Re: The Nessun Dorma of the Bass-Baritone repetoire

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, REG
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Mark - how well do you think a bass-baritone can handle the Don Carlo aria?
> I think it's a bit of a stretch at the lower end, no?

I suppose you can make the opposite complaint about the Macbeth aria
which is more "baritone" than "bass".

To be honest, I don't even know what the heck a "bass-baritone" is.  I
certainly don't share this group's passion for fine fach-splitting. Any
day now, I expect someone to draw a distinction between a
baritone-bass-baritone and a bass-bass-baritone.

I can't accept that the purpose of inventing new fach categories is to
restrict each singer to a tiny selection of arias that are exactly
right.  Therefore, I have to believe that a "bass-baritone" is a singer
who straddles the two categories and can comfortably sing quite a bit
of each, rather than one whose talent is squeezed narrowly between the
categories so that he can't handle either.

To answer your question, I don't know the exact singer the OP had in
mind, but for a generic "bass-baritone", no, I don't think the Don
Carlo aria is a stretch at the lower end.

mdl