Alain wrote
>but in a "mixed voice" or "voix mixte" that will be >considered "cheating" by listeners accustomed to the heavy registration of >the 20th century (rather than the late 19th century, since recordings of >Battistini still show the use of a light registration going into "voix >mixte", very different from the heavy registration of Caruso, for instance).
I would caution against citing Battistini as an example of 'normal' nineteenth century voice production. A little listening among his baritone contemporaries shows that he was the exception, not the norm.
First of all Battistini was, by his own admission, a 'baritono sbagliato', a baritone by mistake. He had a tenor voice, but chose to sing as a baritone. Georges Cunelli relates a conversation with Battistini in which he confirms this, but adds that, had he chosen to sing as a tenor he 'would not be the great Mattia Battistini, the glory ot Italy'. I'm not sure I agree with Battistini's own assessment here. I wonder whether he might not have been that rarest of birds, a singer whose voice really did sit in the cracks between baritone and tenor, but this does not invlidate the basic point, which is that the refinement for which Battistini was famous, the subtleties and nuances he deployed throughout his range, were in a large degree possible because he was working a lot lower in this range than other baritones.
This approach was not without its problems. Because he worked so low in his voice so much of the time he worked very hard, and largely successfully, at the prjection of his voice. Evidence from Novicova and Cunelli agrees that the chief elements in this projection were a lot of support from the ribs, and placement involving very intense sound in the cheekbones. Even so a steady decline in the quality of Battistini's lower octave was observed fairly early in his career, a decline supported by the recorded evidence, in which the grey and hollow timbre of the lower octave is often noticeable, and sometimes disturbing. But he never lost the top, it was there, fresh, ringing, impressive, solid as a rock and capable of infinite gradation of timbre to the very last. This achievement looks less impressive when one reflects that this is in fact the upper-middle (i.e. home ground) of a tenor voice, whereas the upper middle of Battistini's baritone range was more worn and often less interesting than that of his contemporaries.
Among Battistini's baritone contemporaries it is hard to find much support for the type of registration Alain describes. A singer like Pasquale Amato might be a possibility, but, like Battistini, Amato's voice lay awfully high. Otherwise, the approach to the top of the baritone voice one finds among DeLuca, Sammarco, Magini-Coletti and Kaschmann sounds very like the approach adopted a generation later by Granforte and Bellantoni, which sounds rather like the one adopted a generation later by Herlea and Bastianini.
I think a 'light registration' is often confused with a light voice. Taking the case of Battistini, if it is true that he employed some variety of falsetto-mix for his high notes is it not curious that he never sung above A? This, from possibly the only baritone in recorded history to have transposed arias upwards because they were uncomfortable (it's generally accepted that Battistini's 'Non piu andrai' is in Db). Actually, I don't think he ever recorded above Ab, but I might be wrong. This is far short of the extra octave above the second passaggio Alain describes.
Happy Singing,
Regards / vriendelijke groeten
Laurie Kubiak Commercial Analyst - Europe & Africa SMMS Sales and Contract Support, Shell Services International Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA Telephone: +44 171 934 3853; Fax: +44 171 934 6674 Mobile: 07771 971 921: E.mail: Laurence.l.Kubiak@i... Office: LON-SC 631
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