At the precise cultural moment when countertenor-crazed operagoers are revisiting the eighteenth century, rock-music fans are reliving a more recent, if no less gilded age, the 1980s. Today's fashionable countertenor and the hard-rock frontman so omnipresent on "all-'80s" radio stations these days share a common ancestor: the castrato. With their preternaturally high ranges and blend of vocal and visceral androgyny, both countertenor and rock star excite the ear and arouse the senses. But while rock fans are quick to ride opera's coattails (think of The Who's rock opera, Tommy, or the goat-bleat falsetto of Queen's Freddie Mercury in "Bohemian Rhapsody"), operaphiles are generally loath to explore the province of pop. Still, the more adventurous among us have felt our pulses quicken at the Met and Madison Square Garden at the sight and sound of suggestively costumed manchildren emoting well above the staff. Men in tights, men in Spandex -- we pay to hear both.
Pedagogues often apply the term cambiata to adolescent singers. The prototypical '80s "hair band" rocker possesses a voice best described as mature cambiata. Don L. Collins, founder-director of the Cambiata Vocal Institute of America, cites the young Wayne Newton as a famous example of this transitional voice type. Newton's seamless range and girlish yet clarion timbre in chestnuts such as "Danke Schön" highlight the cambiata's essential appeal: a child's stratospheric range with a young adult's burgeoning vocal power. In rare cases, the cambiata voice lingers into adulthood, yielding an ethereal range without traditional chest-passaggio-head breaks. It is a freakish, wondrous anomaly of a voice: bright and lean, pure yet provocative. Thanks in large part to this Peter Pan quality, the mature cambiata has become the voice of choice for youth-obsessed arena rock.
What can a rock singer possibly offer opera-lovers whose idea of heavy metal begins and ends with the Anvil Chorus? For starters, there's the sheer thrill of hearing a grown man hit and sustain in full voice notes that even the highest of high tenors rarely venture, and that countertenors achieve only in head voice. Consider Sebastian Bach, the luxuriantly-tressed lead singer of the band Skid Row. Bach belts out seventeen high Cs, eighteen Ds, three Es and one top F in the 1989 ballad "I Remember You." Suddenly the nine high Cs in La Fille du Régiment's "Pour mon âme" seem a notch less extreme. Then there is Axl Rose, frenetic frontman of the group Guns N' Roses, whose ninety-six high D-flats in the rock anthem "Paradise City" make the single D-flat in "A te, o cara" fairly blanch by comparison. And we mustn't forget mega-moussed C. J. Snare of the band Firehouse, who nails two full-voice A-flats above tenor high-C in the song "Don't Treat Me Bad." What initiate into the cult of the male high-note, no matter how devoted to Gedda or Rosvaenge, could turn a deaf ear to such feats?
Certainly, no one will ever mistake the banshee wail of the rock cambiata for the resonance and roundness of a classically trained singer. Gedda needn't worry his retirement away in fear that Axl Rose will arrive in a cloud of dry ice and laser-light to usurp his definitive claim on the Postillon aria. But if we agree that Rose is no Gedda, so must we grant that Gedda is no Rose. One cannot imagine (and why would one want to?) the melancholy Russo-Swede as a strutting rocker even in his youth, shirtless, sweaty and tattooed onstage, all nose- and nipple-rings, screaming ninety-six D-flats into a microphone while teenyboppers in braces swoon at every pelvic thrust. Fatale vision, mi lascia!
It is not nearly so surreal a stretch, however, to relate the cambiata rocker to the countertenor. Unearthly tone, grandstanding vocal pyrotechnics and flamboyant costumes attract devoted fans in 1682, 1982 or 2002. Bach, Rose and Snare, along with Daniels and Asawa, woo their audiences with the same sequined handbag of tricks as did castratos such as Broschi (aka Farinelli), Senesino and Caffarelli. Their very timbres and personae fuel our fantasies, enchant us with songs of innocence and experience.
One night while channel-surfing a few months ago, I happened upon a profile of countertenor Bejun Mehta on 60 Minutes II, airing at the same hour as VH1's Forever Wild, veejayed by Sebastian Bach. Transfixed, I flipped between the two, and amid the mascara, flowing peasant shirts, high tessituras and high drama, I nearly lost track of which show was which. If there is room on our television screens for both these bad-boys, is there not also room in our hearts, minds and CD towers?
RICHARD SPPER is visual arts critic at Willamette Week (Portland, OR). He has written for Newsweek and reported on the arts for network-television affiliates throughout the U.S.
photo: © Larry Merkle 2002/courtesy San Francisco Opera (Daniels)
OPERA NEWS, October 2002 Copyright © 2002 The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.CODA
October 2002
Guns n' Rosenkavalier by Richard Speer
Stratospheric highs: opera's Daniels, Rock's Rose