# Utterly Remarkable Counter Tenor Concert: Max Emanuel Cencic



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Not only does this remarkable performer give Phillippe Jaroussky a run for the money in the looks department, sing with a beautifully integrated voice of unusual beauty from bottom to top, but he goes where I've always wanted counter tenors to venture.... singing Rossini and Donizetti arias for mezzos. He has personality in spades and is fabulously gay, gay, gay. Check him out. A big plus is a lot of the audience is young.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

No faulting the singing, and there may be a good reason, a long journey just before performing, etc. but it seems here he has about 0 stage presence, rather a bodily lump who stands and sings, and that bodes not well for acting in roles as well as 'just singing.'

Any counter-tenor singing roles originally intended for women, i.e. the later rep, just holds no interest for me; that seems more like a circus trick than interesting musical performance.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

He gets better as he warms up. I think he likes the roles for females best;-) He comes alive.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Seattleoperafan said:


> He gets better as he warms up. I think he likes the roles for females best;-) He comes alive.


There are performers who thrive on the attention which comes from the audience, though I place them second after the performer who walks out giving 110% before waiting to see what energy the audience might have to offer, the latter being 'generous.'

The first sort, if not ungenerous, is I think a bit too needy, or even a bit 'parasitic.' I disliked Pavarotti for that, i.e. he really did not put forth effort in an ensemble unless he had a solo, so was dependent upon the audience vs. 'just giving full out' no matter what.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Nononono Cencic is no Pavarotti. He's definitely a stage animal - just watch him as Nerone in Poppea or Mandane in Artaserse or the eponymous Alessandro. Maybe he needs to be in a staged production, with other actors, to give his all. I am devoted to him.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mamascarlatti said:


> Nononono Cencic is no Pavarotti. He's definitely a stage animal - just watch him as Nerone in Poppea or Mandane in Artaserse or the eponymous Alessandro. Maybe he needs to be in a staged production, with other actors, to give his all. I am devoted to him.


I can buy that: it would explain feeling 'out of place not being in a role' in recital, another characteristic of some performers. The singing, as I said already, is not to be faulted


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Speaking of giving Jaroussky a run for his money, here are the two of them giving each other plenty of runs.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Speaking of giving Jaroussky a run for his money, here are the two of them giving each other plenty of runs.


Yes that is from this CD:










I have way too many countertenor recital disks!


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## Snowfire (Jun 6, 2014)

Cencic was unquestionably a great treble in his time. I am less fond of his adult singing; but I have to respect that he was able to continue his vocal career at all after his treble days ended. For so many trebles, even the great ones, puberty means the end of a musical career; by the time you have heard of them, they have already moved on.


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