Baritone (or barytone, although this spelling is essentially archaic and little-used since the 1920s) is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice.^[1] Originally from the Greek βαρύτονος (barýtonos), meaning deep (or heavy) sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F₂–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[link]

The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as baritonans late in the 15th century,^[2] 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 The Marriage of Figaro, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Papageno in The Magic Flute and the Don in Don Giovanni.^[3]

19th century[link]

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 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:

• Gioachino Rossini (The Barber of Seville, William 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. However, 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 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. Tamburini's range, however, was probably closer to that of a bass-baritone than to that of a modern "Verdi baritone". His French equivalent was Henri-Bernard Dabadie, who was a mainstay of the Paris Opera between 1819 and 1836 and the creator of several major Rossinian baritone roles, including Guillaume Tell. Dabadie sang in Italy, too, where he originated the role of Belcore in L'elisir d'amore in 1832.

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 Macbeth and Rigoletto as well as Germont in La traviata; Antonio Superchi, the originator of Don Carlo in Ernani; Francesco Graziani, who was the original Don Carlo di Vargas in La forza del destino; Leone Giraldoni, the creator of Renato in Un ballo in maschera and the first Simon Boccanegra; Enrico Delle Sedie, who was London's first Renato; Adriano Pantaleoni, renowned for his performances as Amonasro in Aida as well as other Verdi roles 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 Don Carlos 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. In France, Paul Barroilhet succeeded Dabadie as the Paris opera's best known baritone. Like Dabadie, he also sang in Italy and created an important Donizetti role: in his case, Alphonse in La favorite (in 1840).

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 Kašman) who, atypically, 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); and Antonio Scotti, who came to the Met from Europe in 1899 and remained on the roster of singers until 1933. Antonio Pini-Corsi was the standout Italian buffo baritone in the period between about 1880 and World War I, reveling in comic opera roles by Rossini, Donizetti and Paer, among others. In 1893, he created the part of Ford in Verdi's last opera, Falstaff.

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 Verdi's Iago, Falstaff and Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci), Paul Lhérie (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 Léon Melchissédec and Jean Noté 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 subtypes. These include the light and tenorish baryton-Martin, named after French singer Jean-Blaise Martin (1768/69–1837),^[4] 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 Nibelungen 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 vocal music, in particular Johann Michael Vogl.^[5]

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 The Tales of 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 and Delilah, Escamillo in Carmen, Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles, Lescaut in Manon, Athanael in Thaïs and Herod in Hérodiade. Russian composers 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 and early 20th centuries included Scotti and Maurel, as well as Portugal's Francisco d'Andrade and Sweden's John Forsell.

20th century[link]

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.^[6] 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 Périer and Hector Dufranne, possessed contrasting voices. (Dufranne – sometimes classed as a bass-baritone – had a darker, more powerful instrument than did Périer, 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 19th and early 20th centuries 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.^[7]

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 late 1970s. Outstanding among its members were the Met-based Verdians Lawrence Tibbett (a compelling, rich-voiced singing actor), Richard Bonelli, John Charles Thomas, Robert Weede, Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill. They sang French opera, too, as did the 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"), Georges Baklanoff (a powerful singing actor), and, during a career lasting from 1935 to 1966, the Bolshoi's Pavel Lisitsian. Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Sergei Leiferkus are two 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 Panzéra 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[link]

The baritone voice type is classified according to vocal range and weight into the following subtypes.

Bariton/Baryton-Martin[link]

• Common Range: From the low C to the A♭ above middle C (C3 to A♭4)^[8]

• 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.^[9] 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 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[link]

• 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

[edit] 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)
  • Giorgio Germont in La traviata (Giuseppe Verdi)

• Singers:
  • Eberhard Wächter

Verdi baritone[link]

• 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." 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:
  • Carlos Álvarez
  • Ettore Bastianini
  • Renato Bruson
  • Piero Cappuccilli
  • Tito Gobbi
  • Nicolae Herlea
  • Sherrill Milnes
  • Titta Ruffo
  • Seymour Schwartzman
  • Leonard Warren
  • Ingvar Wixell
  • Giorgio Zancanaro
  • Vladimir Chernov

Dramatic baritone[link]

• 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). 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
  • Tom Krause

Lyric Low Baritone/Lyric Bass-baritone[link]

• Common Range: From about the F below low C to the F♯ above middle C (F2 to F#4)

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
• Singers:
  • Thomas Quasthoff
  • Bryn Terfel

Dramatic Bass-baritone/Low Baritone[link]

• Common Range: From about the F below low C to the F♯ above middle C (F2 to F#4)
• Roles:
  • Aleko, Aleko by Sergei Rachmaninoff
  • Igor, Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin
  • Dutchman, The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner
  • Hans Sachs, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner
  • Wotan, Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
  • Amfortas, Parsifal by Richard Wagner
• Singers:
  • George London
  • Hans Hotter
  • Friedrich Schorr

[edit] 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 Opera, 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[link]

Baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan[link]

Baritone voices in other music[link]

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 Tom Jones^[10] Michael McDonald,^[11] and Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops.^[12]

References[link]

Further sources[link]

Look up Baritone in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Barytone.

Media related to Baritones at Wikimedia Commons

• Faure, Jean-Baptiste (1886) La voix et le chant: traité pratique, Heugel, published in English translation as The Voice and Singing (Francis Keeping and Roberta Prada, translators), Vox Mentor, 2005.
• Matheopoulos, H. (1989) Bravo – The World's Great Male Singers Discuss Their Roles, Victor Gollancz Ltd.
• Bruder, Harold, Liner Notes, Maurice Renaud: The Complete Gramophone Recordings 1901–1908, Marston Records, 1997. (Discusses Renaud and many of his baritone contemporaries as well the stylistic change in operatic singing at the turn of the 20th century.) Retrieved 4 March 2008.

Simon Keenlyside CBE (born 3 August 1959) is a British baritone who has had an active international career performing in operas and concerts since the mid 1980s.

Biography[link]

Early life and education[link]

Keenlyside was born in London, the son of Raymond and Ann Keenlyside. Raymond played second violin in the Aeolian Quartet, and Ann's father was the violinist Leonard Hirsch. When he was eight, he was enrolled in St John's College School, a boarding school for the child choristers of the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge and spent much of his childhood touring and recording with the choir under the direction of choirmaster George Guest.^[1]

Keenlyside read zoology at Cambridge University, returning to St John's as a choral scholar, before studying singing at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. After graduation, he won a Peter Moores Foundation scholarship (1985) and chose to join the Royal Northern College of Music to study voice with the baritone John Cameron under whom he developed a love for lieder and German poetry. Keenlyside later said of him:

Everyone has to trust a teacher and I trusted John. It is possible to make the Faustian pact of beefing up your voice young. You might survive, but many talented young voices have been ruined. John always said "don't push it, sing your age". That can be very frustrating. You just have to trust that nature will eventually grant you heft.^[2]

Singing career[link]

Keenlyside made his first appearance in a major operatic role in 1987 as Lescaut in Manon Lescaut at the Royal Northern College of Music. Opera magazine remarked on it being an "astonishingly mature" performance, and that he "used his warm and clear baritone with notable musicianship".^[3] The Richard Tauber prize, which he won in 1986, allowed him to go to Salzburg for further study. His money ran out before he could finish his four month term there, but Rudolf Knoll, a teacher at the Salzburg Mozarteum, gave him private lessons for free. Knoll encouraged him to work on the Italian repertoire while he was still young, and introduced him to the Hilbert agency which got him singing jobs in Germany. His professional debut as a baritone came in 1988, at the Hamburg State Opera as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro.^[1]

In 1989, Keenlyside joined the roster of Scottish Opera, where he stayed until 1994, performing as, among other roles, Marcello (La bohème), Danilo (The Merry Widow), Harlequin (Ariadne auf Naxos), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Figaro (Barber of Seville), Billy Budd (Billy Budd), Papageno (Zauberflöte) and Belcore (L'elisir d'amore).

During this period, he made debut performances at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, (1989 singing Silvio), English National Opera (Guglielmo), Welsh National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Geneva, Paris, and Sydney. He sang for Glyndebourne for the first time in 1993 and made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1996. Keenlyside has performed at virtually all the major opera houses in the world, including the Paris Opera and the Metropolitan Opera.

Keenlyside sang in the world premieres of two 21st century operas, creating the roles of Prospero in Thomas Adès' The Tempest in 2004, and Winston Smith in Lorin Maazel's 1984 in 2005 .^[4]

His recordings include several issues for Hyperion Records, including music of Benjamin Britten, Emmanuel Chabrier, Maurice Duruflé and Henry Purcell. He is also a featured singer on five volumes of the Hyperion Franz Schubert Edition and on the second volume of the Hyperion Robert Schumann Edition. He participated in the EMI Classics world premiere recording of The Tempest.^[5] In 2007 Sony Music released a recital disc of arias entitled Tales of Opera.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Keenlyside is married to the Royal Ballet dancer Zenaida Yanowsky.^[2]

Operatic roles[link]

Honours and awards[link]

• 1986: Richard Tauber Prize^[2]
• 1987: Winner of the Walther Grüner International Lieder competition^{[citation needed]}
• 1990: First Prize, Elly Ameling competition^[35]
• 1994: Singer of the Year Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society^[36]
• 2003: CBE in the Queen's Birthday honours list "for services to Music"^[37]
• 2004: Opera Award for the category Best Baritone (Don Giovanni, Théâtre de la Monnaie) from the Italian magazine L'Opera.^[38]
• 2004: XII Premios de la Crítica award to Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay in Hamlet) for the best male and female singers in a staged opera.^[39]
• 2005: Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording Marriage of Figaro^[40]
• 2006: Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, for his work in the ROH production of 1984 and ENO's Billy Budd in 2005.^[41] He was a nominee for this award in 2004 for The Royal Opera's Hamlet and Die Zauberflote.^[42]
• 2007: ECHO Klassik Award, Singer of the Year (male)^[43]
• 2007: XV Premios de la Crítica award for Best Recital Artist^[44]
• 2007: Gramophone Award, Best of Category (Recital) for his debut recital album Tales of Opera^[6]
• 2010: Gramophone Award, Best of Category (Contemporary) for the CD The Tempest, singing Prospero^[45]
• 2011: Musical America's Vocalist of the Year award^[46]

References[link]

External links[link]

• simonkeenlyside.info – Biography, schedule, discography, media database
• Television interview with Simon Keenlyside on C Music TV
• Simon Keenlyside on Askonas Holt Artists' Management

Thomas Quasthoff 2010

Thomas Quasthoff (born November 9, 1959) is a German bass-baritone. Although his reputation was initially based on his performance of Romantic lieder, Quasthoff has proven to have a remarkable range from the Baroque cantatas of Bach to solo jazz improvisations.

Biography[link]

Quasthoff was born in Hildesheim, Germany, with serious birth defects caused by his mother's exposure during pregnancy to the drug thalidomide which was prescribed as an antiemetic to combat her morning sickness. Thomas Quasthoff is 4' 4¾" (1.34 m) [1] tall due to shortening of the long bones in his legs, and he has phocomelia of the upper extremities with very short or absent long bones.

Quasthoff was denied admission to the music conservatory in Hanover, Germany, owing to his physical inability to play the piano, rather than a lack of skill required for entry to the conservatory. In the early stages of his education as a singer, Quasthoff was promoted by Sebastian Peschko.^[1] Thus, he chose to study voice privately. He also studied law for three years.^[2] Prior to his music career, he worked six years as a radio announcer for NDR. He also did voice-over work for television.^[3]

His music career was launched in 1988 when he won ARD International Music Competition in Munich, earning praise from the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. In 1995, he made his American debut at the Oregon Bach Festival at the invitation of artistic director Helmuth Rilling; in 1998, he was one of the soloists for the Bach Festival's world-premiere of Krzyztof Penderecki's Credo, the recording of which won a Grammy Award for best choral recording. In 2003, he made his staged operatic debut as Don Fernando in Beethoven's Fidelio at the Salzburg Festival. conducted by Simon Rattle. His San Francisco Symphony debut took place September 2004.

Thomas Quasthoff won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance in 2000. It was for his performance together with the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn. They were accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado. He won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the second time in 2004. It was for Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra which Quasthoff performed with von Otter and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Abbado. Quasthoff won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the third time in 2006 with Rainer Kussmaul leading members of the RIAS Chamber Choir of Berlin Baroque Soloists in their recording of J. S. Bach: Cantatas.

Additionally, Quasthoff's recordings of the songs of Brahms, Liszt and Schubert accompanied by pianist Justus Zeyen were nominated for the Grammy in 2000 and 2001. Thomas Quasthoff records for Deutsche Grammophon.

Quasthoff is a full-time voice professor and performs only about 50 times a year. He is currently a professor at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin; he previously taught at the music academy of Detmold, Germany.

For the 2006-2007 concert season, Quasthoff was one of Carnegie Hall's "Perspectives" artists.^[4] However, illness forced him to cancel his first two appearances in that capacity.^[5]

In 2006 he recorded his first jazz album, The Jazz Album: Watch What Happens, with Till Brönner, Alan Broadbent, Peter Erskine, Dieter Ilg and Chuck Loeb. In the same year he married Claudia Schtelsick, a German TV journalist.

In 2008, he was a soloist on the Grammy-winning recording of Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (Simon Rattle, conductor; Simon Halsey, chorus master) on EMI Classics.

As "artist in residence" at the Barbican Hall, London, Quasthoff invited some of his favourite fellow artists in a series under the title "Die Stimme" - The Voice (also the name of his autobiography) which marks his 50th birthday year. He was the "Desert Island Discs" guest (BBC Radio 4) on 1 February 2009 (repeated 6 February 2009).

In 2009, Quasthoff was awarded the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize.

According to an interview given in 2003, Quasthoff revealed that he is active in political thinking, is a socialist, and opposed the Iraq War and the actions taken by Israel in regard to the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier.^[6]

As of January 11, 2012, Quasthoff confirmed his decision to quit singing, citing persistent health reasons.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Quasthoff

• Thomas Quasthoff's official homepage (in English and German)
• Deutsche Grammophon website

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2010)

Pablo Ridson Francisco (born January 5, 1974) is an American stand-up comedian of Chilean origin.^[1] He started his career doing improv in Tempe, Arizona.

Career[link]

In the 1990s, he appeared on MADtv as a featured player. His stand-up act was introduced to America at large when he landed his own half-hour comedy special on Comedy Central Presents in 2000. In 2001 and 2002, Francisco toured as part of "The Three Amigos" with Carlos Mencia and Freddy Soto. Since then, he has performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, VH1's ILL-ustrated, Mind of Mencia as "The Voiceover Dude" (same as "Movie Voiceover Guy"), and most recently, Frank TV.

Francisco is recognized for vocal impressions of famous people including Jackie Chan, Aaron Neville, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Howard Stern, Casey Kasem, Keanu Reeves, Michael J. Fox, Jerry Springer, Don Lapre, Celine Dion, William Hung, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, and most notably Don LaFontaine (the Movie Voiceover King). As well, he also does sound effects and character voices like Count Dracula (as a Spanish Radio DeeJay), Droopy Dog, Chris Rock, Jimi Hendrix, Tony Montana, R2-D2, Kermit the Frog, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ozzy Osbourne, Ricky Martin, Dennis Hopper, Aladdin, George Clooney, Dennis Haysbert, Anthony Sullivan, Christopher Walken, and Mr. Magoo. He also has a talent for beatboxing.

Francisco tours in Southern California. The Improv at the Irvine Spectrum Center is where his 2004 DVD Bits and Pieces was filmed. On December 31, 2005, he hosted a New Years Eve party at the Irvine Improv. In 2004 his stand up material was used in Comedy Central's animated series Shorties Watchin' Shorties.

Television appearances[link]

• MADtv
• Make Me Laugh
• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno
• VH1's ILL-ustrated
• Mind Of Mencia (as The Voiceover Dude)
• Frank TV
• Vakna Med The Voice (Swedish TV)
• Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal
• Last Comic Standing
• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992 TV series)
• Tonight With Trevor Noah
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Specials[link]

• Knee To The Groin (Album) - 1998
• Sausage (Album) - 2000
• Comedy Central Presents - 2000
• The Three Amigos (with Carlos Mencia and Freddy Soto) - 2002
• Bits and Pieces - 2004, DVD
• Ouch! - 2006, DVD
• They Put it Out There - 2011, DVD

References[link]

1. ^ www.metro.co.uk

External links[link]

• Official website
• Pablo Francisco at the Internet Movie Database
• Pablo Francisco at MySpace
• Profile at Latino Comedy