David Daniels has probably had a more profound influence on the
prospects of his voice type — the countertenor — than any
individual since Alfred Deller pioneered the very idea of a modern-day male alto
soloist in the 1950s. Daniels' vocal security, flexibility and fruity (rather
than hooty) timbre have made him, and a number of his colleagues, serious box
office attractions at the world's premiere opera houses and concert halls.
The current revival of interest in Handel's operas has served Daniels
particularly well — and vice versa. Most notably, he has sung the title
role in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto far and wide, from Amsterdam to Los
Angeles. Indeed, he's spending much of September and October of 2002 in the role
(alongside the likes of Anne Sofie von Otter, Danielle de Niese, Stephanie
Blythe and fellow countertenors Bejun Mehta and Dominique Visse) under Marc
Minkowski at the Paris Opera. At the same time, Virgin Classics is releasing
a disc of Daniels singing arias from Handel oratorios.
Yet Handel isn't everything to this singer, who has sung repertoire from Monteverdi and Bach all the way up to Berlioz, Vaughan Williams, Ravel and Poulenc. andante correspondent Jason Serinus talks with Daniels about just how he came by his unique voice and what he likes to do with it.
Jason Serinus: You started as a boy soprano. Did you go directly from there to countertenor?
David Daniels: I had an intermediate period as a "baritenor" [laughter]. That was between the ages of 18 and 25. People thought of me as a tenor, and I went to school as a tenor. But that voice was never really comfortable for me; it never felt natural. Even though my voice changed as any normal male adolescent's does, I never lost the ability to sing in that boy soprano/countertenor way.
I'm 36 now. I became a full-time professional countertenor 10 years ago, in March 1992. But before that, I always sang countertenor around the house and in the shower, because it was always my most natural and comfortable vocal range.
JS: So "baritenor" was hard to produce and didn't feel natural to you. You didn't like the sound?
DD: It was not an unpleasant sound by any means; I received a full scholarship to Cincinnati Conservatory — I didn't pay a cent to go to school — because of the voice itself. But producing the sound didn't bring me as much pleasure or feel as natural as the countertenor voice. I think this was primarily because I sang so extensively as a boy soprano that the musculature of the larynx must have gotten used to producing that sound. When I tried singing as a tenor, it could not sustain the different kinds of tensions that it took to hold the voice. So it would split and crack; I would crack up into the countertenor voice.
Nobody ever suggested that I think about singing countertenor — nor did I think of it — because the countertenor voice wasn't very prevalent in the United States at that time.
JS: When you end on a high note, your voice becomes its biggest and fullest; it doesn't at all feel like you're pushing the top. Does your voice go high enough for you to sing soprano?
DD: No, I can't really sustain notes above the staff consistently. Most of my repertoire was written for mezzos. The highest role I've ever sung was Nerone [in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea]. It sits between D in the staff and G above the staff. But now my voice has settled a bit, gotten a little thicker and more mature; although I'm still comfortable in the top part of my voice, I don't like to sit up there as much as I used to.
JS: Did you have your flexibility when you were a boy soprano? Did you have any of it as a tenor?
DD: I could move it pretty well as a tenor. I would do "Ecco Ridente" from Rossini's Barber of Seville. As a boy soprano, I struggled more with it; as a boy, you don't really have the breath support system in place to be able to move your voice in a clean manner.
JS: What was your evolution like in terms of finding your own voice? Did you consciously try to make it sound a certain way?
DD: I was certainly influenced by all the listening I did as a child. I was one of those strange children who, at age 9 or 10, was listening to recordings of Caballé, Callas, Tebaldi and Corelli. In the summers, I would hear these great singers when they came to sing at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. I don't think there's any question that it helped mold my musicianship, the way I phrase things. I also grew up with a wonderful coloratura soprano from Spartanburg, South Carolina [Daniels' hometown], Gianna Rolandi — she's now teaching all the singers at Chicago Lyric Opera. She was my babysitter growing up, and I actually learned a lot by watching her. Her career began very young; she was all over the world by the time she was age 21 or 22.
JS: The PR advance on your Handel English oratorio arias disc says that
you're singing the repertoire "more of the countertenor than of the castrato."
Were there countertenors in Handel's time?
DD: Absolutely. Most of the English arias on the disc were written for countertenor. But I chose the music primarily because it's repertoire I've performed onstage and will be performing in the future. I wanted to record them because I think Handel's English oratorio arias, although sacred, have just as much power and character and depth as his Italian opera arias.
JS: What gets you excited about Handel?
DD: The characters themselves. Handel can evolve a character, both dramatically and musically, into a deeper person with deeper emotions, whether he be evil or hopelessly in love. There's a very distinctive journey for every single character; the music becomes more complex as the character's psyche becomes more complex.
JS: Do you find this with other composers whose music is suited for your voice?
DD: Operatically speaking, Handel is pretty much the composer I sing, other than Oberon in Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream. I haven't yet taken on operatic performances of Vivaldi and Gluck. I've only done a concert version of Orfeo; I'll hold my opinion until after I do it on the stage.
JS: Have you sung much Vivaldi?
DD: I've just finished a European tour of Vivaldi with Fabio Biondi and his orchestra Europa Galante. It's the first Vivaldi I've sung, and I'm looking forward to looking more. I'm fortunate that Biondi and Europa Galante are also exclusive with my label, Virgin. They're teaching me a lot of repertoire that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.
JS: Is there music you haven't performed that you're itching to perform, but you're trying to find the right time, place, etc.?
DD: Not really. I can promise everyone that I'm never going to sing anything that I don't feel 100 percent sure that I can pull off and bring something special to. But if there is 5 percent doubt in the back of my mind, I'm not going to perform something.
That said, I'm in the process of planning a new, very different disc of all types of songs, most likely just with guitar accompaniment, with perhaps more instruments if I want that. For some people, it will be a stretch to hear me sing songs from American theater. But I can promise you that, in my mind, it's just an art song.
JS: There are some countertenors who sound like women. In contrast, to me, your voice is extraordinarily androgynous; it's very much your own. What are people's reactions to your sound, and have they changed over the years?
DD: Certainly reactions have changed; the biggest reason is because of the recordings I have out. For the most part, people who come to my concerts now know what they're coming to hear. Ten years ago, it was a different sound than people were accustomed to, and there weren't many countertenors around; certainly they weren't in the foreground, as they are now. There was a lot of fumbling of programs and funny looks, giggles. But that completely disappeared once they saw what I do.
JS: Anthony Tommasini's Sunday New York Times profile on you spoke of people's reactions to seeing you, a gay man, playing the role of a woman while standing opposite a male character and singing a love song to him. What do you feel about all that?
DD: When I'm singing, I'm a character; it's not about my sexuality.
But I do think my sexuality and the fact that I'm comfortable with who I am allows me to be a deeper, more affecting artist than if I was completely wrecked about it and deep in the closet.
JS: Let me clarify. The huge part that helps you be the artist that you are is ...
DD: ... Being able to accept who I am, and a big portion of who I am is a gay man. Being
comfortable with that allows me to be much more in touch with the emotions of
songs, of texts, of words — and with my own emotions. If someone is
uptight and tensed up, I think the audience sees that in their performing.
I've been trying to offer my services to sing for gay organizational benefits — and here is somebody who is having an international career as an opera singer, and is out and open in every article is written (because I think it's important) — and [the gay organizations] could not care less. For the most part, all they care about is pop singing.
JS: Let's say someone discovers this interview who doesn't usually listen to this music. What would you say about this music to make them want to explore it?
DD: It's beautiful music. The words and the characters are timeless; the
singing can easily affect you in modern times. A lot of them bring up the same
emotions that we deal with every day in the 21st century.
