Diverse divas of the past

Sopranos tend to attract all the attention, but the operas Handel wrote for London audiences also favoured the richly mellow alto voice, as well as the famous castrati of the day. Henrietta Bredin explores the vocal fashions of centuries past

- Henrietta Bredin

SINGING voices go in and out of fashion. Although they were both consummate artists, to today’s ears, the Scottish soprano Isobel Baillie (1895–1983) might sound sweet and clear, if small and narrow in focus, whereas Clara Butt (1892–1936), all 6ft 2in of her, had an enormous range, but made what now come over as very obvious gear changes between chest voice and upper register.

In the world of classical singing, there are many different voice types, but, in general, they divide in the operatic context into sopranos and mezzo-sopranos, tenors and counter-tenors, baritones and basses. In choral repertoire, the division is simplified to SATB (sopranos, altos, tenors and basses). Beyond these are trebles—usually boy sopranos before puberty—and contraltos, the lowest range of female voice. Subtly different and specialist voices identified and enjoyed at different periods in Europe include the French Dugazon and Falcon soprano voices and the baryton-Martin, the Italian tenore di grazia and soprano sfogato, as well as the German Heldentenor and Kavalierbariton.

In the early to mid 18th century, Handel wrote a number of operas for the King’s Theatre in London’s Haymarket that included male roles to be sung, not by a counter-tenor, but by a male castrato or, sometimes, a female alto or contralto. This is the territory explored by the present-day counter-tenor Iestyn Davies in his concert Handel’s London Altos at London’s Kings Place this month, in which he sings music originally written for all of those voice types.