s Band “The Fluffers”

Opener Sapphira Cristál

Runtime 90 minutes

[foxy]

I was fortunate to see the brilliant Anthony Roth Costanzo as Akhenaten in the opera by Philip Glass. 
Aside from his singing, his entrance down a staircase was totally nude. I realize that male nudity on stage is not, or should not be a big deal….but still, a lot of serious opera goers did reach for their opera glasses. 
He looked as good as he sounded. 

[Marc in Calif]

14 minutes ago, foxy said:

He looked as good as he sounded. 

May I ask if he drew his testicles way up for those really high notes? 🎼 🎶

[+ WilliamM]

3 hours ago, foxy said:

I was fortunate to see the brilliant Anthony Roth Costanzo as Akhenaten in the opera by Philip Glass. 
Aside from his singing, his entrance down a staircase was totally nude. I realize that male nudity on stage is not, or should not be a big deal….but still, a lot of serious opera goers did reach for their opera glasses. 
He looked as good as he sounded. 

Nudity has been around in New York  theater as far back as I can remember

1969

Oh Calcutta

Hair

So it's not exactly bew

[foxy]

True but few opera singers take their clothes off which is probably a good thing. 

[foxy]

14 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

May I ask if he drew his testicles way up for those really high notes? 🎼 🎶

I wasn’t sitting that close and my opera glasses weren’t that strong. 

[+ WilliamM]

15 hours ago, foxy said:

I was fortunate to see the brilliant Anthony Roth Costanzo as Akhenaten in the opera by Philip Glass. 
Aside from his singing, his entrance down a staircase was totally nude. I realize that male nudity on stage is not, or should not be a big deal….but still, a lot of serious opera goers did reach for their opera glasses. 
He looked as good as he sounded. 

Nudity has been around in New York  theater as far back as I  can remember

I enjoyed see John Stamos'  bare ass as the mc in "Cabaret"  in New York

[Whippoorwill]

Gee I would have said countertenors are increasingly popular. Sorry you must live in the wrong city Unicorn. Come to the San Francisco Opera...in the 23/24 season Carlo Vistoli will be singing in The Revolution of Steve Jobs. Last year Albert Montenez did an online program on countertenors, and we heard Jakub Orlinski in La Traviata and in Orfeo and Euridice. In recent years we have heard a lot of Arieh Nussbaum Cohen (Orlando, and many other programs with other companies). I can also remember Logan Tanner, and back a few years, Roth Costanzo in Partentope. Arieh, for one, I wouldn't mind inspecting his balls. 

[+ Italiano]

 

 

Well, first of all Cherubino was premiered by a woman.

Personally I think that even if we of course have no idea  what a castrato would sound like (the only existing recording is of a mediocre too old one, Moreschi), most of the times a countertenor doesn't have the heft, color, chest notes and range uniformity of a light or coloratura mezzo (or sometimes a Verdi mezzo like in the video I post here) who has always played the role.

Interesting so, when the movie Farinelli (the most famous castrato, apparently) was made, they used for his singing voice a combination of a soprano and a countertenor to give an idea of what a castrato would sound!

The great Verdi mezzo Giulietta Simionato singing a not frequent Cherubino:

 

Odd to look at, but I think she is the closest to what a castrato could sound in those days:

The last castrato...:

Again Cecilia Bartoli in a very fine Cherubino:

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Italiano