• male soprano

Posted: **Tue May 06, 2008 11:22 pm**

I just saw an amazing opera here in Toronto (Yay for twenty dollar student tickets!!). It was "Idomineo" by Mozart. As many of you know, many roles in operas were written for castrati which we don't have anymore. Sometimes a female soprano will sing the role (called a trouser role) and occasionally a guy will sing it if he is a counter-tenor (someone who has a highly trained falsetto). The thing that made this opera that I saw so different is that neither a female nor a counter-tenor sang the role. It was the male soprano, Michael Maniaci. The high voice is his normal speaking voice. In an interview that I heard on the radio, he said that he was one of only three in the world. Indeed, his singing voice was definitely different from a female soprano or a counter-tenor. It was more pure, powerful, and not forced at all. It was like a stronger voice of one of the soloists of a boys choir. Does anyone know anything about him or the other male sopranos? What caused this? Are they essentially eunuchs? Did their balls not develop? Do they have balls? Are they undeveloped in the genital area? As you can imagine, seeing this opera and having this interest in eunuchs (and becoming one someday) made me curious about this singer. Any info would be appreciated. While castrati have been discussed on the board before I don't believe that modern male sopranos have.

Posted: **Wed May 07, 2008 1:42 am**

In interview in Opera Today he claims to be hormonally normal and fertile.

He explained to me how his voice came about in a natural, if unusual way: “During puberty my voice just stayed where it was; it didn’t change with the rest of me, although it’s got stronger and fuller. Doctors examining my throat found that the larynx and vocal cords had not lengthened and thickened in the normal way; I don’t have an Adams apple, and yet in every other way I’m a normal male”

Transward

Posted: **Wed May 07, 2008 10:05 pm**

Thanks for the info! I appreciate it.

Posted: **Sat May 10, 2008 3:26 am**

A couple of additional notes on the topic:

There's a handfull of men who can sing mezzo-soprano material by using their falsetto range ... a good example would be Philippe Jaroussky (who has a great voice but is, IMO, a rather weak musician). One refers to these guys as "high countertenors" or "sopranists". Countertenors (who sing more or less in the alto range) are usually natural baritones, and sopranists are usually natural tenors who have a correspondingly higher falsetto and are able to use it well. The technique is somewhat different, though -- at least, that's what these singers claim.

And then there are a few natural eunuchs (some say "endocrinological eunuchs", I think, people whose testicles for whatever reason failed to do their job early on) who also sing ... such as Radu Marian (I believe!), whom I once heard rehearsing a recital of songs with one of the teachers at my department ... he didn't really sing with much taste (it was schmalzy renditions of Schubert songs, I think), but his voice was indeed something out-of-the-ordinary ... like a very penetrant woman's voice.

All-in-all, though, castrati as their own "league" are of course a thing of the past and will remain so. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, thousands of boys were castrated in the hope that they'd some day make great sopranos and altos ... very few of them actually did make it to stardom, with the rest living as social outcasts ... but of course it was important to have that critical mass, because otherwise the talent pool would have been way too small (=no stars). So chances are that we'll never experience a truly good castrato, as unfortunate as that is.

(Sorry, there have probably been a million [better] posts to this effect in various old threads ... no time now to look them up and link them)

Posted: **Sat May 10, 2008 7:10 am**

In a recent interview by a falsettist, Michael Maniaci and the falsettist [whose name I did not catch] both mentioned that the falsetto voice has a very narrow dynamic range, mainly loud, and a different timbre from a true soprano voice. I have also noticed that the falsetto voice is "white", that is virtually devoid of vibrato .

Posted: **Sat May 10, 2008 8:55 am**

So with the lack of vibrato, could Barbra Streisand then be classified as a falsetto? Perhaps this is why her voice always got on my nerves. --Celine Dione too, although she has a little more inflecton in her voice.

Posted: **Sat May 31, 2008 2:09 pm**

Graf v Eierdorf (imported) wrote: Sat May 10, 2008 3:26 am A couple of additional notes on the topic:

There's a handful of men who can sing mezzo-soprano material by using their falsetto range ... a good example would be Philippe Jaroussky (who has a great voice but is, IMO, a rather weak musician). One refers to these guys as "high countertenors" or "sopranists". Countertenors (who sing more or less in the alto range) are usually natural baritones, and sopranists are usually natural tenors who have a correspondingly higher falsetto and are able to use it well. The technique is somewhat different, though -- at least, that's what these singers claim.

And then there are a few natural eunuchs (some say "endocrinological eunuchs", I think, people whose testicles for whatever reason failed to do their job early on) who also sing ... such as Radu Marian (I believe!), whom I once heard rehearsing a recital of songs with one of the teachers at my department ... he didn't really sing with much taste (it was schmalzy renditions of Schubert songs, I think), but his voice was indeed something out-of-the-ordinary ... like a very penetrant woman's voice.

All-in-all, though, castrati as their own "league" are of course a thing of the past and will remain so. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, thousands of boys were castrated in the hope that they'd some day make great sopranos and altos ... very few of them actually did make it to stardom, with the rest living as social outcasts ... but of course it was important to have that critical mass, because otherwise the talent pool would have been way too small (=no stars). So chances are that we'll never experience a truly good castrato, as unfortunate as that is.

(Sorry, there have probably been a million [better] posts to this effect in various old threads ... no time now to look them up and link them)

I expect that he means that there are three adult natural soprano singers. There have to be other adults that have a similar vocal range that don't have a career in music.

Question:

The Norwegian singer Morten Harket (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0363122) of the band a-Ha (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2165250/bio) has a unique voice quality among "pop" (and other) singers. When the band recorded "Take On Me," he was in his very early 20's. In all other respects, he is quite clearly an adult.

His voice is a bit different from a boy sopano (American Boy Choir singing "Carol Of The Bells" for example), but he could reach much higher notes that few other singers in his age range could. Very crisp, bright and clear with a lot of power at the high end, a bit of weakness in the low end of his range.

(Yes, I have a very broad taste in music.)

It has an ethereal quality to it that I haven't otherwise come across in other singers in that age range. He also has a vibrato present that is usually absent in a falsetto, and he easily shifts octaves. From the low end of his range, I he would expect that he would have typical speaking voice for his age.

For an example of his vocal range, go to the iTunes store, do a lookup on "a-ha take on me" and play the top choice in the list. The selection that was chosen for the sample is perfect to show his tonal range and qualities.

I normally readily know what type singer I'm listening to is. From those here, what type of voice does Morten have? (It just doesn't seem to be a counter-tenor, possibly a sopranist?)

Thanks in advance,

-YC

Posted: **Sat May 31, 2008 4:04 pm**

I recently attended the competition of the finalists in the tryouts for the Connecticut Opera Company. One of the contestants is a young man named Alexander Korn. He is a natural male soprano, like Richard Maniaci.

He is evidently a normal male (he shaves, for example) yet he has a true soprano voice. Like that of a female soprano, his voice has a full dynamic range and vibrato. This voice is totally unlike that of a countertenor or a falsettist and also unlike that of a boy soprano.

Listening to him with one's eyes closed, it would be impossible to know that his is not the voice of a woman. I don't know if there is much of a niche in opera today for male sopranos, but, if there is, he is well qualified to fill it.

Posted: **Sat May 31, 2008 6:30 pm**

Bagoas (imported) wrote: Sat May 31, 2008 4:04 pm I recently attended the competition of the finalists in the tryouts for the Connecticut Opera Company. One of the contestants is a young man named Alexander Korn. He is a natural male soprano, like Richard Maniaci.

He is evidently a normal male (he shaves, for example) yet he has a true soprano voice. Like that of a female soprano, his voice has a full dynamic range and vibrato. This voice is totally unlike that of a countertenor or a falsettist and also unlike that of a boy soprano.

Listening to him with one's eyes closed, it would be impossible to know that his is not the voice of a woman. I don't know if there is much of a niche in opera today for male sopranos, but, if there is, he is well qualified to fill it.

Morten does have enough of a difference in his voice to know that the singer is male, even with your eyes closed, the secondary harmonics at the nigh end are just different enough to know that singer is not a boy in the soprano range, and Morten's is lower at the low end of his range (but he does lose power in the bottom of his range).

From what your saying Morten may fall into roughly the same range that Alexander does, making him yet another adult soprano. This would also fit with the fact that his voice does not have the same sound characteristics that a falsettist voice has. Years of training can minimize the differences between the two, but a young man in his early 20's would not have had kind of training.

One thing that still strikes me as interesting, and make his voice so enjoyable to listen to, is the ethereal quality that Morten's voice has.

Is anyone else familiar with other adult (post-pubertal) sopranos?

I enjoy choral and liturgical over opera, and there probably is a place in that field for singers, but opera would be more common. In many of the current music areas, music is written for the voice of the specific singer, I'm sure that was true in Morten's case since he wrote the music for the band.

-YC

Posted: **Sat May 31, 2008 6:58 pm**

A very real castrato singer, though not a very good one, is Javier Medina. His testicles were fried by the chemotherapy he receceived for childhood leukemia at age 8. He has never gone through puberty. Unfortunately, he discovered that he could use his voice for a career too late and he is not properly trained, as a castrato of the 17th or 18th century would have been. A Youtube of one of his performances can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIl7lBuJrnw

The visuals are taken from the movie Farinelli. It would have been much more interesting to see Javier himself singing. I do have a DVD that he sent to me a couple of years ago that has him performing several pieces, most of them popular Mexican songs. He is more impressive as a performer than as a singer. He is a quiet and self-effacing young man, and absolutely wonderful to know, even if only over the Internet. He recently performed in New York and has a summer tour scheduled for Europe.

A brief biography of Javier Medina can be found at:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... did=358067

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