Baritone art of the early 19th century: roles and performance traditions

Chzhan Isyan Postgraduate student, Department of Vocal Art, Kazan State Conservatory named after N. G. Zhiganov 420000, Russia, Kazan, Pushkin str., 24, of. Kazan 572901203@qq.com Other publications by this author

Reshetnikova Svetlana Vladimirovna PhD in Art History PhD in Art History Senior Lecturer, Department of Vocal Art, Kazan State Conservatory named after N.G. Zhiganova 420004, Russia, respublika Tatarstan, g. Kazan', ul. Okol'naya, 1 lana-budilova@mail.ru

The baritone is the most common male singing voice, located between the tenor and the bass. The term βαρύτονος has Greek roots and comes from two words: βαρύς (low) and τόνος (tone) ^{[2, pp. 153-156]}. Among the most prominent representatives of this type of voice are Luigi Zamboni (the first Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville), Antonio Tamburini (the first performer of many Bellini and Donizetti roles), Mattio Battistini (heir to the singing traditions of Tamburini), Henri-Bernard Dabadi (the first William Tell in Rossini's opera), Pietro Cappuccilli (the first interpreter of many Verdi's roles), Ettore Bastianini (the owner of a beautiful velvet baritone), Tito Gobbi (one of the best performers of dramatic roles such as Iago in Verdi's Othello), Titta Ruffo (one of the best performers of Rigoletto in Verdi's opera of the same name), Charles Santley (an outstanding English baritone virtuoso) and many others ^{[12, Pp. 195-203]}.

For the first time, mention of the baritone type of voice could be found in the vocal and choral score of the XV century, it denoted low voices. However, after the approval of the four-voice system in the choral score, the baritones "had to retrain to basses or tenors" ^{[7, pp. 267-272]}.

The operatic baritone emerged as an independent type of voice in the 19th century. Previously, baritones were forced to perform the parts of basso cantante (high, mobile bass) or baritenore (low, baritonal tenor) in opera ^{[5, p. 58]}. The performing art of baritones began to develop actively in the first decades of the XIX century. In particular, in the 1820s, the era of the domination of castrati, who performed the roles of the main characters in both opera buffa and opera seria, ended. The castrato singers were first replaced by tenors, and then by basses and baritones. Baritones, which were considered high basses or low tenors, finally separated from both the first and the second and became an independent voice type.

The repertoire of baritones was formed gradually. Despite the fact that in the XVIII century Mozart's operas, for example, there were such basso cantante roles as Count Almaviva in The Wedding of Figaro, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Don Juan in the opera of the same name (which were performed not only by basses, but also by baritones), baritones took leading roles in the opera only in the XIX century ^[15]. As confirmation, examples of the title roles can be given: William Tell in Rossini's opera, Eugene Onegin in Tchaikovsky's opera, Rigoletto in Verdi's opera.

Among the first operatic roles are Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville (performed by Luigi Zamboni in 1816), Dandini in Cinderella (first presented by Giuseppe de Benyis in high bass in 1817) and Atlante in Mercadante's Violence and Constancy, or Counterfeit Money (performed by Tamburini in 1820). Following Rossini and Mercadante, Giovanni Paccini, Carlo Coccia, Gaetano Donizetti and, finally, Giuseppe Verdi began to create baritone opera roles. The first baritone parts were often designated by composers as basso cantante. An example is the role of Picard in Donizetti's opera Chiara and Serafina, created by the composer in 1822 for Antonio Tamburini ^{[7, pp. 267-272]}. Later, in the late 1820s, on the contrary, some opera parts, originally created for basses, began to be copied by composers for baritones. Thus, the part of Filippo from the opera "Bianca and Fernando" by Bellini, performed at the premiere on May 30, 1826 by bass Luigi Lablache, was subsequently rewritten for baritone by Antonio Tamburini and performed by the singer two years later.

Composers of the 19th century began to emphasize the timbre contrast of low male voices, creating ensemble numbers for them in their operas. Examples are the duets of Don Pasquale and Malatesta from the opera Don Pasquale by Donizetti and George Vallton and Ricardo Fort from the opera Puritans by Bellini, created for Luigi Lablache and Antonio Tamburini. Baritones in these operas often appeared in the role of companions or characters with contradictory characters. Subsequently, composers began to assign baritones the roles of rulers (Richard the Lionheart in Paccini's opera of the same name), military leaders (Israel Bertucci in Donizetti's Marino Faliero), noble heroes (William Tell in Rossini's opera of the same name), hero lovers (Ernesto Volmar in Donizetti's Alina, Queen of Golconda). Thus, the authors placed baritones on the same level of the vocal hierarchy as tenors.

However, at the beginning of the 19th century, there were frequent cases of voice interchangeability in an opera performance, which was associated with the universalization of the performing arts of that period. Baritones sometimes had the opportunity to perform tenor parts. There is a known case when, on tour in St. Petersburg (November 13, April 1843), Tamburini had to perform the tenor role of Iago in Rossini's opera Othello. It was noted in the Literary Gazette of St. Petersburg that Tamburini "out of obsequiousness" undertook to perform a tenor part specially arranged for a baritone, in this small role he was able to perfectly express the cunning of Iago ^{[3, p. 18]}. Also, another bass-baritone Manuel Garcia Jr. performed tenor parts (transferred to the baritone tessitura) in Rossini's operas on tour in Mexico in 1826, replacing the ill father of tenor Manuel Garcia Sr. ^{[6, pp. 27-31; 14, pp. 52-55]}. Thus, the transfer of parts to a different key was used by singers of that time quite often. In addition, the singers included improvisations and plug-in arias in the performed parts.

If the range of the choral baritone part extended from the note "fa" of the large octave to the "fa" of the first, then the performing capabilities of operatic baritones were much wider. The latter tried to expand the range using an enhanced chest sound or falsetto. The method of expanding the range of the voice due to falsetto was practiced by Giovanni Inkindi and Antonio Tamburini ^{[10, pp. 48-53]}. Tamburini, for example, competed on the opera stage with the famous tenor Giovanni Battisa Rubini in the ability to improvise and perform falsetto passages in high tessitura ^[13]. Since the 1830s, the use of the falsetto register has lost its relevance and baritones, following tenors, began to master the technique of "covering" high notes. We tried to increase the volume and strength of the chest sound.

It should be noted that male voices have two registers: head (falsetto) and chest. For the uniformity of the timbre sound and hiding the boundaries of the register transition, singers use a "cover" or darkening of high notes. As noted by the famous scientist L. B. Dmitriev: "the register transition does not disappear, but is softened due to the smooth transition of the chest sound into a mixed, covered one. The voice with this method of forming the range sounds quite smooth, and many professional singers successfully use this manner of cover" ^{[1, pp. 452-454]}. This manner of singing was gradually mastered by the singers of the XIX century. Each of the performers was looking for the most acceptable way to "cover up", whether it was obscuring vowels in a high register or a mixed sound.

The vocal technique of baritones was actively developing and by the middle of the century, baritone voices had already been divided into high, mobile (called lyrical in our time) and powerful, voluminous (which we now refer to as dramatic). The former were the successors of the baritenore performing traditions, and the latter were basso cantante. The Chinese researcher He Jianhui noted in his work that in the XIX century, as a whole, there was a tendency to "baritonize" the bass art ^[9]. I would like to add to the theory of "baritonization" of male performing arts and note that this phenomenon affected not only bass, but also tenor art, since by the middle of the XIX century the most complex coloratura from tenor parts had passed to baritone ^[8]. In Verdi's baritone parts, for example, there are the most complex vocal episodes covering a wide range: cabaletta in Germont's aria Il Provenza from the opera La Traviata, which modern performers often stop; revenge aria Egli e salvo! O gioja immensa by Carlos from the opera "The Power of Fate" ^{[8; 5, p. 58]}. However, it should be noted that the ornate singing would be just a demonstration of virtuosity if it were not accompanied by the sensual performance of the actor and dramatic expression. M. Lvov pointed out the existence of different types of vocal performers in his work "From the History of vocal Art", dividing them into singer-actors capable of creating musical and dramatic images, and virtuoso singers "singers in the narrow sense of the word" ^{[4; 11, p. 180]}. By the time Verdi's first operas were created, baritones with powerful voices and capable of embodying realistic images of dramatic characters had become the most in demand. In Verdi, the baritone, as a rule, acted as an opponent in relation to the tenor and soprano, that is, to a pair of characters in love. Vivid examples are the roles of George Germont, Rigoletto, Don Carlos di Vargosa and others ^{[8, p. 111]}.

From the first decades of the 19th century, a new round of development of baritone art began. Thanks to the appearance of outstanding performers, the improvement of their vocal technique and the dramatization of art, baritones were able to separate themselves from tenor and bass, achieve a high level of performing culture, which allowed them to occupy a major position in the hierarchy of opera voices of the XIX century. New roles and types of baritone voice appeared, such as lyrical, dramatic, lyric-dramatic, and subsequently a light baritone Martin appeared. The foundation for the development of the art of operatic baritones was laid at the beginning of the XIX century by such outstanding performers as Tamburini, Dabadi, Inkindi, de Benyis and Zamboni. It was they who played a crucial role in the development of the art of baritones, became the first performers of many roles, embodying the role of the hero-lover, rival, companion, ruler, military commander and formed the idea of the reference sound of many opera parts, which their followers subsequently began to look up to.