Lausanne: the Bach Festival celebrates high male voices

Lausanne Bach Festival

Castrato or falsettist, the masculine treble fascinates

From November 3 to 29, the Lausanne Bach Festival is fielding five countertenors. A look back at this art, which is older than we think.

Published today at 4:28 p.m. Updated 4 hours ago

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In brief:
  • The Lausanne Bach Festival celebrates high male voices.
  • Renowned countertenors perform Bach, Handel and Vivaldi in November.
  • Lucien Kandel explains the impossibility of reproducing the physical phenomenon of castrati.
  • The recent success of countertenors shows changing vocal preferences.

Inaccessible ghosts, castrati continue to haunt the stages of baroque as androgynous and ambivalent heroes, where the glory of opera mixes with the cruel practices of the Church. If no one anymore regrets castration for religious or artistic purposes, the vanished memory of these powerful and pure voices continues to fascinate. THE Lausanne Bach Festival in fact one of the axes of its programming, with the invitation of a superb range of high-pitched singers, capable of reaching the alto and soprano registers (read below).

Countertenor Carlo Vistoli sings Bach, Handel and Vivaldi on November 10 at the Casino de Montbenon.

More than a century after the death of the last castrato of the Sistine Chapel (Alessandro Moreschi, 1858-1922), the public’s taste for high male voices found its reward in the emergence of countertenors, these “falsettists” who, using the sole technique of the head voice or falsetto, attempt to reproduce the high-pitched range of men formerly castrated before their molt. No doubt a vain attempt.

Lucien Kandel, professor of historical singing at the Department of Early Music at the HEM in Geneva.

This is the conviction in any case of Lucien Kandel, singer specialized in the medieval and Renaissance repertoire, and professor of historical singing at the Department of Early Music from the HEM of Geneva. “The accounts of the singers of the time prove it: we will never be able to reproduce this physiological phenomenon of hybridization which consisted of having the vocal cords of a child in an adult body. But we can give the illusion of it.”

Quest for purity

Even though it spanned four centuries, from the 16the in the 19th centuryeand that it experienced its golden age in the 18the in baroque opera, the phenomenon of castrati was born from the desire to preserve the high timbre of boys. “We were in a liturgical context which banned women’s voices,” explains Lucien Kandel. This practice is an Italian specificity, closely linked to Rome and the Vatican, which celebrated the angelic side of children in a desire to display a purely divine voice and to suppress sex and sin.

In the Lutheran world, Bach faced the same ban on female voices for the office and conducted his cantatas with a boys’ choir. But without castrati, while at the same time in London, his contemporary Handel was hiring them at high prices for his operas.

Lucien Kandel recalls that at the time, the art of castrati never really took root in , unlike in England. He sees this as an explanation specific to the language: “In their intonations, the English have attacks of head voice, even among men, while the extent of the spoken voice is much more restricted in France, and even lower among the Flemings.” It is enough for him to pronounce a sonorous “O my God!” to convince yourself of this.

On November 15 at the Casino de Montbenon, countertenor Filippo Minaccia performs the great baroque opera arias.

The social dimension of the castrato is not trivial either. What also interests the Genevan teacher and researcher is the pendulum phenomenon around this androgynous figure. “In the 19th centurye century, the aesthetics of singing separated the sexes in a much more stereotypical way. Transvestites and voices that were neither of one gender nor the other were banned, while the aristocratic era was much more fluid. This ambiguous side has come back into fashion and is now much better accepted vocally.”

Lucien Kandel remembers that 30 years ago, many singing teachers refused to teach the countertenor register. In fifteen years of teaching, he has also seen the number of singers who can perform the repertoire of the soprano castratos of the time explode: “I feel like a liberation from them.” The lasting effect of the film “Farinelli” and the success of Philippe Jaroussky.

On November 24, countertenor Dominique Corbiau tackles Scarlatti's repertoire.

Before and after the castrati

Is the countertenor ultimately just a modern and imperfect copy of the ancient castrati? “Certainly not,” replies Lucien Kandel, “and besides, the countertenor register existed before the castrati. In Monteverdi or Purcell, we often find alto arias which were necessarily interpreted by countertenors. The researcher points out that boys’ voices evolve differently: sopranos often change to tenor or bass, while altos tend to naturally remain alto.

In this vocal mapping with shifting boundaries, an unresolved and disturbing question remains: why do men manage to sing high and women cannot sing low? The specialist’s response is quite surprising. “It’s possible, but this aesthetic disturbs us and therefore only appears as a rarity, like the voice of the contralto Lucile Richardot. In other cultures, this exists, like Bulgarian voices where women widely use the chest voice.

The strong points of the program

Throughout the Bach Festival, we will find five countertenors in sacred or secular pages from Italy, England, Bach or Handel. Honor to Barnaby Smith, student of Andreas Scholl, who opens the show on Sunday, Nov. 3, with a program entirely devoted to cantatas and arias from the Masses and Passions. But the exceptional voices of Carlo Vistoli (di 10), Filippo Mineccia (ve 15), Dominique Corbiau (di 24) and Carlos Mena (ve 29) are also worth the trip. In parallel with this “lyrical marathon”, equally promising events are taking place in this very vocal month of November, including the highly anticipated return of the Concentus Musicus Wien for “Alexander’s Feast” by Handel (ve 8), an all-Carissimi concert with Il Canto di Orfeo (Sa 17) and the “Passion according to Saint John” delivered by the Hofkapelle München and a cast which includes “The Evangelist” by Daniel Behle and even a sixth countertenor, Valer Sabadus (sa 22).

Matthew Chenal has been a journalist in the cultural section since 1996. He particularly chronicles the abundant news of classical music in the canton of Vaud and French-speaking Switzerland.More info

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