How to Enjoy Opera – Tips for Newbies – what is a tenor



Posted: Monday, November 05, 2007

by
Ricardo

The tenor is the highest male voice in opera. Please don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Yes, there are countertenors, castrati, and who knows what all else. For all intents, however, the tenor is the STANDARD highest male voice in opera.

Tenors always get to sing the best parts. There are the heavyweights of opera. The composers responsible for establishing the three major opera periods figured that all romantic and/or heroic roles should be performed by tenors. The tenor is the ultimate lover, the quintessential hero, the sentimental darling, the moneymaker for opera companies.

While the types of roles for other opera voices were established during the Baroque period, the tenor came into his own (so to speak) only with the advent of “Grand Opera" – in the Nineteenth Century. Before that, weak, inconsequential roles were given to tenors in which the vocal power did not figure among the basic requirements.

Among other skills, Italian school tenors feature the ability to sing the “high C" – the highest note (to all intents) in the tenor range. It is literally a million-dollar note. It is very difficult to sing it powerfully and naturally without slipping into falsetto tones. German opera composers (i.e. Richard Wagner, mostly … ) did not use this note in their operas, and German school tenors do not put it on their resume. Of the Italians, Giuseppe Verdi disliked the “high C" intensely, and his operas do not feature it. Giacomo Puccini, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem with it, employing it in his opera scores where he saw fit. Gaetano Donizetti occasionally abused it (there is a tenor aria in one of his operas that features eight (!) high C’s).

Italian school tenors tend to employ (and overuse) the so-called belcanto technique. The term had a very specific meaning – a long time ago. Today, when you hear a tenor “sob" while singing, you know it’s “belcanto." It always gets the ladies in the audiences. German school tenors are far more austere. Because the text is very important in Richard Wagner’s operas, German school emphasizes clean, unimpeded word delivery, phonetic clarity of the highest degree.

Tenors from all over the world follow either Italian or German school. Some Italian-school tenors take on German roles towards the end of their careers, when their voices begin to show signs of “darkening" – when they have nothing to lose. There are, however, exceptions. Placido Domingo, initially an Italian-school tenor, reinvented himself, rebuilding his voice seemingly from scratch, to sing Wagnerian operas – very successfully.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Smorg
 4 years 49 days ago.
I think this generalizes a bit too much... And even though you may not enjoy their voice, the counter-tenors sing at higher tessitura and are males. They are taking over much of the Baroque leading male roles now (I like the more colorful voice of the mezzo, but there it is.. the modern audience is more visually oriented than ever and there aren't many good mezzos around who look convincing in pant roles). Also, tenors don't always get the 'best' or the 'hero' part in an opera... especially before the late Romantic period. Most classical and bel canto composers gave the leading male roles to the castrati (now sung by mezzos) or to the baritone... Take Don Giovanni or Il barbiere di Siviglia for examples. The baritones are the leads and the tenors are the weaklings. I also wonder about the tenor high C's.... It really wasn't common to expect a tenor to hit that C with chest voice until after the bel canto period (they all used falsetto from the B upward till then). I think the Donizetti aria you mention is Tonio's aria from La fille du regiment, which features 9 C's pretty much in a row. Doubt very much that the originator of the role sung them with chest voice. Rubini, the favorite of the bel canto composers, reported was not very audible beyond the dress circle either. I think our modern expectations for these singers are unrealistically high now. The singers of yesteryears didn't have to act, didn't have to keep their voice registers seamless, and didn't have to compete with over-loud orchestra.... or the ghost of their perfect studio recordings!
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