# What fachs tend to be rare?



## Baritenor (Dec 13, 2015)

I've heard it said on this forum that countertenors and dramatic tenors and baritones are rare and whenever a good one (or even a decent one in the case of counters) pops up they get 'swooped up' really quickly. Is that true? Which others tend to be rare?


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

All of the true dramatic ones...countertenors are probably rare because nobody wants to be one :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I suspect countertenors are more common than they appear to be. They're probably hiding out in English churches and Persian harems.

Countertenor is not a fach. It's a type of voice, a male treble.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect countertenors are more common than they appear to be. They're probably hiding out in English churches and Persian.


Since they're falsettists, most of them are in hiding as baritones or tenors.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> Since they're falsettists, most of them are in hiding as baritones or tenors.


True. I had a friend I knew as a tenor. He moved to England, sang at Salisbury Cathedral, and came back as a countertenor. Pity.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Dramatic coloraturas: very few. Sutherland, Callas, Lillie Lehman, M Galvany, Jane Eaglen before she sang much Wagner, Radvanovsky. Also Ponselle, minus the top notes.Not too many others.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

dramatic voices of all types tend to be rarer. true basses and contraltos are also rare.

I would say dramatic coloratura soprano, but increasingly I don't even view it as a fach at all as much as a soprano who can sing music from multiple fach which includes some level of weight and flexibility.



Woodduck said:


> I suspect countertenors are more common than they appear to be. They're probably hiding out in English churches and Persian harems.


^ 
to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced they aren't being promoted as some radical feminist conspiracy to celebrate males stripped of their vitality.



> Countertenor is not a fach. It's a type of voice, a male treble.


the terminology around this is hazy, but this at least is not quite correct. treble is a term for a child's voice. for the most part, countertenors are baritones and a few tenors who sing in falsetto. what the word for an adult male with a voice naturally in this range is called I'm not sure.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> dramatic voices of all types tend to be rarer. true basses and contraltos are also rare.
> 
> I would say dramatic coloratura soprano, but increasingly I don't even view it as a fach at all as much as a soprano who can sing music from multiple fach which includes some level of weight and flexibility.
> 
> ...


There seems to be some confusion about this. Here is an article contending that countertenors are _not_ falsettists, that the countertenor voice is physiologically distinct.

http://choirly.com/falsetto/

The author says: "What separates a countertenor from a falsettist is his method of sound production. Although in falsetto singing the vocal folds stay open and only their edges vibrate, in countertenoring the vocal folds open and close normally with each vibration cycle and can billow like in natural singing.

"This is why even though both countertenors and falsettists can sing the same notes, countertenors can sing in a full, non-breathy voice, and can even utilize vibrato, something falsettists can't do.

"If you feel that you have two different ranges, a baritone range and a countertenor range, you can be sure that you are a baritone with a developed falsetto voice and not a countertenor.

"At this point I would like to note that countertenors are NOT castratos. They are men whose singing mechanism has not matured due to hormonal imbalances, and does, therefore, resemble more that of a child. A countertenor who gets treated for this hormonal imbalance, can actually lose his ability to sing so high."

So the ability to sing in falsetto doesn't make you a countertenor. In any event, countertenor isn't a fach, which is a way of classifying voices in relation to repertoire. Now if we wanted to distinguish "dramatic countertenors" from "lyric countertenors"... But let's all keep our heads here.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

> "At this point I would like to note that countertenors are NOT castratos. They are men whose singing mechanism has not matured due to hormonal imbalances, and does, therefore, resemble more that of a child. A countertenor who gets treated for this hormonal imbalance, can actually lose his ability to sing so high."


Except for the first sentence, this is complete BS. I've known quite a few countertenors, all of whom are natural baritones or tenors, and sing in falsetto. None of them suffer from a "hormonal imbalance". The only difference between their falsetto and mine is that they've trained it properly.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> There seems to be some confusion about this. Here is an article contending that countertenors are _not_ falsettists, that *the countertenor voice is physiologically distinct*.


I wonder if it is considered a birth defect?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> Except for the first sentence, this is complete BS. I've known quite a few countertenors, all of whom are natural baritones or tenors, and sing in falsetto. None of them suffer from a "hormonal imbalance". The only difference between their falsetto and mine is that they've trained it properly.


I suspect you're right. The only countertenor I know was a tenor before he switched over to singing countertenor. But cases may differ. There's this from Wiki:

'Particularly in the British choral tradition, the terms "male soprano" and "male alto" serve to identify men who rely on falsetto vocal production, rather than the modal voice, to sing in the soprano or alto vocal range. Elsewhere, the terms have less universal currency. Some authorities do accept them as descriptive of male falsettists, although this view is subject to controversy; they would reserve the term "countertenor" for men who, like Russell Oberlin, achieve a soprano range voice with little or no falsetto, equating it with haute-contre and the Italian tenor altino. Adherents to this view maintain that a countertenor will have unusually short vocal cords[6] and consequently a higher speaking voice and lower range and tessitura than their falsettist counterparts, perhaps from D3 to D5. Operatic vocal classification, on the other hand, prefers the terms "countertenor" and "sopranist" to "male soprano" and "male alto," and some scholars consider the latter two terms inaccurate owing to physiological differences between male and female vocal production. The only known man who can claim to be a true male soprano by that definition is Michael Maniaci, whose modal voice falls in the soprano range, akin to a woman's, because his larynx did not develop fully in puberty.'

It seems the previous author was generalizing from exceptional cases.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> So the ability to sing in falsetto doesn't make you a countertenor. In any event, countertenor isn't a fach, which is a way of classifying voices in relation to repertoire. Now if we wanted to distinguish "dramatic countertenors" from "lyric countertenors"... But let's all keep our heads here.


You'll be pleased to know I don't give a fach about this particular issue. My penchant for classification systems with ever-increasing levels of nuance extends only so far as my interest in the particular subject, and frankly....I just don't enjoy countertenors. By and large, I like voices which convey some sort of sexuality, even when this doesn't with traditional gender motifs (ex: I love the almost butch lesbian sound of a lot of mezzos and contraltos singing trouser roles). Countertenors just don't have this. There are one or two I have been thoroughly impressed by from a technical standpoint, but even then, the voices lack richness and overtones and tend to sound sterile rather than brimming with virility or amorous magnetism.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> You'll be pleased to know I don't give a fach about this particular issue. My penchant for classification systems with ever-increasing levels of nuance extends only so far as my interest in the particular subject, and frankly....I just don't enjoy countertenors. By and large, I like voices which convey some sort of sexuality, even when this doesn't with traditional gender motifs (ex: I love the almost butch lesbian sound of a lot of mezzos and contraltos singing trouser roles). Countertenors just don't have this. There are one or two I have been thoroughly impressed by from a technical standpoint, but even then, the voices lack richness and overtones and tend to sound sterile rather than brimming with virility or amorous magnetism.


Please, please... Keep your shirt on. There's already too much amorous magnetism on this forum.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Please, please... Keep your shirt on. There's already too much amorous magnetism on this forum.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Now there's less.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Now there's less.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Real Verdi baritones are really rare today. Too many are just lyrics going "well I hit 40, I can't really do Billy Budd and Mozart forever, might as well try Verdi, YOLO". Depending on the role they can pull it off (Rodrigo is safe enough) or die XD


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sieglinde said:


> Real Verdi baritones are really rare today. Too many are just lyrics going "well I hit 40, I can't really do Billy Budd and Mozart forever, might as well try Verdi, YOLO". Depending on the role they can pull it off (Rodrigo is safe enough) or die XD


There are plenty of roles for "lyric" baritones right across the repertoire, and one can make a full and satisfying career with them. Singers have always been tempted by heavier roles; if the temptation is greater nowadays, the problem may lie mostly in the scarcity of large-voiced singers in all ranges who can fill our huge opera auditoriums, with the resultant need for smaller-voiced singers to step into the breach. The problem is the same in Wagner; if you're going to stage it, somebody has to sing it, and if there's no George London around, there's always Bryn Terfel.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

My father and I both sang counter tenor, I stopped singing at age 40, should have given up smoking! For me singing in the alto range felt natural, my range in a "normal" male voice went barely an octave below middle C, in "alto mode"about an octave and a half above middle C

Do't know about any hormonal problems I fathered 3 boys and a girl - that I know of.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> There are plenty of roles for "lyric" baritones right across the repertoire, and one can make a full and satisfying career with them. Singers have always been tempted by heavier roles; if the temptation is greater nowadays, the problem may lie mostly in the scarcity of large-voiced singers in all ranges who can fill our huge opera auditoriums, with the resultant need for smaller-voiced singers to step into the breach. The problem is the same in Wagner; if you're going to stage it, somebody has to sing it, and if there's no George London around, there's always Bryn Terfel.


Well, Terfel's decent, but I watched the 2005 London Ring (it used to be up on YT) and he canceled the Siegfried. In steps Sir John Tomlinson, who was also Hagen, and he's simply a whole other league. He could eat Terfel for breakfast.

As for the current Heldentenors: sure, there are some loud ones, but where is the vocal beauty? The variety? Perhaps the only one who can do subtle is Christian Franz.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Sieglinde said:


> Well, Terfel's decent, but I watched the 2005 London Ring (it used to be up on YT) and he canceled the Siegfried. In steps Sir John Tomlinson, who was also Hagen, and he's simply a whole other league. He could eat Terfel for breakfast.
> 
> As for the current Heldentenors: sure, there are some loud ones, but where is the vocal beauty? The variety? Perhaps the only one who can do subtle is Christian Franz.


Amen on Tomlinson!

Have you heard Schager live?


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I've heard Schager live and in my opinion he is no more than adequate. Good enough but that's it.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Barbebleu said:


> I've heard Schager live and in my opinion he is no more than adequate. Good enough but that's it.


I heard him in December as Siegfried & he was sensational! Did you hear his Siegfried as well?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Barbebleu said:


> I've heard Schager live and in my opinion he is no more than adequate. Good enough but that's it.


I'll hear him as Siegfried at the Met in May. Looking forward to it.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

wkasimer said:


> I'll hear him as Siegfried at the Met in May. Looking forward to it.


Have you heard Volle or Goerke live before? If so, what did you think?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Anna Netrebko is getting there fast. Soon she'll be a mezzo. I am also watching Diana Damrau.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Bonetan said:


> Have you heard Volle or Goerke live before? If so, what did you think?


I haven't heard Volle in the flesh yet, but I've heard Goerke several times since the very beginning of her career (she has sung a lot here in Boston). I think that she's terrific, and is the main reason I'm attending this year's RING at the Met (although I must admit that Cycle 2 happens to coincide with a professional meeting in NYC that week).


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Soprano sfogato/assoluta


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Dorsetmike said:


> Do't know about any hormonal problems *I fathered 3 boys and a girl - that I know of*.


lmao! :lol:

#15Characters


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Dramatic coloraturas: very few. Sutherland, Callas, Lillie Lehman, M Galvany, Jane Eaglen before she sang much Wagner, Radvanovsky. Also Ponselle, minus the top notes.Not too many others.


Are there any today? If you can't name any, then who is impersonating a dramatic coloratura today? I don't know much about this subject have no idea what roles this voice would encompass. Rossini?


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

I have heard that true bass is rare, and basso profundo is even rarer:


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