# Favorite Baritenor roles/pieces and also your favorite Tenor Assoluto roles/pieces?



## Jordan Workman (May 9, 2016)

What are your favorite Baritenor roles/pieces like, for example, Agorante from Rossini's 'Ricciardo e Zoraide'? Also, what are your favorite Tenor Assoluto roles/pieces, for example, the Pirro Aria from 'Ermione' by Rossini?


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## Jordan Workman (May 9, 2016)

Can someone be willing to answer this?


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

there's no such thing as a "tenor assoluto". modern audiences just aren't used to hearing real dramatic tenors and assume they must be baritones/baritenors because normal tenor are apparently not supposed to have a chest voice (the vast majority of "baritones" today are spinto and dramatic tenors who get pushed down because their teachers are afraid of big, dark voices)

to answer the gist of your question though, a few good roles that feature strong a lower middle register for the tenor voice:
- Otello
- Idomeneo 
- Siegfried


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> there's no such thing as a "tenor assoluto". modern audiences just aren't used to hearing real dramatic tenors and assume they must be baritones/baritenors because normal tenor are apparently not supposed to have a chest voice (the vast majority of "baritones" today are spinto and dramatic tenors who get pushed down because their teachers are afraid of big, dark voices)
> 
> to answer the gist of your question though, a few good roles that feature strong a lower middle register for the tenor voice:
> - Otello
> ...


I agree with your points, though I'd add that there are singers who could very well be viewed as something between a tenor and a baritone. The fact that the fach system doesn't differentiate different voices with required depth does not mean the differentiation doesn't exist. There are still heldentenors and dramatic tenors with _unusually_ strong lower registers. This is the case with great singers in the past as well. Low heldentenors sing roles like Siegmund and Tristan, which are on the darker end of Wagner heldentenor roles, and often not roles like Lohengrin or Siegfried. Ramon Vinay and Suthaus were rather different kind of tenors compared to Windgassen and Jess Thomas. Vinay was able to sing both baritone and tenor repertoire and is probably the nearest thing to a baritenor I can think of at the moment. Suthaus and Melchior were both miscategorised as baritones initially. The fact that we don't formally differentiate them, doesn't mean that any tenor could sing like them if they only had a stronger chest voice.

This is a minor point  just felt it's worth mentioning, considering the very different focus on different registers of Wagner's heldentenor roles, for example. Whatever we want to call them, there have been great tenors with undoubtedly darker and lower voices than what is usual. The repertoire itself makes the differentiation - not every great tenor could be as good Siegmund as Vickers or Suthaus who possessed the required strength in their lower registers.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

*Roderick di Dhu* from Rossini's La Donna del Lago comes to mind. The score is just merciless.






Dano Raffanti is among these few who don't transpose the lower notes up and sing it as written.


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