A Singer’s Guide to Voices: Countertenor
As the warm-up act for my impending Magnum Opus on the Bass Voice, coming soon, I thought I should write about the Countertenor voice. It has been my privilege to know and work with many of the finest countertenors of the 20th and 21st centuries and I have an idea that many of our readers might be interested in finding out more about this unusual, but by no means unnatural, voice.
I should emphasise and make very plain that the countertenor is not and has never been a voice created by a surgical process. Outside the world of music which I inhabit, I have heard ignorant opinions expressed about countertenors, equating them with the Castrati of the 17th and 18th centuries. This unnatural, and surgically achieved voice, which became hugely popular around the time of Handel, involved the castration of boys in order to stop the process of puberty and the change to a man’s voice from boy soprano to tenor, bass or baritone. It produced, apparently, a voice which remained in the soprano register but possessed great carrying power, and these castrati vied for public acclaim in the same way as the pop singers of our era. Women went wild for these stars, although the 18th century groupies presumably were safer from conception!
Anyway, for our purpose today, make no mistake, countertenors are no different in that “department” from other male voices. They just sing a bit higher!
However, they display the same variety as other male voices too, as some are loud, others soft-grained, some go very high, others don’t, some suit baroque music, while others are ideal for contemporary music. Some are perfect for small ensembles while others revel in the world of opera. I plan to explore many of these different voices over the course of this article and will introduce you to a whole mixture of personalities, since you have to be both physically and mentally strong to be a successful countertenor.
The modern history of countertenors starts with Alfred Deller, who, almost single-handedly, brought this voice to mainstream attention. Before I write about Deller, it is important to remember (or simply understand) that the countertenor was a constituent part of every cathedral choir, certainly in England, for centuries. As women were forbidden to sing in cathedral choirs, the equivalent to the alto part in, for example, four-part harmony would be sung by a countertenor. This all stemmed from early choral music, for example, the work of Ockeghem in the 15th century, which added a contra tenor to the original tenor line (from Latin tenere, to hold, so therefore holding the tune) and the cantus line (higher and embellishing the tenor) in between, and adding a contrabassus at the lower end. As choral music developed and expanded, these in between voices became more important in the harmony. In the same way as the viola in a modern orchestra fills out the string harmonies, the countertenors allowed much greater harmonic scope to composers. “The counter is the prince of all”, declared a Scottish song of the 16th century, extolling the virtues of that particular voice even then. A different tradition grew up in France with its “haute-contres”, but I’ll come to that later.
Alfred Deller was born in 1912 and sang as a lay clerk at Canterbury Cathedral from 1940-1947 and then at St Paul’s Cathedral in London from 1947- 1962. He was fascinated by the music of the pre-classical period, and in 1948 he founded the Deller Consort to explore music as far back as mediaeval times. In this, he was very much a pioneer in what was to become a tidal wave of interest in early music, and his place in the pantheon of British music is assured. He was obviously quite the publicist, and the Deller Consort was often heard on the BBC Third Programme. His voice came to the notice both of Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten, the pre-eminent British composers of the 40s and 50s, and when Britten decided to use Deller in his opera, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in 1960, setting a specially abridged version of Shakespeare’s play, the role of Oberon, the Fairy King, was written for him.
This proved to be a masterstroke by Britten, as the countertenor voice of Alfred Deller was perfect to sing the other-worldly music and words of Oberon. Contrasting him with the coloratura soprano of Tytania, the Queen of the Fairies, was a brilliant decision, and in the blink of an eye, a new voice had been added to the operatic range. The composer was outraged when the Royal Opera House failed to cast Deller in the first performance there, citing his small-scale voice and acting limitations, and for a few years, various singers, including, bizarrely, Josephine Veasey, sang the role of Oberon. Britten insisted on Deller for his 1967 recording of the opera, which, mercifully, has preserved a bit of history for us now, and in that same year, there emerged, for me, the greatest countertenor of them all, James Bowman.
Why he is not Sir James Bowman is a constant source of mystery to many of us. I was privileged to sing with James several times and found his voice fascinating. He is a tall and imposing man, with a seriously big voice, in fact, by a long way, the loudest countertenor voice I have heard. This might be a handicap for some, but, in this case, it’s a huge boon. It has meant that he could sing in even the most enormous theatres, like the New York Met for example, and have no worries about audibility. This is a serious problem for many countertenors, as the very nature of their voice production, the use of falsetto (singing off the normal voice), means that they lack the cutting edge of a mature adult voice. If you try to sing with falsetto, for example pretending to be a woman or a bird, you will see that you can produce a decent sound but with very little power behind it. This is the part of the voice that the best countertenors spend their time training, but it needs hard physical effort to produce a loud and carrying sound, properly supported by the diaphragm muscle. Many can produce a beautiful sound but without an edge. This means that many, if not most, countertenors need the help of a resonant acoustic to help them project their voices. Alternatively, if you think of the falsetto singers who have had popular success, famously the Bee Gees and Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, they have achieved success through amplification.
Returning to James Bowman, his great success, after the thrilling debuts in 1967, has been staggering. I first sang with him in Scottish Opera’s wonderful, magical old production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in the early 80s. I was a very young and wide-eyed Theseus in that production, and I remember the utter thrill of standing next to James as he sang Oberon’s other-worldly music with utter conviction and poise. Like many countertenors, his natural voice was a baritone, and he rehearsed for many weeks using that voice, so we all got used to hearing him sing in a nondescript way, until, suddenly, with the advent of the orchestra (see my article A Singer’s Life Part 7 on EMR for my detailed description of the rehearsal process in opera), we were privileged to be in the presence of greatness. I have sung MND with many fine Oberons over the years, but I am sure that even they will acknowledge the outstanding performance of James Bowman. I am only sorry that the recording I made, with Sir Colin Davis on Philips, of MND didn’t have James singing Oberon. We had the excellent American, Brian Asawa, singing (of which more later) but I would have loved to be on the same CD as Mr Bowman. He did record the role, with Richard Hickox (splendid recording, but I recommend the Colin Davis, for obvious reasons!), and so we have James’ Oberon preserved for all time. Indeed, and again I am loath to recommend another recording, but here goes, you need also to acquire the original 1967 recording conducted by Britten himself, to hear the wonderful performance of the first Oberon, Alfred Deller.
Fortunately, I am on the recording that Richard Hickox conducted in 1988 of Monteverdi’s ‘Coronation of Poppea’, on which James sang a fantastic Ottone. Indeed that is one of the recordings of which I am most proud, capturing live performances that we had made at the Spitalfields Festival in London the same year. The cast, including the exceptional Arleen Auger, Della Jones, Gregory Reinhart and a wealth of other great singers, was fabulous, and we had created a homogenous sound throughout weeks of rehearsals and performances before we all adjourned to a venue in Ham near Richmond-by-the-Thames where we recorded this amazing work, the crowning glory of Monteverdi’s career.
James Bowman had been in at the very beginning of the modern early music revival, appearing with David Munrow and his Early Music Consort in the early 70s. Paul Esswood and Charles Brett were the other notable countertenors of that era and it must have been enormously exciting to be there, bringing totally unknown music to the ears of a public who had no idea what was to follow. By the time I entered my baroque career, in the late 80s, the foundation work had been done, and the level of performance, especially on the difficult old instruments, was phenomenal.
Mention must be made here of the extraordinary success of the original King’s Singers, a vocal group who emerged in the late 60s to reach popular fame in the 1970s. They were made up of a few friends who had been choral scholars at King’s College, Cambridge and who combined to form an extremely well-balanced ensemble which took the world by storm, appearing frequently on the Johnny Carson Show in the USA. Two countertenors, a tenor, two baritones and a bass produced an entirely new sound, and it was the countertenors who stood out. At the top was Nigel Perrin, who sang really high, and below him was Alastair Hume, who I have got to know over the years as a friend.
Speaking of friends, one of my closest chums over the past 30 years is the countertenor of the Hilliard Ensemble, David James. Founded in 1974, the Hilliards became the premier vocal ensemble in the world, with a flexible membership up to 1990, and then appearing as a group of four singers (ATTBar). I was fortunate enough to sing many times with the Hilliards in Arvo Part’s ‘Passio’ all over the world, and David and I became close friends. His voice is quite extraordinary, and I am sure the other members of the Hilliards will forgive me when I say that their unique sound is mainly down to David. Capable of singing very high indeed for a countertenor (by comparison, James Bowman was quite limited in range), he has a totally individual sound which combines beautifully with the other singers, but which can also dominate if necessary.
Other impressive countertenors of my era include Michael Chance, Christopher Robson, Robin Blaze, René Jacobs (later to become a fine and influential conductor), Axel Kőhler (with whom I sang ‘Tolomeo’ in Halle), Andreas Scholl, David Daniels and Daniel Taylor. Apart from Axel and Michael, I never sang with these countertenors, but they established the voice type as a major contributor to Classical Music.
I sang a Bach Christmas Oratorio with Michael and was bowled over by the sheer beauty of his sound. It is a smooth voice, easy at the top and, tied to a keen musical intelligence, his performances on record are well worth looking out for. I particularly treasure his rendition of ‘Erbarme dich’ from Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’, great music, memorably sung.
En passant, as it were, might I draw your attention to the voice type typical of the French Baroque period, the Haute Contre. The likes of Rameau, Charpentier and Lully were writing for a particular voice in the 17th and 18th centuries, basically a tenor, but with an upward extension into falsetto. Some of the early bel canto tenors employed this technique in Italy too, but it is most frequently associated with French music. In fact, vestiges of it remained well into the 19th century. The aria from Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’, “Je crois entendre encore”, lies extremely high for the tenor, and I have often heard modern tenors using a floaty, ethereal head voice not unlike falsetto for this beautiful reverie. Two of my friends in the profession, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt and Paul Agnew, were great exponents of this voice type, and their recordings are worth looking for.
Remaining in France, mention must be made here of the utterly unique and extraordinary singer, Dominique Visse. I first encountered this slight figure when singing in Cavalli’s ‘La Calisto’ in Lyon and was instantly captivated by him. He came to rehearsals on his motorbike, dressed in biker leathers, with some tattoos and piercings, if I recall correctly, and sang in a voice set somewhere in the soprano range, way higher than any countertenor I had ever heard. He and I had a sort of duet, which, apart from its comedy value, was amazing, and weirdly beautiful. He was a delightful colleague, and a very important figure in French early music of the late 20th century. He directed and sang in his own vocal ensemble and there are many fantastic recordings featuring his unique sound. In a world of one-offs, he was a world apart!
Over the years, several countertenors emerged, who wished to push back the boundaries of repertoire for the voice type. Many wanted to explore the vast amount of songs, originally written for women, and this opened up a whole new world for singers, who created a sound quite different from the traditional “church” countertenor. I remember an amazing black American countertenor at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh in the late 70s (sadly, I can’t now remember his name), who astonished us all by singing Schumann’s ‘Frauenliebe und Leben’ in a German song class. He had an extraordinarily fruity tone and was utterly convincing in his interpretation, although I’m not sure that Peter Pears was too thrilled.
In the 90s, I sang several times with the amazing American/Japanese countertenor, Brian Asawa, who similarly enjoyed stretching the frontier of repertoire for countertenor. He was a fine singer, with a mellifluous tone, and featured on several recordings in the 1990s. I recorded ‘Messiah’ with him, and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. For me, his Oberon was not ethereal enough, although superbly performed, but certainly worth listening to (and there is the obvious advantage of hearing me as well!). Sadly, Brian died in 2016, at the age of 49.
I was privileged to sing ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and in Beijing with the fine American countertenor, Lawrence Zazzo. Larry has spent the second half of his life based in the UK and is a much more cerebral American countertenor (he has a PHD in Musicology) than others I have met. I really enjoyed his Oberon, and also his company, as he lived up to his childhood nickname, ‘the Great Zazzini’!
I must mention here the Italian baritone, Marcello Lippi. I met Marcello in Lyon when we sang together in Cavalli’s opera, ‘La Calisto’, conducted by René Jacobs. The opera revolves around the seduction of the nymph Calisto by Jupiter, who transforms himself into the goddess Diana in order to get close to the young girl. His cruel seduction is exposed by the real Diana, who tells Jupiter’s wife Juno of the deception. Calisto is, as usual, both the victim and the supposed transgressor, and is turned into a constellation in the heavens, as punishment/reward! Anyway, normally, the singer playing Diana sings two roles, Diana herself and Jupiter disguised as Diana. In this production, and the recording with it, Marcello Lippi sings Jupiter in his normal baritone voice, but also sings as Diana in his falsetto voice. He is a better baritone than countertenor, but he is sufficiently decent to make the role work, and I must say that it was an absolute tour de force. Check out the recording.
I have heard, or sung with, several countertenors of the younger generation, notably Iestyn Davies, James Hall and Iestyn Morris, and it is certainly excellent news that this unique and important voice seems to be thriving. Many modern composers are writing for countertenor, and so the legacy of Alfred Deller and James Bowman lives on triumphantly.
