It’s a good time for countertenors. What was once perceived to be a limited vocal range—particularly in the United States—has now become a vocal range as fully represented as any other vocal type, with as many different flavors within the Fach as a Baskin-Robbins. For singers looking to enter the rafters of the male range, such a tipping point has yielded a rich and varied collection of music and performance options—from opera’s beginnings, through the sacred music of the eighteenth century, to works being composed today.
One countertenor blazing new trails in the repertoire is Philippe Jaroussky, a dedicated interpreter of Vivaldi, Bach and, in his upcoming CD for Virgin, Antonio Caldara. Moreover, the French singer has been making waves in the United States. He returns to Carnegie Hall this month with an intriguing program offering improvisations on masterworks by the likes of Monteverdi. We caught Jaroussky shortly after he wrapped recording for his Caldara disc to discuss the unique aspects of the range, one that’s promising to offer more career opportunities in the not-too-distant future.
One of the most interesting things about your career as a countertenor is that you originally sang baritone—and played the violin. What led you to find your Fach?
I didn’t work [so] good as baritone, in fact. I remember when I was a violinist, I participated in choir, and I remember that I sing Carmina burana in the choir as baritone. But not really, I was not very comfortable with this voice. I started quite quickly to work with my head voice as a countertenor. For me, it was quite clear from the beginning that I wanted to work a special range, I think, and I started really to work my countertenor voice at the age of 18. Quite young, really.
Many singers, especially in their teens, are not as well attuned to their body, especially as, at that age, you’re still in the throes of maturation.
Yes, I remember that I was very obsessed with, for example, speaking about . . . I was always asking to a lot of people if it was sounding natural or not. I really wanted to choose the best voice for me. It was not just to be original, you know, to be specific or do something different from the others. It was just because, from the beginning, I felt really much more comfortable with this voice to make music. Just to express music with my body, with my voice—it was much easier with this voice than with baritone or tenor voice.
For the most part, there’s a heavily defined repertoire for a countertenor. How do you approach singing early music?
When I was violinist, I didn’t know very well the Baroque repertory. Because you know, as a violinist, sometimes you are practically just playing The Four Seasons by Vivaldi or the sonatas and some concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. And after, there is not so [many] things you know, really. In fact, I think that’s why Bach was a great shock for me. I remember the first concert I heard the countertenor, I discovered this voice, but in the same time I really discovered an entire part of the repertory I didn’t know—all these amazing arias by Handel, by Vivaldi, by a lot of different composers.
I think if you choose this voice, you are ready to be passionate about the repertory. You have to sing for practically all your life, of course, and you have to like Baroque music. . . . A lot of people say to me, “Oh, you have a very short repertory.” In fact, I have approximately two centuries of choice! And there are such a lot of different composers and such a lot of unknown repertoire to discover that, finally, I think it’s not so short. I don’t feel this as something too small for me. There is so much to sing.
There is a new thing, also. Naturally, for a countertenor, we have to dedicate the voice to the Baroque repertory. But more and more there are a lot of new composers that are interested by the colors of this voice. And I’m very excited each time I can create some pieces composed for me. That is naturally not the most important part of my activity, but I like sometimes to escape from the Baroque area to create some new songs for countertenor.
And so much is being rediscovered now from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, musically speaking. Naïve has been dedicating itself to recording otherwise unknown Vivaldi operas, and the work you’ve been doing lately for Virgin has brought works to the public consciousness that were all but considered lost.
Yes, we discovered again all this amazing music, and now it will remain in the main repertory. I think now if you can see all of the big concert halls or opera houses, there is just one Baroque opera for each season in the opera houses. It’s just the repertory now—like the Romantic repertory, like the Classicists—and now it will be played forever. I’m sure.
Now, of course, we know better the Vivaldi music, we know of course the Handel operas quite well. But I think there are such a lot of composers still . . . in the dark. We know Monteverdi, Cavalli a little bit, but there are such a lot of treasures to sing.. . . It’s very exciting to take some arias from [the] library and to have the possibility to . . . give your special touch to these arias. With my CDs, most of the time I’m trying to find and also to tell a story about the composer not so known. I will do [the same] for my next CD, with [the music of] Antonio Caldara.
I’m glad you brought up your Caldara disc. He was a contemporary of Bach and Handel and Vivaldi and he was one of the first composers to work with the libretti of Metastasio. But he’s relatively unheard of in the United States. What drew you to his music?
He is much more famous now, with a beautiful recording by René Jacobs; even the great Cecilia Bartoli recorded some beautiful arias in two different CDs of Caldara. There is just one opera recorded, and he composed more than 80 operas! . . . I really thought that it was unfair. Antonio Caldara, the music is practically all the time very high quality, and the writing, the theory of the composition, is just very impressive—sometimes, even much more than Vivaldi. The dialogue, for example, between the instruments and the voice is very rich.
I was a little bit afraid [before] I recorded the CD, because I had heard the music [only] in my mind. . . . I could imagine the colors of the orchestra and everything, but it was just imagination. When you [hear] for the first time the orchestra, it’s very exciting. Suddenly it’s these different flavors that you couldn’t expect. . . . I had only good surprises when we played it for the first time. It was sometimes even much better than what I just thought reading the scores.
It’s an interesting challenge that you bring up, to have a piece that you may not have any reference to on recording. It’s not like “Di quella pira” where you have reference after reference.
But in the same time, I have to admit that it could also be very comfortable for me, because if there is no other recordings of this aria, you cannot compare them with other people.. . . When I recorded Magnificat by Bach, I felt much more pressure because I had in my mind all the recordings before. I feel more freedom when I am recording something that has never been recorded before. I can . . . do something . . . to prove it’s good music.
You have a lot to prove when you try to sing this beautiful music, but you can be impressed by the repertory, you know? If it’s a much more fragile repertory, then you have to discern to find the good colors inside an aria. For me it’s something very fresh. If somebody’s telling me, “I like your voice, you have a beautiful voice,” for me it’s not the most important thing. But if he’s telling me, “I didn’t know this repertory, I think it’s beautiful, and I enjoyed a lot of it,” it’s much more interesting. . . . Practically all the arias I’m singing are originally written for castratos’ voices.
It is a totally different voice.
Yes, and also the interest of the public for the castrati is because the fascination with the story of these amazing singers, you know? I can’t imagine the quality of the timbre . . . of what the composers composed for them. It’s part of the charm of this amazing repertory, because you are doing others’ lost voices, and with countertenors, or even with female sopranos or mezzo-sopranos. . . . And I think part of the success we have now with this repertory—I’m thinking about also the CD with Cecilia Bartoli—[is] because the public is totally fascinated by this story, the story of these amazing human beings.
And there’s no one alive today to say, “I heard Farinelli sing and this interpretation doesn’t sound like Farinelli.”
Yes, yes, but you have to be very, very nervous as a countertenor. As a singer, if you sing a course written for castratos, it is terribly difficult. And of course I cannot sing all this repertory, you know? I have to choose. I’m just human, you know? And then you have to be very modest with these [works written for castrati], because they are not the same quality. They are probably very powerful voices with incredible ranges, much more than us—and then you have to always keep all this in mind when you are singing this repertory.
As a countertenor, of course I’m happy just to be a countertenor and not to be a castrato. It was not just a question of coloratura in the castrato voices—I think that they were wearing the whole drama in their voice, you know? I’m taking the risk of singing a repertory that’s very challenging for the countertenor. It’s a very difficult thing to approach—a technical thing, trying to sing like them but using my imagination of what could be the castrato of the eighteenth century—we don’t know, really.
You’ve also touched on the common misconception that the countertenor range is a niche specialization.
Yes, I think that it’s really because of the repertory too. But I think there are a lot of different types of countertenors now. And more and more we have the very high soprano voices, like Michael Maniaci with his incredible high soprano voice. You [also] have very low voices, and you can really choose the function of your voice in the repertory of even sometimes one castrato. It’s a different way—not by composer, but by singer, you know?
Similar to what Joyce DiDonato did with her recent CD, Colbran, the Muse.
I think it’s a very interesting approach to follow the career of one singer and to train to sing what he was singing if you feel comfortable with the range. Then you can discover amazing music sometimes you couldn’t expect.
How do you research new music?
I’m quite the YouTube maniac. I’m often searching for videos, music, scores, everything. It’s amazing now there is an explosion of countertenors, a very talented new generation, and it’s very exciting and each has his own color, his own qualities.
And more and more I’m trying also to do some projects with my colleagues. This year for example I will do some concerts with Andreas Scholl, and I’m hoping to do a project with Max Emanuel Cencic. I think it’s quite interesting to sing together because sometimes people want to have a fight between two countertenors. There is “I prefer this one, I prefer [that] one.” I think it’s good to sing together to show how the voices also are different and each person has different qualities.
