Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Hadestown this Afternoon | |
| Posted by: robert_j 09:33 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Hadestown this Afternoon - Ann 09:05 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
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| I feel like Orpheus is pretty much uncastable, or at least resists stunt casting. The typical baritenor hunk is not going to cut it. Maybe an Adam Lambert? Someone whose voice really lives in that countertenor range. Interestingly, casting Orpheus this way is quite defensible from a classical standpoint. The Orfeo in Gluck is also a countertenor (or mezzo). But it is much harder to pull that off with Broadway trained voices, particularly when the score does not commit fully to a countertenor approach, going more for a baritenor with solid falsetto extension. |
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| re: Hadestown this Afternoon | |
| Posted by: Ann 09:37 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Hadestown this Afternoon - robert_j 09:33 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
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| It seems he should be, or appear, pretty young. In that aspect, they seemed to cast it well. | |
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| re: Hadestown this Afternoon | |
| Posted by: robert_j 09:50 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Hadestown this Afternoon - Ann 09:37 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
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| The thing about the falsetto voice is that it is really hard to put volume behind it and keep it stable. So it either sounds weak or inconsistent or both. I thought the fact that Carney could manage a fair amount of power while retaining so much beauty was quite an accomplishment. The way they used to do it was by castrating young boys. A castrated male can retain the power of an adult trained voice while retaining the ethereal, heroic range of a countertenor. But obviously that option is off the table. So either you really train your falsetto (which is an imperfect approximation), or you roll the dice and hope that you can get someone whose genes caused their voice to develop naturally in a manner similar to the range of the castrati. But there are not a lot of people like that! So I think the production did very well with Carney. |
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| re: Hadestown this Afternoon | |
| Posted by: Ann 09:54 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Hadestown this Afternoon - robert_j 09:50 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
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| Is it that high (I'm not musically trained)? Is Mary Sunshine (listed as a countertenor) not that high? | |
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| re: Hadestown this Afternoon | |
| Posted by: robert_j 12:17 pm EDT 06/20/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Hadestown this Afternoon - Ann 09:54 am EDT 06/20/19 | |
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| Have not seen Chicago in a while, but as I recall that part is a more classically trained countertenor falsetto that stays in that range throughout, not the pop barihunk falsetto belt mix that they are going for in Orpheus. It is the blend of all those things that makes it so hard. Someone like Adam Lambert can make it sound effortless. | |
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