Altino
Encyclopedia
The tenore contraltino is a specialized form of the tenor
voice found in Italian opera
around the beginning of the 19th century, mainly in the Rossini repertoire, which rapidly evolved into the modern 'Romantic' tenor. It is sometimes referred to as tenor altino (or contraltino) in English books.
voice with a compass
not much wider than that of the coeval baritonal tenor
, but able to sustain far higher tessiture
. It means that the basic range remained substantially the classic one, from C₃ to C₅: only the best baritenors, however, were able to reach up to such heights and used to pass anyway to the falsettone
(or strengthened falsetto
) register about on G₄; for tenori contraltini, on the other hand, the threshold of the passage to the falsettone register rose a tone/a tone and a half, and they could so easily reach C₅ but often up to E₅, or even, exceptionally, to F₅. The real difference, however, consisted in the tessitura, or the pitch range that most frequently occurs within the given piece of music and where the artist is called upon to execute syllabic singing with the best sound results. The tenore contraltino’s required tessiture rose, so that the roles could not be sustained even by the best gifted baritonal tenors. Manuel García
, for instance, who had a wide range as a baritenor, “had L'italiana in Algeri
in his repertoire , but faced with the extremely high tessitura and the mainly syllabic writing of ‘Languir per una bella’, he transposed the aria down a minor third, performing it in c major instead of e flat”
In France
, which was the only Europe
an country that had rejected the employment of castrati
, a voice type similar to the Italian early-19th-century tenore contraltino had been developing since the 17th century, under the name of haute-contre
, for which the majority of heroic and amatory parts were written, both in grand opera, and in opéra-comique
. This type reached its apex in the age of Rameau. It was, in fact, a type of tenor voice extremely light and widely ranged, but nearly systematically uttered in falsettone in the high pitch, so as to somehow re-echo the castrato "contraltista
" of the Italian stamp. This thesis, evidently borrowed from Rodolfo Celletti
’s positions, does not seem to have been fully shared explicitly, in Potter's recent work about the tenor voice". According to him, the main difference between the 18th century Italian tenor (no longer so deep a baritenor, or "tenor-bass", as the seventeenth century one) and the French haute-contre, was that the former would use falsetto (and not falsettone, which Potter never explicitly mentions) above G₄, whereas the latter would go up to B flat in full voice or, to be more exact, in a "mixed head and chest voice, and not [in] the full chest voice that Italian tenors would develop later" which is consistent with Celletti and the editor of Grande Enciclopedia’s terminology, in falsettone).
” in operatic companies. The solution that seemed the most immediate and the most according to tradition, was the so called "contralto
musico", or female singers--usually mezzo-soprano
s rather than real contraltos--who could perform the roles originally written for castrati as well as the parts composed with female singers in mind. According to Rodolfo Celletti
; in the first thirty-five years of the 19th century, more than one hundred cases of original resort to the “contralto musico” can be counted up, and it was employed also by musicians of the rising post-Rossini generation, such as Donizetti
, Mercadante
, Pacini
, Bellini
himself.
The second possible solution involved the baritonal tenor
, but this did not suit the Belcanto
-style taste of coeval composers, who shared the traditional dislike for this vocal timbre, as it was considered vulgar at the time. The companies' choices were, as always, limited to the singers available to the various theatres, so this second solution was resorted to when there was no alternative. Rossini, for instance, had recourse to a baritenor as a lover in Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra
, at a time when his company included two major singers of that type, and also for Torvaldo e Dorliska
and Armida
, where, beside the amatory protagonist, Rinaldo, created by the very prince of Rossini baritenors, Andrea Nozzari
, there appear additionally five or six baritonal tenors in secondary roles.
There were no contraltos available in the mentioned cases, nor was the singer Giovanni David
yet, who was to provide Rossini with a third solution: a new type of opera seria
tenor voice, springing from the experience of the so-called “half character tenorini”, who used to be employed in comic operas and who had clearer and lighter, and therefore more agile, voices than those of the proper baritenors. After still using a basically central and slightly virtuoso writing for the tenor in his early comic operas, Rossini elevated the tenor’s tessitura to extremely hard high pitches of virtuosity and coloratura
as soon as singers' abilities allowed it. Such was the case of Serafino Gentili, the first performer of Lindoro in L'Italiana in Algeri, of the cited David, the first performer of Don Narciso in Il turco in Italia
, of Giacomo Guglielmi, the first performer of Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola
and, finally, of Savino Monelli, the first performer of Giannetto in La gazza ladra
. When Giovanni David entered Barbaja
’s company in Neapolitan theatres, he was entrusted with the young and/or noble lover’s parts, whereas Nozzari and other baritenors got the roles of rancorous or villainous antagonists, or of army leaders. The part of Otello
, created by Nozzari, cannot be considered a real amatory role, but “has got the psychological features of the modern baritone
, whether he is regarded as a heroic condottiere, or he expresses an exasperated jealousy “ ).
The above-specified tenore contraltinos were characterized by high, brilliant and acrobatic singing, and could bravely confront baritenors in the hot-blooded challenge duets, as well as finely sing lovers’ elegiac melodies; they were, above all, able to sustain much higher tessiture than those of baritenors themselves. Such tenore contraltino characterization would be slightly attenuated after Rossini’s moving to France, where it was possible to resort to the tradition of hautes-contre
, who were equally versed in high singing, but rather more averse to castrato virtuosity, typical of Italian opera . Adolphe Nourrit
can be regarded as the paragon of this expansion beyond the Alps of the tenor contraltino experience.
The usage of the new type of tenor voice, which includes John Sinclair, the Scottish tenor that first performed Semiramide
’s Idreno, passed then into the hands of the other contemporary composers, finding firstly and mainly in Giovanni Battista Rubini
, and then also in Gilbert-Louis Duprez
and Napoleone Moriani, David’s valid successors. With Rossini, though, a whole era had ended and the new realistic singing ideals of the Romanticism were becoming more widespread. Male coloratura sank into oblivion; Bellini who in La sonnambula
still confronted Rubini with virtuosity on a par with the soprano, in I puritani
, less than four years later, but would call upon him to sing no more than a scanty number of melismas and Donizetti, who would always keep employing coloratura in the parts written for Rubini, would interrupt this usage with Duprez when the latter ceased posing as the former’s emulator . On the other hand, the falsettone register began, as well, to go out of fashion quite rapidly, as a simple recollection of Baroque antirealism times of yore: Rubini would raise up to high B flat the uttering of force (or forceful), improperly called “from the chest”; Duprez, in his turn, would have Lucca
’s audience hear the first high “C from the chest” and would then give up elegiac singing of his former model Rubini, beginning to utter forcefully the whole high note range and also taking on many manners of baritenors, who were then still haunting the operatic scenes (dark timbre, firm accent, great phrasing nobility, quivering and passionate acting) . The great Adolphe Nourrit, having proved himself unable to conform to the new singing and taste trend, having been overcome by Duprez at the Opéra
through a forceful performance of Arnold’s role in William Tell
, which he himself had created, according to Rossini’s expectations, by hautes-contre’s ancient graceful singing, ended his days in despair in Naples where he had resumed his studies with Donizetti, falling headlong from the window of a hotel’s room. The brief season of the tenore contraltino was over and there had begun the new era of the Romantic tenor, whether it was called lyric or dramatic, elegiac or spinto, robusto or di grazia, which is still enduring till present times.
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
voice found in Italian opera
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers,...
around the beginning of the 19th century, mainly in the Rossini repertoire, which rapidly evolved into the modern 'Romantic' tenor. It is sometimes referred to as tenor altino (or contraltino) in English books.
Vocal features
It is a type of tenorTenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
voice with a compass
Vocal range
Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study...
not much wider than that of the coeval baritonal tenor
Baritenor
Baritenor is a musical term formed by a blend of the words "baritone" and "tenor". It is used to describe both baritone and tenor voices. In Webster's Third New International Dictionary it is defined as "a baritone singing voice with virtually a tenor range"...
, but able to sustain far higher tessiture
Tessitura
In music, the term tessitura generally describes the most musically acceptable and comfortable range for a given singer or, less frequently, musical instrument; the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding texture or timbre...
. It means that the basic range remained substantially the classic one, from C₃ to C₅: only the best baritenors, however, were able to reach up to such heights and used to pass anyway to the falsettone
Falsettone
Falsettone is a term used in modern Italian musicology to describe a vocal technique used by male opera singers in the past, in which the fluty sounds typical of falsetto singing are amplified by using the same singing technique as is used in the modal voice register...
(or strengthened falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
) register about on G₄; for tenori contraltini, on the other hand, the threshold of the passage to the falsettone register rose a tone/a tone and a half, and they could so easily reach C₅ but often up to E₅, or even, exceptionally, to F₅. The real difference, however, consisted in the tessitura, or the pitch range that most frequently occurs within the given piece of music and where the artist is called upon to execute syllabic singing with the best sound results. The tenore contraltino’s required tessiture rose, so that the roles could not be sustained even by the best gifted baritonal tenors. Manuel García
Manuel García (tenor)
Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García was a Spanish opera singer, composer, impresario, and singing teacher.-Biography:...
, for instance, who had a wide range as a baritenor, “had L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
in his repertoire , but faced with the extremely high tessitura and the mainly syllabic writing of ‘Languir per una bella’, he transposed the aria down a minor third, performing it in c major instead of e flat”
In France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, which was the only Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an country that had rejected the employment of castrati
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...
, a voice type similar to the Italian early-19th-century tenore contraltino had been developing since the 17th century, under the name of haute-contre
Haute-contre
The haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.-History:...
, for which the majority of heroic and amatory parts were written, both in grand opera, and in opéra-comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
. This type reached its apex in the age of Rameau. It was, in fact, a type of tenor voice extremely light and widely ranged, but nearly systematically uttered in falsettone in the high pitch, so as to somehow re-echo the castrato "contraltista
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
" of the Italian stamp. This thesis, evidently borrowed from Rodolfo Celletti
Rodolfo Celletti
Rodolfo Celletti was an Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist. Considered one of the leading scholars of the operatic voice and the history of operatic performance, he published many books and articles on the subject as well as several novels.-Biography:Rodolfo Celletti was...
’s positions, does not seem to have been fully shared explicitly, in Potter's recent work about the tenor voice". According to him, the main difference between the 18th century Italian tenor (no longer so deep a baritenor, or "tenor-bass", as the seventeenth century one) and the French haute-contre, was that the former would use falsetto (and not falsettone, which Potter never explicitly mentions) above G₄, whereas the latter would go up to B flat in full voice or, to be more exact, in a "mixed head and chest voice, and not [in] the full chest voice that Italian tenors would develop later" which is consistent with Celletti and the editor of Grande Enciclopedia’s terminology, in falsettone).
History
Between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the shortage of castrati among available opera singers compelled coeval composers to contrive substitutes for the roles of “primo musicoMusico
The Italian term musico has a number of meanings:* Originally, the term referred to any trained, as opposed to amateur, musician....
” in operatic companies. The solution that seemed the most immediate and the most according to tradition, was the so called "contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
musico", or female singers--usually mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
s rather than real contraltos--who could perform the roles originally written for castrati as well as the parts composed with female singers in mind. According to Rodolfo Celletti
Rodolfo Celletti
Rodolfo Celletti was an Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist. Considered one of the leading scholars of the operatic voice and the history of operatic performance, he published many books and articles on the subject as well as several novels.-Biography:Rodolfo Celletti was...
; in the first thirty-five years of the 19th century, more than one hundred cases of original resort to the “contralto musico” can be counted up, and it was employed also by musicians of the rising post-Rossini generation, such as Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, Mercadante
Saverio Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of...
, Pacini
Giovanni Pacini
Giovanni Pacini was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. Pacini was born in Catania, Sicily, the son of the buffo Luigi Pacini, who was to appear in the premieres of many of Giovanni's operas...
, Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
himself.
The second possible solution involved the baritonal tenor
Baritenor
Baritenor is a musical term formed by a blend of the words "baritone" and "tenor". It is used to describe both baritone and tenor voices. In Webster's Third New International Dictionary it is defined as "a baritone singing voice with virtually a tenor range"...
, but this did not suit the Belcanto
Bel canto
Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
-style taste of coeval composers, who shared the traditional dislike for this vocal timbre, as it was considered vulgar at the time. The companies' choices were, as always, limited to the singers available to the various theatres, so this second solution was resorted to when there was no alternative. Rossini, for instance, had recourse to a baritenor as a lover in Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra
Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra
Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, is a dramma per musica or opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, from the play The Page of Leicester by Carlo Federici...
, at a time when his company included two major singers of that type, and also for Torvaldo e Dorliska
Torvaldo e Dorliska
Torvaldo e Dorliska is an operatic dramma semiserio in two act by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini, based on Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by the revolutionary Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai, whose work was the source of the Lodoïska libretto set by Luigi Cherubini...
and Armida
Armida (Rossini)
Armida is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso.-Performance history:...
, where, beside the amatory protagonist, Rinaldo, created by the very prince of Rossini baritenors, Andrea Nozzari
Andrea Nozzari
Andrea Nozzari was an Italian tenor.Nozzari was born in Vertova and studied in Bergamo and Rome. He is notable for the principal roles written for him by Gioachino Rossini and mostly premiered in Domenico Barbaia's theatres in Naples...
, there appear additionally five or six baritonal tenors in secondary roles.
There were no contraltos available in the mentioned cases, nor was the singer Giovanni David
Giovanni David
Giovanni David was an Italian tenor particularly known for his roles in Rossini operas....
yet, who was to provide Rossini with a third solution: a new type of opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
tenor voice, springing from the experience of the so-called “half character tenorini”, who used to be employed in comic operas and who had clearer and lighter, and therefore more agile, voices than those of the proper baritenors. After still using a basically central and slightly virtuoso writing for the tenor in his early comic operas, Rossini elevated the tenor’s tessitura to extremely hard high pitches of virtuosity and coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
as soon as singers' abilities allowed it. Such was the case of Serafino Gentili, the first performer of Lindoro in L'Italiana in Algeri, of the cited David, the first performer of Don Narciso in Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani...
, of Giacomo Guglielmi, the first performer of Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
and, finally, of Savino Monelli, the first performer of Giannetto in La gazza ladra
La gazza ladra
La gazza ladra is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was by Giovanni Gherardini after La pie voleuse by JMT Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez....
. When Giovanni David entered Barbaja
Domenico Barbaia
Domenico Barbaia was an Italian impresario.An energetic man, Barbaia, who was born in Milan, began his career by running a coffee shop...
’s company in Neapolitan theatres, he was entrusted with the young and/or noble lover’s parts, whereas Nozzari and other baritenors got the roles of rancorous or villainous antagonists, or of army leaders. The part of Otello
Otello (Rossini)
Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello....
, created by Nozzari, cannot be considered a real amatory role, but “has got the psychological features of the modern baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, whether he is regarded as a heroic condottiere, or he expresses an exasperated jealousy “ ).
The above-specified tenore contraltinos were characterized by high, brilliant and acrobatic singing, and could bravely confront baritenors in the hot-blooded challenge duets, as well as finely sing lovers’ elegiac melodies; they were, above all, able to sustain much higher tessiture than those of baritenors themselves. Such tenore contraltino characterization would be slightly attenuated after Rossini’s moving to France, where it was possible to resort to the tradition of hautes-contre
Haute-contre
The haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.-History:...
, who were equally versed in high singing, but rather more averse to castrato virtuosity, typical of Italian opera . Adolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit was a French operatic tenor, librettist, and composer. One of the most esteemed opera singers of the 1820s and 1830s, he was particularly associated with the works of Gioachino Rossini....
can be regarded as the paragon of this expansion beyond the Alps of the tenor contraltino experience.
The usage of the new type of tenor voice, which includes John Sinclair, the Scottish tenor that first performed Semiramide
Semiramide
Semiramide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini.The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon...
’s Idreno, passed then into the hands of the other contemporary composers, finding firstly and mainly in Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the tenorino, inspired the writing of operatic roles which today are almost impossible to cast...
, and then also in Gilbert-Louis Duprez
Gilbert Duprez
Gilbert Duprez was a French tenor, singing teacher and minor composer who famously pioneered the delivery of the operatic high C from the chest. He also created the role of Edgardo in the popular bel canto-era opera Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835.-Biography:Gilbert-Louis Duprez, to give his full...
and Napoleone Moriani, David’s valid successors. With Rossini, though, a whole era had ended and the new realistic singing ideals of the Romanticism were becoming more widespread. Male coloratura sank into oblivion; Bellini who in La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
still confronted Rubini with virtuosity on a par with the soprano, in I puritani
I puritani
I puritani is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality. It was first produced at...
, less than four years later, but would call upon him to sing no more than a scanty number of melismas and Donizetti, who would always keep employing coloratura in the parts written for Rubini, would interrupt this usage with Duprez when the latter ceased posing as the former’s emulator . On the other hand, the falsettone register began, as well, to go out of fashion quite rapidly, as a simple recollection of Baroque antirealism times of yore: Rubini would raise up to high B flat the uttering of force (or forceful), improperly called “from the chest”; Duprez, in his turn, would have Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
’s audience hear the first high “C from the chest” and would then give up elegiac singing of his former model Rubini, beginning to utter forcefully the whole high note range and also taking on many manners of baritenors, who were then still haunting the operatic scenes (dark timbre, firm accent, great phrasing nobility, quivering and passionate acting) . The great Adolphe Nourrit, having proved himself unable to conform to the new singing and taste trend, having been overcome by Duprez at the Opéra
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
through a forceful performance of Arnold’s role in William Tell
William Tell (opera)
Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
, which he himself had created, according to Rossini’s expectations, by hautes-contre’s ancient graceful singing, ended his days in despair in Naples where he had resumed his studies with Donizetti, falling headlong from the window of a hotel’s room. The brief season of the tenore contraltino was over and there had begun the new era of the Romantic tenor, whether it was called lyric or dramatic, elegiac or spinto, robusto or di grazia, which is still enduring till present times.
Sources
- Marco Beghelli and Nicola Gallino (ed), Tutti i libretti di Rossini, Garzanti, Milan, 1991, ISBN 88-11-41059-2
- Rodolfo CellettiRodolfo CellettiRodolfo Celletti was an Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist. Considered one of the leading scholars of the operatic voice and the history of operatic performance, he published many books and articles on the subject as well as several novels.-Biography:Rodolfo Celletti was...
, Storia del belcanto, Discanto Edizioni, Fiesole, 1983 - Salvatore Caruselli (ed), Grande enciclopedia della musica lirica, Longanesi &C. Periodici S.p.A., Rome, vol 4
- The New Grove Dictionary of OperaNew Grove Dictionary of OperaThe New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
, edited by Stanley Sadie (1992), ISBN 0-333-73432-7 and ISBN 1-56159-228-5 - John PotterJohn Potter (musician)-Life:John Potter's musical education began as a chorister at King's College Cambridge, after which he became a scholar at The King's School, Canterbury and exhibitioner at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge...
, Tenor, History of a voice, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-11873-5 - This article is a substantial translation from Tenore contraltino in the Italian Wikipedia.