The "almost an Irish tenor" makes me wonder whether what he's used to
doing is singing falsetto (or voix mixte), when, in fact, his true voice
is baritone. I'd suggest you work with trying to get him to achieve full
resonance - not just head resonance. I'd also work on medium-high rep with
him instead of true tenor rep. Baritenor/baryton martin repertoire might
be just the thing at the moment. I'm not sure what rep he wants to be
working on but beyond the medium-high male version of the 26 Italian Songs
and Arias, you might let him have a little fun with something like
Danilo's song from THE MERRY WIDOW (Oh Fatherland...I'm off to Chez
Maxim's), and Gaylord Ravenal's songs from SHOW BOAT, and Eisenstein's
stuff from DIE FLEDERMAUS. All of these are "zwischenfach" roles that are
sung by both tenors and baritones. You can probably get a better sense of
what he does when he moves from upper to lower register - how much of the
upper register sound is falsetto or voix mixte rather than full voice.
The other thing to do is vocalise him simply through his range, and listen
for the "breaks". If he has baritone breaks, he is probably a baritone.
If he has true tenor breaks, he may well be a tenor who just needs to work
on his breath support, resonance, etc. In either case, rather than trying
to "fach" him now, why not just work, as I've suggested, on "middle of the
road" (medium-high) rep, and focus on technique problems. I suspect that
as his basic technique improves, his true fach will begin to reveal itself
without your having to second-guess it.
KM
-----
Ich sage euch: man muss noch Chaos in sich haben,
um einen tanzenden Stern gebaeren zu koennen.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA
My NEIL SHICOFF Website:
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