Voice Type - Baritone

Baritone

Baritone (or barytone; French: baryton; German: Bariton; Italian: baritono; Portuguese: barítono) 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 βαρύτονος, meaning 'deep (or heavy) sounding', music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second G below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. G2-F4) in choral music, and from the second G below middle C to the G above middle C (G₂ to G₄) in operatic music, but can be extended at either end.

History

The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as baritonans late in the 15th century,^[1] usually in French sacred polyphonic music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the average male choral voice.

Baritones took roughly the range we know today at the beginning of the 18th century but they were still lumped in with their bass colleagues until well into the 19th century. Indeed, many operatic works of the 18th century have roles marked as bass that in reality are low baritone roles (or bass-baritone parts in modern parlance). Examples of this are to be found, for instance, in the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel. The greatest and most enduring parts for baritones in 18th-century operatic music were composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They include Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and the Don in Don Giovanni.^[2]

[edit] 19th century

French baritone Victor Maurel (1848-1923) as Don Giovanni

The bel canto style of vocalism which arose in Italy in the early 19th century supplanted the castrato-dominated opera seria of the previous century. It also led to the baritone being viewed as a separate voice category from the bass. Traditionally, basses in operas had been cast as authority figures such as a king or high priest; but with the advent of the more fluid baritone voice, the roles allotted by composers to lower male voices expanded in the direction of trusted companions or even romantic leads—normally the province of tenors. More often than not, however, baritones found themselves portraying villains.

The principal composers of bel canto opera are considered to be:

• Gioacchino Rossini (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Guillaume Tell);
• Gaetano Donizetti (Don Pasquale, L'elisir d'amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Lucrezia Borgia, La Favorite);
• Vincenzo Bellini (I Puritani, Norma);
• Giacomo Meyerbeer (Les Huguenots); and
• the young Giuseppe Verdi (Nabucco, Ernani, Macbeth, Rigoletto, La traviata, Il trovatore).

The prolific operas of these composers, plus the works of Verdi's maturity, such as Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Don Carlos/Don Carlo, the revised Simon Boccanegra, Aida, Otello and Falstaff, blazed many new and rewarding performance pathways for baritones. Figaro in Il barbiere is often called the first true baritone role and Donizetti and Verdi in their vocal writing went on to emphasise the top fifth of the baritone voice, rather than its lower notes—thus generating a more brilliant sound. Further pathways opened up when the musically complex and physically demanding operas of Richard Wagner also began to enter the mainstream repertory of the world's opera houses during the second half of the 19th century.

The major international baritone of the first half of the 19th century was the Italian Antonio Tamburini (1800–1876). He was a famous Don Giovanni in Mozart's eponymous opera as well as being a Bellini and Donizetti specialist. Commentators praised his voice for its beauty, flexibility and smooth tonal emission, which are the hallmarks of a bel canto singer. His range, however, was probably closer to that of a bass-baritone than to that of a modern "Verdi baritone".

The most important of Tamburini's Italianate successors were all Verdians. They included Giorgio Ronconi, who created the title role in Verdi's Nabucco; Felice Varesi, who created the title roles in Verdi's Macbeth and Rigoletto and was the first Germont in La traviata; Francesco Graziani, who created Don Carlo in Verdi's La forza del destino; Leone Giraldoni, who created Renato in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera and was the first Simon Boccanegra; Enrico Delle Sedie, who was London's first Renato; Adriano Pantaleoni, who was renowned for his performances as Amonasro in Aida and in other Verdi works at La Scala, Milan; Francesco Pandolfini, whose singing at La Scala during the 1870s was praised by Verdi; Antonio Cotogni, a much lauded singer in Milan, London and Saint Petersburg, the first Italian Posa in Verdi's Don Carlo and later a great vocal pedagogue, too; and, Giuseppe Del Puente, who sang Verdi to acclaim in the United States.

Among the non-Italian born baritones that were active in the third-quarter of the 19th century, Tamburini's mantle as an outstanding exponent of Mozart and Donizetti's music was probably taken up most faithfully by a Belgian, Camille Everardi, who later settled in Russia and taught voice.

Luckily, the gramophone was invented early enough to capture on disc the voices of the top Italian Verdi and Donizetti baritones of the last two decades of the 19th century, whose operatic performances were characterized by considerable re-creative freedom and a high degree of technical finish. They included Mattia Battistini (known as the "King of Baritones"), Giuseppe Kaschmann (born Josip Kasman and who, atypically for his kind, sang Wagner's Telramund and Amfortas not in Italian but in German, at the Bayreuth Festival, in the 1890s); Giuseppe Campanari; Antonio Magini-Coletti; Mario Ancona (chosen to be the first Silvio in Pagliacci); Giuseppe Pacini; and, Antonio Scotti, (who came to the Met from Europe in 1899 and remained on the roster of singers until 1933!). Meanwhile, Antonio Pini-Corsi was the standout Italian buffo baritone in the period between the 1880s and World War I. He revelled in comic opera parts by Rossini, Donizetti and Paer, among others.

Notable among their contemporaries were the cultured and technically adroit French baritones Jean Lassalle (hailed as the most accomplished baritone of his generation), Victor Maurel (the creator of Iago, Falstaff and Tonio in Pagliacci), Paul Lherie (the first Posa in the revised, Italian-language version of Don Carlos), and Maurice Renaud (a singing-actor of the first magnitude). Lassalle, Maurel and Renaud enjoyed superlative careers on either side of the Atlantic and left a valuable legacy of recordings. Five other significant Francophone baritones who recorded, too, during the early days of the gramophone/phonograph were Leon Melchissedec and Jean Note of the Paris Opera and Gabriel Soulacroix, Henry Albers and Charles Gilibert of the Opéra-Comique. The Quaker baritone David Bispham, who sang in London and New York between 1891 and 1903, was the leading American male singer of this generation. He also recorded for the gramophone.

The oldest-born star baritone known for sure to have made solo gramophone discs was the Englishman Sir Charles Santley (1834–1922). Santley made his operatic debut in Italy in 1858 and became one of Covent Garden's leading singers. He was still giving critically acclaimed concerts in London in the 1890s. The composer of Faust, Charles Gounod, wrote Valentine's aria "Even bravest heart" for him in 1864. A couple of primitive cylinder recordings dating from about 1900 have been attributed by collectors to the dominant French baritone of the 1860s and 1870s, Jean-Baptiste Faure (1830–1914) -- the creator of Posa in Verdi's original French-language version of Don Carlos. It is doubtful, however, that Faure (who retired in 1886) made the cylinders. However, a contemporary of Faure's, Antonio Cotogni, (1831–1918) -- probably the foremost Italian baritone of his generation—can be heard, briefly and dimly, at the age of 77, on a duet recording with the tenor Francesco Marconi. (Cotogni and Marconi had sung together in the first London performance of Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in 1883, performing the roles of Barnaba and Enzo respectively.)

There are 19th century references in the musical literature to certain baritone sub-types. These include the light and tenorish baryton-Martin, named after French singer Jean-Blaise Martin (1768/69-1837 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1768/69-1837 end_of_the_skype_highlighting),^[3] and the deeper, more powerful Heldenbariton (today's bass-baritone) of Wagnerian opera.

Perhaps the most accomplished Heldenbaritons of Wagner's day were August Kindermann, Franz Betz and Theodor Reichmann. Betz created Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger and undertook Wotan in the first Der Ring des Niebelungen cycle at Bayreuth, while Reichmann created Amfortas in Parsifal, also at Bayreuth. Lyric German baritones sang lighter Wagnerian roles such as Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde or Telramund in Lohengrin. They made large strides, too, in the performance of art song and oratorio, with Franz Schubert favouring several baritones for his music, in particular Johann Michael Vogl.^[4]

Nineteenth century operettas became the preserve of lightweight baritone voices. They were given comic parts in the tradition of the previous century's comic bass by Gilbert and Sullivan in many of their productions. This did not prevent the French master of operetta, Jacques Offenbach, from assigning the villain's role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann to a big-voiced baritone for the sake of dramatic effect. Other 19th-century French composers like Meyerbeer, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Georges Bizet and Jules Massenet wrote attractive parts for baritones, too. These included Nelusko in L'Africaine (Meyerbeer's last opera), Mephistopheles in La Damnation de Faust (a role also sung by basses), the Priest of Dagon in Samson et Dalila, Escamillo in Carmen, Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles, Lescaut in Manon, Athanael in Thaïs and Herod in Hérodiade. Russian composers also included substantial baritone parts in their operas. Witness the title roles in Peter Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (which received its first production in 1879) and Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor (1890).

Mozart continued to be sung throughout the 19th century although, generally speaking, his operas were not revered to the same extent that they are today by music critics and audiences. Back then, baritones rather than high basses normally sang Don Giovanni - arguably Mozart's greatest male operatic creation. Famous Dons of the late 19th/early 20th centuries included Scotti and Maurel (see the photograph accompanying this article), as well as Portugal's Francisco d'Andrade and Sweden's John Forsell.

20th century

The dawn of the 20th century opened up more opportunities for baritones than ever before as a taste for strenuously exciting vocalism and lurid, "slice-of-life" operatic plots took hold in Italy and spread elsewhere. The most prominent verismo baritones included such major singers in Europe and America as the polished Giuseppe De Luca (the first Sharpless in Madama Butterfly), Mario Sammarco (the first Gerard in Andrea Chénier), Eugenio Giraldoni (the first Scarpia in Tosca), Pasquale Amato (the first Rance in La fanciulla del West), Riccardo Stracciari (noted for his richly attractive timbre) and Domenico Viglione-Borghesi, whose voice was exceeded in size only by that of the lion-voiced Titta Ruffo. Ruffo was the most commanding Italian baritone of his era or, arguably, any other era. He was at his prime from the early 1900s to the early 1920s and enjoyed success in Italy, England and America (in Chicago and later at the Met).

Between them, these baritones established the echt performance style for baritones undertaking roles in verismo operas. The chief verismo composers were Giacomo Puccini, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni, Alberto Franchetti, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea. Verdi's works continued to remain popular, however, with audiences in Italy, the Spanish-speaking countries, the United States and the United Kingdom and, interestingly enough, Germany, where there was a major Verdi revival in Berlin between the Wars.

Outside the field of Italian opera, an important addition to the Austro-German repertory occurred in 1905. This was the premiere of Richard Strauss's Salome, with the pivotal part of John the Baptist assigned to a baritone. (The enormous-voiced Dutch baritone Anton van Rooy -- a Wagner specialist—sang John when the opera reached the Met in 1907). Then, in 1925, Germany's Leo Schützendorf created the title baritone role in Alban Berg's harrowing Wozzeck.^[5]. In a separate development, the French composer Claude Debussy's post-Wagnerian masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande featured not one but two lead baritones at its 1902 premiere. These two baritones, Jean Perier and Hector Dufranne, possessed contrasting voices. (Dufranne had a darker, more powerful instrument than Perier, who was a true baryton-Martin.)

Characteristic of the Wagnerian baritones of the 20th century was a general progression of individual singers from higher-lying baritone parts to lower-pitched ones. This was the case with Germany's Hans Hotter. Hotter made his debut in 1929. As a young singer he appeared in Verdi and created the Commandant in Richard Strauss's Friedenstag and Olivier in Capriccio. By the 1950s, however, he was being hailed as the top Wagnerian bass-baritone in the world. His Wotan was especially praised by critics for its musicianship. Other major Wagnerian baritones have included Hotter's predecessors Leopold Demuth, Anton van Rooy, Hermann Weil, Clarence Whitehill, Friedrich Schorr, Rudolf Bockelmann and Hans Hermann Nissen. Demuth, van Rooy, Weil and Whitehill were at their peak in the late 1800s and early 1900s while Schorr, Bockelmann and Nissen were stars of the 1920s and 1930s.

In addition to their heavyweight Wagnerian cousins, there was a plethora of baritones with more lyrical voices active in Germany and Austria during the period between the outbreak of WW1 in 1914 and the end of WW2 in 1945. Among them were Joseph Schwarz (a vocal virtuoso), Heinrich Schlusnus (the owner of an exceptionally beautiful voice), Herbert Janssen, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, Karl Schmidt-Walter and Gerhard Hüsch. Their abundant inter-war Italian counterparts included, among others, Carlo Galeffi, Giuseppe Danise, Enrico Molinari, Umberto Urbano, Cesare Formichi, Luigi Montesanto, Apollo Granforte, Benvenuto Franci, Renato Zanelli (who switched to tenor roles in 1924), Mario Basiola, Giovanni Inghilleri, Carlo Morelli (the Chilean-born younger brother of Renato Zanelli) and Carlo Tagliabue. (The last named baritone retired as late as 1958.)

One of the best known Italian Verdi baritones of the 1920s and '30s, Mariano Stabile, sang Iago and Rigoletto and Falstaff (at La Scala) under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. Stabile also appeared in London, Chicago and Salzburg. He was noted more for his histrionic skills than for his voice, however. Stabile was followed by Tito Gobbi - a versatile singing-actor capable of vivid comic and tragic performances during the years of his prime in the 1940s, '50s and early '60s. He learned more than 100 roles in his lifetime and was mostly known for his roles in Verdi and Puccini operas, including appearances as Scarpia opposite soprano Maria Callas as Tosca at Covent Garden.

Gobbi's competitors included Gino Bechi, Giuseppe Valdengo, Paolo Silveri, Giuseppe Taddei, Ettore Bastianini and Giangiacomo Guelfi. Another of Gobbi's contemporaries was the Welshman Geraint Evans, who famously sang Falstaff at Glyndebourne and created the roles of Mr. Flint and Mountjoy in works by Benjamin Britten. Some considered his best role to have been Wozzeck. The next significant Welsh baritone was Bryn Terfel. He made his premiere at Glyndebourne in 1990 and went on to build an international career as Falstaff and, more generally, in the operas of Mozart and Wagner.^[6]

An outstanding group of virile-voiced American baritones appeared in the 1920s. The younger members of this group were still active as recently as the 1960s. Outstanding among its members were the Met-based Verdians Lawrence Tibbett (a compelling, rich-voiced singing-actor), Richard Bonelli, John Charles Thomas, Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill. They sang French opera, too - as did that excellent American-born but Paris-based baritone of the 1920s and '30s, Arthur Endreze.

Also to be found singing Verdi roles at the Met, Covent Garden and the Vienna Opera during the late 1930s and the 1940s was the big-voiced Hungarian baritone, Sandor (Alexander) Sved.

The leading Verdi baritones of the 1970s and '80s were probably Italy's Renato Bruson and Piero Cappuccilli, America's Sherrill Milnes, Sweden's Ingvar Wixell and the Romanian baritone Nicolae Herlea. At the same time, Britain's Sir Thomas Allen was considered to be the most versatile baritone of his generation in regards to repertoire, which ranged from Mozart to Verdi, through French and Russian opera, to modern English music. Another British baritone, Norman Bailey, established himself internationally as a memorable Wotan and Hans Sachs. He had, however, a distinguished if lighter-voiced Wagnerian rival during the 1960s and 1970s in the person of Thomas Stewart of America. Other notable post-War Wagnerian baritones have been Canada's George London, Germany's Hermann Uhde and, more recently, America's James Morris.

Among the late 20th century baritones noted throughout the opera world for their Verdi performances was Vladimir Chernov, who emerged from the former USSR to sing at the Met. Chernov followed in the footsteps of such richly endowed East European baritones as Ippolit Pryanishnikov (a favorite of Tchaikovski's), Joachim Tartakov (an Everardi pupil), Oskar Kamionsky (an exceptional bel canto singer nicknamed the "Russian Battistini"), Waclaw Brzezinski (known as the "Polish Battistini"), Georgy Baklanov (a powerful singing-actor) - and, during a splendid career lasting from 1935 to 1966, the Bolshoi's Pavel Lisitsian. Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Sergei Leiferkus are two first-rate Russian baritones of the modern era who appear regularly in the West. Like Lisitsian, they sing Verdi and the works of their native composers, including Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades.

In the realm of French song, the bass-baritone José van Dam and the lighter-voiced Gérard Souzay have been notable. Souzay's repertoire extended from the Baroque works of Jean-Baptiste Lully to 20th century composers such as Francis Poulenc. Pierre Bernac, Souzay's teacher, was an interpreter of Poulenc's songs in the previous generation. Older baritones identified with this style include France's Dinh Gilly and Charles Panzera and Australia's John Brownlee. Another Australian, Peter Dawson, made a small but precious legacy of benchmark Handel recordings during the 1920s and 1930s. (Dawson, incidentally, acquired his outstanding Handelian technique from Sir Charles Santley.) Yet another Australian baritone of distinction between the wars was Harold Williams, who was based in the United Kingdom. Important British-born baritones of the 1930s and 1940s were Dennis Noble, who sang Italian and English operatic roles, and the Mozartian Roy Henderson. Both appeared often at Covent Garden.

Prior to World War II, Germany's Heinrich Schlusnus, Gerhard Hüsch and Herbert Janssen were celebrated for their beautifully sung lieder recitals as well as for their mellifluous operatic performances in Verdi, Mozart, and Wagner respectively. After the war's conclusion, Hermann Prey and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau appeared on the scene to take their place. In addition to his interpretations of lieder and the works of Mozart, Prey sang in Strauss operas and tackled lighter Wagner roles such as Wolfram. Fischer-Dieskau sang parts in 'fringe' operas by the likes of Ferruccio Busoni and Paul Hindemith as well as appearing in standard works by Verdi and Wagner. He earned his principal renown, however, as a lieder singer. Talented German and Austrian lieder singers of a younger generation include Olaf Bär, Matthias Goerne, Wolfgang Holzmair (who also performs regularly in opera), Thomas Quasthoff, Stephan Genz and Christian Gerhaher. Well-known non-Germanic baritones of recent times have included the Italians Giorgio Zancanaro and Leo Nucci, the Frenchman François le Roux, the Canadian Gerald Finley and James Westman and the versatile American Thomas Hampson, his compatriot Nathan Gunn and the Britisher Simon Keenlyside.

Classification

Bariton/Baryton-Martin

• Common Range: From the low C to the Ab above middle C (C3 to A♭4)^[7]

• Description: The Baryton-Martin lacks the lower G2-B2 range a heavier baritone is capable of, and has a lighter, almost tenor-like quality. Generally seen only in French repertoire, this fach was named after the French singer Jean-Blaise Martin. Associated with the rise of the baritone in the 19th century, Martin was well known for his fondness for falsetto singing, and the designation 'Baryton Martin' has been used (Faure, 1886) to separate his voice from the 'Verdi Baritone', which carried the chest register further into the upper range.^[8] It is important to note that this voice type shares the primo passaggio and secondo passaggio with the Dramatic Tenor and Heldentenor (C4 and F4 respectively), and hence could also be trained as a tenor.

• Roles:
  • Pelléas, Pelléas et Mélisande (Claude Debussy)
  • L'Horloge Comtoise, L'enfant et les sortilèges (Maurice Ravel)
  • Orfeo, L'Orfeo (Claudio Monteverdi)
  • Ramiro, L'heure espagnole (Maurice Ravel)
  • Morales, Carmen (Georges Bizet)

• Singers:
  • Jean Périer
  • Pierre Bernac
  • Wolfgang Holzmair
  • Jacques Jansen
  • Camille Maurane
  • Richard Stilwell

Lyric baritone

• Common Range: From the A below low C to the A♭ or A above middle C (A2 to A♭/A4).

• Description: A sweeter, milder sounding baritone voice, lacking in harshness; lighter and perhaps mellower than the dramatic baritone with a higher tessitura. It is typically assigned to comic roles.

• Roles:
  • Count Almaviva, The Marriage of Figaro (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • Guglielmo, Così fan tutte (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • Papageno, The Magic Flute (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • Marcello, La bohème (Giacomo Puccini)
  • Figaro, The Barber of Seville (Rossini)
• Singers:
  • Sir Thomas Allen
  • Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
  • Frank Guarrera
  • Robert Merrill
  • Thomas Hampson
  • Wolfgang Holzmair
  • Simon Keenlyside

The kavalierbariton

• Common Range: From the A below low C to the G above middle C (A2 to G4).
• Description: A metallic voice, that can sing both lyric and dramatic phrases, a manly noble baritonal color, with good looks. Not quite as powerful as the Verdi baritone who is expected to have a powerful appearance on stage, perhaps muscular or physically large.

• Roles:
  • Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • Justin Labelle, Wakonda's Dream (Anthony Davis)
  • Count, Capriccio (Richard Strauss)
  • Germont in La traviata (Giuseppe Verdi)

• Singers:
  • Eberhard Wächter

Verdi baritone

• Common Range: From the G below low C to the A♭ above middle C (G2 to A♭4).
• Description: A more specialized voice category and a subset of the Dramatic Baritone, a Verdi baritone refers to a voice capable of singing consistently and with ease in the highest part of the baritone range, sometimes extending up to the C above middle C, or "High C." Also, the Verdi baritone will generally have a lot of squillo, or "ping"

• Roles:
  • Amonasro, Aida
  • Carlo, Ernani
  • Conte di Luna, Il trovatore
  • Don Carlo di Vargas, La forza del destino
  • Falstaff, Falstaff
  • Ford Falstaff
  • Germont, La traviata
  • Macbeth, Macbeth
  • Renato, Un ballo in maschera
  • Rigoletto, Rigoletto
  • Rodrigo, Don Carlos
  • Simon Boccanegra, Simon Boccanegra

• Singers:
  • Ettore Bastianini
  • Renato Bruson
  • Titta Ruffo
  • Leonard Warren
  • Carlos Alvarez
  • Tito Gobbi
  • Nicolae Herlea
  • Piero Cappuccilli
  • Ingvar Wixell

Dramatic baritone

• Common Range: From the G half an octave below low C to the G above middle C (G2 to G4).
• Description: A voice that is richer and fuller, and sometimes harsher, than a lyric baritone and with a darker quality. This category corresponds roughly to the Heldenbariton in the German fach system except that some Verdi baritone roles are not included. The primo passaggio and secondo passaggio of both the Verdi and Dramatic Baritone are at Bb and Eb respectively, hence the differentiation is based more heavily on timbre and tessitura. Accordingly, roles that fall into this category tend to have a slightly lower tessitura than typical Verdi baritone roles, only rising above an F at the moments of greatest intensity. Many of the Puccini roles fall into this category. However, it is important to note, that for all intents and purposes, a Verdi Baritone is simply a Dramatic Baritone with greater ease in the upper tessitura (Verdi Baritone roles center approximately a minor third higher). Also, because the Verdi Baritone is sometimes seen as subset of the Dramatic Baritone, some singers perform roles from both sets of repertoire. Similarly, the lower tessitura of these roles allow them frequently to be sung by Bass-Baritones.

• Role
  • Jack Rance, La fanciulla del West (Giacomo Puccini)
  • Scarpia, Tosca (Giacomo Puccini)
  • Nabucco, Nabucco (Giuseppe Verdi)
  • Iago, Otello (Giuseppe Verdi)
  • Escamillo, Carmen (Bizet)
• Singers:
  • Norman Bailey
  • Peter Kajlinger
  • Sergei Leiferkus
  • Juan Pons

Lyric Low Baritone/Lyric Bass-baritone

• Main article: Bass-baritone
  Some bass-baritones are baritones, like Friedrich Schorr, George London, James Morris and Bryn Terfel. The following are more often done by lower baritones as opposed to high basses.
• Roles:
  • Don Pizarro Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Golaud Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy
  • Méphistophélès, Faust by Charles Gounod
  • Don Alfonso, Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Figaro, The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Singer:
  • Thomas Quasthoff
  • Bryn Terfel

Dramatic Bass-baritone/Low Baritone

• Range: From about the G below low C to the F♯ above middle C (G2 to G♮4)
• Aleko, Aleko by Sergei Rachmaninoff
• Igor, Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin
• Dutchman The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner
• Hans Sachs Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner
• Wotan Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
• Amfortas Parsifal by Richard Wagner
• Examples:
  • George London
  • Hans Hotter
  • Friedrich Schorr

Baryton-noble

• Description: French for noble baritone and describes a part that requires a noble bearing, smooth vocalisation and forceful declamation, all in perfect balance. This category originated in the Paris Opéra, but it greatly influenced Verdi (Don Carlo in Ernani and La forza del destino; Count Luna in Il trovatore; Simon Boccanegra) and Wagner as well (Wotan; Amfortas).

Baritone roles in opera

Alfio, Cavalleria rusticana Dr. Malatesta, Don Pasquale Dr. P., The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Eddie Carbone, A View From the Bridge Enrico Ashton, Lucia di Lammermoor Ernesto, Il pirata Escamillo, Carmen Ford, The Merry Wives of Windsor Francisco Goya, Facing Goya Gérard, Andrea Chénier

Guglielmo Tell, Guglielmo Tell Horace Tabor, The Ballad of Baby Doe Jack Rance, La fanciulla del West Lescaut, Manon Lescaut Scarpia, Tosca Sharpless, Madama Butterfly Simon, Simon Boccanegra Valentin, Faust Wolfram von Eschenbach, Tannhäuser Wozzeck, Wozzeck

Baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan

Archibald Grosvenor, Patience Captain Corcoran, HMS Pinafore Dr. Daly, The Sorcerer John Wellington-Wells, The Sorcerer Ko-Ko, The Mikado Lord Mountararat, Iolanthe Ludwig, The Grand Duke Major-General Stanley, The Pirates of Penzance

Reginald Bunthorne, Patience Rudolph, The Grand Duke Sir Despard Murgatroyd, Ruddigore Sir Joseph Porter, HMS Pinafore Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd (as Robin Oakapple), Ruddigore Strephon, Iolanthe The Lord Chancellor, Iolanthe

Baritone Voices in other Music

Main article: List of baritones in non-classical music

In barbershop music, the baritone part sings in a similar range to the Lead (singing the melody) however usually singing lower than the lead. A barbershop baritone has a specific and specialized role in the formation of the four-part harmony that characterizes the style. Because barbershop singers can also be female, there is consequently such a singer (at least in barbershop singing) as a female baritone.

The baritone singer is often the one required to support or "fill" the bass sound (typically by singing the fifth above the bass root) and to complete a chord. On the other hand, the baritone will occasionally find himself harmonizing above the melody, which calls for a tenor-like quality. Because the baritone fills the chord, the part is often not very melodic.

In bluegrass music, the melody line is called the lead. Tenor is sung an interval of a third above the lead. Baritone is the fifth of the scale that has the lead as a tonic, and may be sung below the lead, or even above the lead (and the tenor), in which case it is called "high baritone". Conversely, the more "soul" baritones have the more traditional timbre, but sing in a vocal range that is closer to the tenor vocal range. Some of these singers include Bing Crosby, Tom Jones^[9] Michael McDonald,^[10] and Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops.^[11]

Voice Type - Tenor

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 (A₄) in choral music, and up to high C (C₅) in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B♭₂ (two B♭s below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to two Fs above middle C (F₅).^[1]

The term tenor is also applied to instruments, such as the tenor saxophone, to indicate their range in relation to other instruments of the same group.

Within opera, the lowest note in the standard tenor repertoire is A₂ (Mime, Herod), but few roles fall below C₃ (one octave below middle C). The high extreme: many tenor roles in the standard repertoire call for a "tenor C" (C₅, one octave above middle C). Some operatic roles for tenor require a darker timbre and fewer high notes. In the leggiero repertoire the highest note is an F₅ (Arturo in I puritani), therefore, very few tenors can have this role in their repertoire.^[2]

Within musical theatre, most tenor roles are written between B♭₂ and A♭₄, especially the romantic leads, although some fall as low as A♭₂ and others as high as G₅.

Origin of the term

The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word tenere, which means "to hold". In medieval and Renaissance polyphony between about 1250 and 1500^{[citation needed]}, the tenor was the structurally fundamental (or ‘holding’) voice, vocal or instrumental. All other voices were normally calculated in relation to the tenor, which often proceeded in longer note values and carried a borrowed Cantus firmus melody. Until the late 15th century introduction of the contratenor bassus, the tenor was usually the lowest voice, assuming the role of providing a harmonic foundation. It was also in the 15th century that "tenor" came to signify the male voice that sang such parts. Thus, for earlier repertoire, a line marked 'tenor' indicated the part's role, and not the required voice type. Indeed, even as late as the eighteenth century, partbooks labelled 'tenor' might contain parts for a range of voice types.^[3]

Tenor in choral music

In four-part choral music, the tenor is the second lowest voice, above the bass and below the soprano and alto. While certain choral music does require the first tenors to ascend the full tenor range, the majority of choral music places the tenors in the range from approximately B₂ up to A₄. The requirements of the tenor voice in choral music are also tied to the style of music most often performed by a given choir. Orchestra choruses require tenors with fully resonant voices, but chamber or a cappella choral music (sung with no instrumental accompaniment) can rely on light baritones singing in falsetto.^[4]

Even so, one nearly ubiquitous facet of choral singing is the shortage of tenor voices.^[5][6][7] Most men tend to have baritone voices and for this reason the majority of men tend to prefer singing in the bass section of a choir (however, true basses are even rarer than tenors). Some men are asked to sing tenor even if they lack the full range, and sometimes low altos are asked to sing the tenor part.^[4] The late 19th century saw the emergence of male choirs or TTBB (Tenor1, Tenor2, Bass1, Bass2). In the USA these are sometimes called Glee Clubs. The Welsh choirs are perhaps the best personification of this type of choir. Male Choirs sing specially written music for male choirs, music adapted from mixed sex choirs and in most genres including classical, sacred, popular and show. Male choirs differ from Barbershop choirs in that they are usually accompanied, often by but not restricted to a piano. Male choirs are often larger than the Barbershop style partly because the foundation of the Barbershop style is the solo quartet sound. In Male Choirs, tenors will often sing both in chest tone and falsetto. As a result, a male choir has a wider pitch range than one consisting only of females. Some examples of male choirs are: The Morriston Orpheus Welsh Male Voice Choir, the Sydney Male Choir and the Treorchy Male Choir. There are some impressive male ensembles in the Russian Orthodox Church choral tradition and also there are some excellent Jewish ensembles.

Other uses

There are four parts in Barbershop harmony: bass, baritone, lead, and tenor (lowest to highest), with "tenor" referring to the highest part. The tenor generally sings in falsetto voice, corresponding roughly to the countertenor in classical music, and harmonizes above the lead, who sings the melody. The barbershop tenor range is B♭-below-middle C (B ♭ ₃) to D-above-high C (D₅), though it is written an octave lower. The "lead" in barbershop music is equivalent to the normal tenor range.^[8]

In bluegrass music, the melody line is called the lead. Tenor is sung an interval of a third above the lead. Baritone is the fifth of the scale that has the lead as a tonic, and may be sung below the lead, or even above the lead (and the tenor), in which case it is called "high baritone."^[9]

A tenor is also classified as a drum used in a drum corps. or drum-line. The tenor drum consists of 5 or 6 drums of different tones, 4, 3, 2, 1, and one or two spocks. 4 is the lowest sounding drum and the right spock is the highest sounding drum. Tenors are also referred to as quads because of the four main drums, or quints including the spocks. The tenors, in a drum cadence, are usually a combination of bass drum and snare drum beats to give the cadence more of a groove.

Though strictly not musical, the Muslim call to prayer (azan) is always chanted by tenors, possibly due to the highly placed resonance of the tenor voice which allows it to be heard from a longer distance than baritones or basses during pre-amplification times. Some such chanters (termed bilals) may modulate up to E₃ in certain passages, while incorporating a distinctive Middle-Eastern coloratura run.

Tenor voice classification

Within Choral and pop music, singers are classified into voice parts based almost solely on range with little consideration for other qualities in the voice. Within classical solo singing, however, a person is classified as a tenor through the identification of several vocal traits, including vocal range (the lowest and highest notes that the singer can reach), vocal timbre, vocal weight, vocal tessitura, vocal resonance, and vocal transition points (lifts or "passaggio") within the singer's voice. These different traits are used to identify different sub-types within the tenor voice sometimes referred to as fächer (sg. fach, from German Fach or Stimmfach, "vocal category"). Within opera, particular roles are written with specific kinds of tenor voices in mind, causing certain roles to be associated with certain kinds of voices.^[10]

Here follows the operatic tenor fächer, with examples of the roles from the standard repertory that they commonly sing. It should be noted that there is considerable overlap between the various categories of role and of voice-type; and that some singers have begun with lyric voices but have transformed with time into spinto or even dramatic tenors. (Enrico Caruso is a prime example of this kind of vocal development.) It must be said that in the operatic canon the highest top note generally written by composers is B. Top Cs are rare (they are either given as oppure that is, up to the singer to interpolate or are traditional additions). An ability to sing above C, therefore, is musically superfluous. Indeed, many famous tenors never even attempted C at least on record—for example, in Caruso's 1906 recording of Che Gelida Manina, the whole aria is transposed to avoid the oppure top C. This is a normal transposition.

Lirico-Leggero tenor

The male equivalent of a lyric coloratura, this voice is a light lyric instrument, is very agile and is able to perform difficult passages of fioritura. The Lirico-Leggero tenor has a range of approximately the C one octave below middle C (C₃) to the D above tenor C (D₅), with a few leggero tenors being able to sing F₅ and even higher while maintaining quality to the sound. Similarly, the lirico-leggero may be able to sing a little lower than the C₃. The voice is the highest operatic tenor voice and is sometimes referred to as "tenore di grazia". This voice is utilized frequently in the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and the highest Baroque repertoire for tenors.

Lirico-Leggero Tenor Roles In Opera & Operettas:^[2]

Count Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) Belmonte, The Abduction from the Seraglio (Mozart) Ernesto, Don Pasquale (Donizetti) Ferrando, Così fan tutte (Mozart)

Lindoro, L'italiana in Algeri (Rossini) Don Ottavio, Don Giovanni (Mozart) Don Ramiro, La Cenerentola (Rossini) Tonio, La Fille du Régiment (Donizetti)

Lirico-Leggero Tenor Singers:

John Aler Luigi Alva Ian Bostridge Rockwell Blake Lawrence Brownlee Richard Croft Juan Diego Flórez

Topi Lehtipuu William Matteuzzi Francesco Meli Peter Schreier Tito Schipa Léopold Simoneau Ferruccio Tagliavini Cesare Valletti

Lyric tenor

A warm graceful voice with a bright, full timbre that is strong but not heavy and can be heard over an orchestra. Lyric tenors have a range from approximately the C one octave below middle C (C₃) to the D one octave above middle C (D₅) with some able to sing up to E♭₅ and higher. Similarly, their lower range may extend a few notes below the C₃. There are many vocal shades to the lyric tenor group, repertoire should be selected according to the weight, colors, and abilities of the voice.

Lyric Tenor Roles In Opera & Operettas:^[2]

Alfredo, La traviata (Giuseppe Verdi) Arturo, I Puritani (Vincenzo Bellini) Chevalier, Dialogues des Carmélites (Francis Poulenc) David, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Richard Wagner) Il Duca di Mantova, Rigoletto (Giuseppe Verdi) Edgardo, Lucia di Lammermoor (Gaetano Donizetti) Elvino, La Sonnambula (Bellini) Faust, Faust (Charles Gounod) Fenton, Falstaff (Giuseppe Verdi) Hoffmann, The Tales of Hoffmann (Offenbach)

Lensky, Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky) Oronte, I Lombardi alla prima crociata (Giuseppe Verdi) Pinkerton, Madama Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini) Rinuccio, Gianni Schicchi (Giacomo Puccini) Rodolfo, La Bohème (Puccini) Roméo, Roméo et Juliette (Gounod) Tamino, Die Zauberflöte (Mozart) Werther, Werther (Jules Massenet) Wilhelm Meister, Mignon (Ambroise Thomas) Guillaume Tell, Arnold (Giacchino Rossini)

Lyric Tenor Singers:

Nazareno Antinori Roberto Alagna Marcelo Álvarez Giacomo Aragall Piotr Beczała Evgeny Belyaev Jussi Björling Joseph Calleja José Carreras Richard Croft Richard Crooks Giuseppe di Stefano Salvatore Fisichella Miguel Fleta Luigi Marini Beniamino Gigli Nicolai Gedda Jerry Hadley Pyotr Slovtsov Tibor Kelen

Sergei Lemeshev John McCormack Francesco Marconi Chris Merritt Luciano Pavarotti Jan Peerce Alfred Piccaver Jacques Pottier Dmitri Smirnov Leonid Sobinov Richard Tauber Joseph Schmidt Robert Swensen Alain Vanzo Ramón Vargas Fernando del Valle Rolando Villazón Gösta Winbergh Fritz Wunderlich Gustavo Zamora

Spinto tenor

This voice has the brightness and height of a lyric tenor, but with a heavier vocal weight enabling the voice to be "pushed" to dramatic climaxes with less strain than the lighter-voice counterparts. (They are also known as "lyric-dramatic" tenors.) This fach is divided into lirico-spinto and drammatico-spinto, though it is an old-school Italian tradition to do so and Spinto tenors today are simply labeled "Spinto". Spinto tenors have a darker timbre than a lyric tenor, without having a vocal color as dark as a dramatic tenor. However, other spinto tenors, such as Carlo Bergonzi have brightly colored and lyrical sounding voices, but are nevertheless able to perform spinto roles due to large vocal size or high volume ^[2]. Spinto tenors have a wide range of flexibility within the fach system being able to perform such roles as Radames in Aida and Don Alvaro in La forza del destino as well as lighter roles such as the Duca in Rigoletto and Werther. The German equivalent of the Spinto fach is the Jugendlicher Heldentenor and encompasses many of the Dramatic tenor roles as well as some Wagner roles such as Lohengrin and Siegmund. The difference is often the depth and metal in the voice where some lyric tenors age or push their way into singing as a Spinto giving them a lighter tone and Jugendlicher Heldentenors tend to be either young heldentenors or true lyric dramatic voices giving them a dark dramatic tenor like tone. Spinto tenors have a range from approximately the C one octave below middle C (C3) to the C one octave above middle C (C5), and, like the lyric tenors, they are often capable of reaching D5 and sometimes higher. Similarly, their lower range may extend a few notes below the C3.^[2]

Spinto Tenor Roles In Opera & Operettas:^[2]

Andrea Chénier, Andrea Chénier (Umberto Giordano) Canio, Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) Des Grieux, Manon Lescaut (Puccini) Don Carlo, Don Carlo (Verdi) Don José, Carmen (Bizet) Erik, Der Fliegende Holländer (Wagner) Ernani, Ernani (Verdi) Hermann, Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky) Idomeneo, Idomeneo (Mozart)

Macduff, Macbeth (opera) (Verdi) Manrico, Il trovatore (Verdi) Mario Cavaradossi, Tosca (Puccini) Maurizio, Adriana Lecouvreur (Cilea) Max, Der Freischütz (Carl Maria von Weber) Pollione Norma (Bellini) Stiffelio Stiffelio (Verdi) Riccardo, Un ballo in maschera (Verdi) Turiddu, Cavalleria rusticana (Pietro Mascagni)

Spinto Tenor Singers:

Carlo Bergonzi Beniamino Gigli Franco Corelli Plácido Domingo Giuseppe Giacomini Jonas Kaufmann Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

Francesco Merli Giovanni Martinelli Aureliano Pertile Helge Rosvaenge Georges Thill Richard Tucker

Dramatic tenor

Also "tenore di forza" or "robusto" – a rich, emotive, ringing and very powerful, clarion heroic tenor. The dramatic tenor has an approximate range from the C one octave below middle C (C3) to the C one octave above middle C (C5).^[2] Many successful dramatic tenors have historically avoided the coveted high C in performance. Their lower range tends to extend into the baritone tessitura or, a few notes below the C3.

Dramatic Tenor Roles In Opera & Operettas:^[2]

Calaf, Turandot (Puccini) Canio, I Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) Cavaradossi, Tosca (Giacomo Puccini) Dick Johnson, La fanciulla del West (Giacomo Puccini) Don Alvaro, La forza del destino (Verdi)

Florestan, Fidelio (Beethoven) Otello, Otello (Verdi) Peter Grimes, Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten) Radames, Aïda (Verdi) Samson, Samson et Dalila (Saint-Saëns)

Dramatic Tenor Singers:

Franco Bonisolli Enrico Caruso Giuseppe Giacomini later in career

James McCracken Aureliano Pertile later in career Jean de Reszke Vladimir Rosing Francesco Tamagno Ramon Vinay

Heldentenor

A rich, dark, powerful and dramatic voice. As its name implies, the Heldentenor (English: heroic tenor) vocal fach features in the German romantic operatic repertoire. The Heldentenor is the German equivalent of the tenore drammatico, however with a more baritonal quality: the typical Wagnerian protagonist. The keystone of the heldentenor's repertoire is arguably Wagner's Siegfried, an extremely demanding role requiring a wide vocal range and great power, plus tremendous stamina and acting ability. Often the heldentenor is a baritone who has transitioned to this fach or tenors who have been misidentified as baritones. Therefore the heldentenor voice might or might not have facility up to high B or C. The repertoire, however, rarely calls for such high notes. A Heldentenor is less a true tenor than a baritone with a strong top register. Heldentenor Roles In Operas & Operettas:^[2]

Florestan, Fidelio (Beethoven) Tannhäuser, Tannhäuser (Wagner) Loge, Das Rheingold (Wagner) Lohengrin, Lohengrin (Wagner) Parsifal, Parsifal (Wagner) Drum Major, Wozzeck (Berg)

Siegfried, Götterdämmerung (Wagner) Siegfried, Siegfried (Wagner) Siegmund, Die Walküre (Wagner) Walter von Stolzing, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Wagner) Tristan, Tristan und Isolde (Wagner)

Heldentenor Singers:

Bernd Aldenhoff Giuseppe Borgatti Karel Burian Richard Cassilly Mario del Monaco Wilhelm Elsner Stephen Gould Ben Heppner Siegfried Jerusalem James King Heinrich Knote Ernst Kraus Lauritz Melchior Albert Niemann

Simon O'Neill Ticho Parly Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld Peter Seiffert Ludwig Suthaus Set Svanholm Josef Tichatschek Jacques Urlus Jon Vickers Wolfgang Windgassen Franz Völker Ivan Yershov Jess Thomas René Kollo

Tenor buffo or Spieltenor

A tenor with good acting ability, and the ability to create distinct voices for his characters. This voice specializes in smaller comic roles. The range of the tenor buffo is from the C one octave below middle C (C3) to the C one octave above middle C (C5). The tessitura of these parts lies lower than the other tenor roles. These parts are often played by younger tenors who have not yet reached their full vocal potential or older tenors who are beyond their prime singing years. Only rarely will a singer specialize in these roles for an entire career.^[2] In French opéra comique, supporting roles requiring a thin voice but good acting are sometimes described as 'trial', after the singer Antoine Trial (1737–1795), examples being in the operas of Ravel and in The Tales of Hoffmann.^[11]

Tenor Buffo or Spieltenor Roles in Opera & Operettas:^[2]

Count Danilo Danilovitsch, Die Lustige Witwe (Franz Lehár) Don Basilio, The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) Mime, Siegfried (Richard Wagner) Don Anchise/ Il Podestà, La Finta Giardiniera (Mozart) Monostatos, The Magic Flute (Mozart) Pedrillo, The Abduction from the Seraglio (Mozart) Dr. Blind, Die Fledermaus (Johann Strauss II) Slender, The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera) (Otto Nicolai)

Kálmán Zsupán, The Gypsy Baron (Johann Strauss II) The Captain, Wozzeck (Alban Berg) The Magician, The Consul (Gian-Carlo Menotti) Beppe, I Pagliacci (Ruggero Leoncavallo) Frantz, Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Jacques Offenbach) Spoletta, Tosca (Giacomo Puccini) Goro, Madama Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini) Pong, Turandot (Giacomo Puccini) Gastone, La traviata (Giuseppe Verdi)

Tenor Buffo or Spieltenor singers:

Charles Anthony Nico Castel Graham Clark (tenor) Piero de Palma Anthony Laciura

Michel Sénéchal Darren Keith Woods Heinz Zednik Renato Ercolani Gerhard Stolze

Operetta

Tenor Roles in Operetta: All of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operettas have at least one lead lyric tenor character; other notable roles are:

• Candide, (Candide)
• Eisenstein, (Die Fledermaus)
• Camille, Count de Rosillon, (The Merry Widow)
• Prince Karl, (The Student Prince)
• Sheikh Red Shadow, (The Desert Song)
• Captain Dick, (Naughty Marietta)