From what I have observed, purely informally, bass-baritones are actually
a pretty common vocal category; this perception may be inaccurate,
however, due to the fact that I believe a lot of singers who would have
formally called themselves "bassos cantantes" are now calling themselves
"bass baritones". The two are not the same thing, but I suspect it's the
marketability factor at work: a bass is more likely to be stereotyped in
either buffo or older men roles, or be expected to be a Bel Canto/Mozart
specialist, while a bass-BARITONE will still be able to qualify for those
lower-lying Verdi baritone roles, etc.
As I said, my observations are not based on a systematic statistical
analysis, but rather on casual observation. This said, it would appear
that some of the best "basses" in recent years have, in fact, been - or
called themselves - "bass-baritones" (or even simply "baritones"), though
vocally they appear to be more comparable with the likes of cantante
basses like Pinza, Renaud, etc. than with dramatic baritones like Milnes
and Warren. I'm thinking of singers like Bryn Terfel, Jose van Dam,
Ruggero Raimondi, Thomas Quasthoff, etc.
The other factor to consider is that voices are not manufactured by
machine. As much as we like to categorise, there are a lot of voices that
"aren't quite" - aren't quite soprano, aren't quite mezzo, aren't quite
contralto, aren't quite tenor, etc. If I were entirely accurate, I'd have
to categorise my own voice as "mezzo contralto" - it's not quite true
contralto, but it lies lower and has more true contralto characteristics
than a "true mezzo". The problem is, there is no acknowledged
"mezzo-contralto" category. "Bass baritone" is, in fact, a fairly recent
invention to accommodate those "tweenie" male singers who aren't quite
baritones and aren't quite basses. Mezzo soprano, prior to that, was
another such "invented" category to accommodate the women who weren't
quite sopranos and not quite mezzos. There's only so many gradations,
however, people seem willing to make to accommodate the "tweenie" voices.
So yesterday's basses are now able to choose to be basses or
bass-baritones, just as yesterday's "low sopranos" and "high altos" are
now able to choose to be mezzo sopranos.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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I want to know God's thoughts...
the rest are details.
- Albert Einstein
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