the reign of the mezzo

since when did ’soprano’ become synonymous with ‘feminine’ and ‘diva’, and since when did ‘feminine’ and ‘diva’ become synonymous with ‘leading lady’? i’ve always been a proud mezzo/alto. even when i was assigned to the soprano part in choir, i knew deep down that i was truly an alto, and there’s no changing that. i have a little secret to share with you. mezzos/altos are much better than sopranos. oh, you knew that already? well, let’s keep this important information between you and me, okay? no one else needs to know – they might go into convulsions, and we can’t risk the ill health of a substantial part of the world’s population.

you don’t even have to enter the musical world to see how much the soprano has penetrated our society. altos seem to have this reputation as the dumbed-down singers who weren’t good enough to make it into the soprano section in their high school choirs. although one could argue that that was the case in my high school choir (if any LHS choir altos from 2002-2006 are reading this, come on, you know it’s true – the altos were always flat!), it’s not a universal fact. i happen to believe that altos are the more skilled singers, and, dare i say it, possibly above singing soprano. there are plenty of altos in the world who can rip out a high C with no trouble at all (although you won’t hear them singing colouratura in the super high E and above range – we have sopranos to hurt our ears with that). consider this: when the sopranos were singing the melody in choir, the altos had to work extra hard to make sure the harmony was up to par. you acquire a really good sense of intonation after a year or two of doing that, and second sopranos/mezzos even more so, because they are stuck in the middle of it all!

but let me put the soprano bashing aside. i happen to know quite a few sopranos with absolutely lovely, moving voices, and brains that will leave you in the dust. what i don’t understand is why sopranos seem to be favored by most opera composers, and consequently, by most opera audiences. i don’t have a fancy pie chart or bar graph or anything, but i’m sure if you did some extensive research of all the operas in existence, you’d find that there are many more soprano lead roles than mezzo/contralto lead roles. let me lay out a stereotypical opera. young tenor falls madly in love with young soprano, who sings a dramatic, obnoxious, milk-the-audience aria for about twenty minutes declaring her love in return, in addition to five more 5-10 minute arias, and about 10-20 minutes worth of recit throughout the entire opera. evil baritone/bass shows up and tries to thwart their relationship. tenor and soprano sing lovely victorious duet at the end, with chorus joining, as they celebrate their love. oh wait, where was the mezzo? ah yes, the nubile soprano unfolded a sappy story to the mezzo in act ii, and the mezzo contributed a short, inconsequential reply. *cue “whatever happened to my part?” from spamalot*

now, that’s not to say that there aren’t mezzo leading roles, in fact, there are quite a few scrumptious ones, and at the end of the day, i’d much prefer to sing the mezzo roles anyway (there’s another part of our little secret – you know the mezzo’s ultimately have better repertoire to sing, but the sopranos don’t need to know that). i’m starting to get really irked though, because ever opera we’ve performed in my career at this university has been driven by a soprano female. there were a few good mezzo supporting roles, but not once has a mezzo really had the opportunity to soak up the limelight. let’s see now, we could have done carmen (we were SO CLOSE to doing carmen, then it got cancelled), gluck’s orfeo, and any of the many operas with alto castrato leading roles (sung by mezzos and countertenors today), but we didn’t.

apart from the lack of mezzo fame at my school (the fact that there’s only one mezzo to every 5 million sopranos doesn’t help), i still get the feeling that mezzos are overlooked far too often. somewhere along the line, something must have happened to make the opera community love sopranos (come on, love the mezzos! we’re cuddlier!). i’ve developed a few theories:

the roman catholic church has had a great impact on music in the past, so i wouldn’t be surprised if it played a role in the rise of the soprano and demise of the mezzo. i can hear you blubbering now – “how dare you slander the catholic church?!” i think i have every right to make a possibly-negative hypothesis concerning the catholic church considering that a) i’m a christian b) i’ve spent almost 8 years in catholic school and c) i’m an episcopalian, which is about as close to catholic as a non-catholic can get (except, for some reason, the episcopalians decided that maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to let priests find some sexual relief through the opportunity of marriage). i bet that a few centuries ago, some pope had a mistress (boo! hiss! oh shut up – alexander vi had a plethora of mistresses, so you can’t really object to my theory), who graced many a stage with her mezzo-ness, and one day he caught her with a cleric, and therefore excommunicated her from the church, and banished her from italy, and henceforth he could not bear to watch a mezzo perform, so he ensured that all operas commissioned and written from that point forward were heavily weighted with sopranos, and did not have a mezzo in a lead role. he would frown upon any performance with a lead mezzo, and anything that the pope rejects, the public rejects, and so the soprano found her way to the forefront of opera.

nice theory, but highly unlikely. theory number two (not nearly as scandalous as theory number one): you may or may not know that women were not allowed to perform on the stage, opera included, for centuries, and castrati therefore had to play the female roles. i read in a cd liner that higher voices were often used for hero roles (don’t you think it’s a little strange that someone as manly as caesar has an alto voice in handel’s giulio cesare?) and such because it was believed higher voices were closer to the divine. so … maybe when women were finally allowed to perform, sopranos had the upper hand because some nutcase decided that their voices were more likely to contain some pathway to heaven (yes, i know, i’m bringing religion into it again), or at least have some semblance of goodness (really? have you ever known a pure soprano? you know they’re all contaminated in some way. just kidding!).

enough with the theories. whatever the reason, the point remains that sopranos are more loved. guess us lowly mezzos are just going to have to accept that. either that, or one of us is going to have to write a collection of mezzo-driven operas (and it’s not going to be me, because it would take me about 20 years to complete just one). any takers? i have a feeling, however, that sometime in my lifetime (i’ve got a good 70 or so years left, god-willing) mezzos will turn the tables, and we will witness the reign of the mezzo.

ciao and happy singing (or listening).

~ by claire karoly on 11 June 2009.