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From:  thomas mark montgomery <thomas8@t...>
thomas mark montgomery <thomas8@t...>
Date:  Sat Mar 17, 2001  6:26 pm
Subject:  Labels



> The irony is that there is almost as much variety in countertenors as
> there are in all female voices, let alone a range group, like mezzos
> (of course, there don't seem to be enough "dramatics" out there to
> warrant that category for CTs, at least yet). I tried to categorize
> David Daniels last week as a "medium lyric countertenor" (to be more
> specific, I would have like to have said medium lyric mezzo-sopranist
> countertenor).

All countertenors are lyric and calling anyone "medium" anything is
exactly what makes vocal labels seem silly. "Medium" smacks of ego,
not vocal quality. Can you imagine Marily Horne referring to herself
as a "medium" lyric mezzo, or Thomas Allen a "medium" baritone? You sing
what you can sing successfully and that is what places you in a fach. If
you can successfully sing Florestan, Canio, Otello and Siegfried, then you
can call ones self a dramatic tenor. When countertenors can sing
Santuzza, Eboli, Erda and Dalila, then we'll begin to call them dramatic.
And as to soprano falsettists, are these people singing high Bb and C? I
haven't heard any.

On a side note, Graham, does the fach system recognize countertenor at
all, and do you know of any houses who have a full-time countertenor on
roster?

Mark Montgomery



  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
10350 Re: Labels Tako Oda   Sat  3/17/2001   4 KB
10359 Re: Labels velluti@c...   Sat  3/17/2001   2 KB
10369 Re: Labels gsanders@b...   Sun  3/18/2001   2 KB

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