Michael Chance in Hong Kong
A higher calling
Star countertenor Michael Chance debuts in Hong Kong next week writes Victoria Finlay
Ten years ago there were probably only four or five countertenors working on the international opera and concert circuit although the number has since gone up and there are at least 25 male singers who perform with that highest of natural male voices. British countertenor Michael Chance, 55, however, is still a rarity not least because he has been on the circuit for more than quarter of a century.
"People who think they've never heard a countertenor are often surprised to find they have. Quite probably a lot. They only have to have listened to the Beach Boys or the Bee Gees. And Michael Jackson broke naturally into a high voice without even thinking about it," says the British singer who will be making his debut here next week at City Hall with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.
 Using a high voice is something that everyone can do, but obviously some people can do slightly better than others
|
Chance first realised he was a natural countertenor in his early 20s. "I was a choral scholar at Cambridge [University] and sang tenor. The countertenor voice takes quite a long time to develop in a man and it doesn't emerge properly until later." He explains that the whole point of being a countertenor is that you sing in a part of the voice called falsetto, meaning slightly false. You're in the upper regions, the singer adds, though there are some who just claim they are tenors and they don't have a break (the note range between the normal and the higher, falsetto voice); but most countertenors have a break. "Using a high voice is something that everyone can do," Chance says, "but obviously some people can do slightly better than others." At first it was not clear that his ability to sing high notes "slightly better than others" could lead to a full-time career. His first job was in London at the stock exchange, though he would often sing in a group with five friends from Cambridge. "In those days a countertenor was a rarity: it was hard to think it would be a career." |
But things were changing quickly. It was 1985, and the music market was about to explode. Not only had interest in early music - in which the countertenor has an important role - been gaining momentum since the 60s, but with the introduction of CD and digital technology, everything had to be re-recorded. Chance says he was lucky in that he did huge numbers of recordings. "Early music demands a much clearer, more vibrant sound than vinyl gives," he says. "And when composers such as Handel, Bach, Monteverdi and Purcell were recorded digitally, it all sounded so fresh that it created audiences all around the world."
In baroque opera the countertenor often had either the "matinee idol lead", or the part of a god or demi-god. "In contemporary opera it can be these or something slightly more sinister."
The most popular hero in opera history is often a countertenor, Chance says. Orpheus is the subject of operas throughout musical history - from baroque composers such as Jacopo Peri (whose creation from 1600, Euridice, has been called the first genuine opera), classical composers such as Willem Gluck, comic like Jacques Offenbach or contemporary like Philip Glass.
The story is simple. Orpheus is a musician whose beloved Euridice is bitten by a snake and dies. He gets the chance to bring her back from the underworld but only if he does not look at her as they leave. And yet she demands that he look.
"Each version has something different: Orpheus as a healer; Orpheus as a redemptive character; as pre-emptive of Christ who comes back from the dead; as a romantic artist who makes up songs about his situation. She refuses to accept him unless he accepts her, which is a modern way of looking at relationships," says Chance.
The first countertenor part in a modern opera, Oberon, king of the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream, was written by Benjamin Britten. Chance has sung that part many times, most memorably in Australia in 1993 in a production, set in colonial India, staged by film director Baz Luhrmann.
"It was during that time he had the idea of putting Shakespeare on film and we had quite a lot of talks about it, and that grew into his brilliant film Romeo + Juliet. [Luhrmann] never stops working. We were rehearsing on bits of the set and we even went to the warehouse where the scenery was being stored so that he could rehearse one bit."
In his performance in Hong Kong Chance will be concentrating on early music. The programme includes Handel's Ombra mai fu from his opera Serse, where the title character, Xerxes of Persia, sings a little aria to a plane tree. "He is giving thanks for the shade and the richness of the foliage, which is a great way to open an opera," says the countertenor.
Then there are two arias from another Handel opera, Rinaldo, which is about a mercenary hired to defeat Muslims and convert them to Christianity ("not a politically correct plot"). It was hugely popular at its premiere in 1711 at London's Haymarket. Not only did it star a celebrity castrato in the eponymous role, but "the divas wore brilliantly designed clothes and dozens of brightly coloured birds were released into the audience at every performance."
The plot hinges around an evil enchantress, Armida. She kidnaps Rinaldo's beloved Almirena, to whom he is promised in marriage, and when he is alone, he sings the aria Cara sposa ("my dear wife"). Towards the end he sings Venti turbini which means "turbulent winds" and is a spell to conjure up the elements to try to get support in his battle.
"She's like the Wicked Witch of the West: a worthy opponent, and when the two of them are in battle it makes quite a sound."
Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus was written for one of the mezzo-soprano voices of girls in the Venetian orphanage where he taught in the early 18th century.
"One section called Cum dederit, which is a slow Siciliana movement, was once cited by a BBC Music programme list as one of the pieces of Music to Make Love to," Chance says.
"It's one of those lush, delicious baroque masterpieces that people listen to endlessly and think Oh god this is so beautiful. It's like the slow music in the Four Seasons... You can say this for him: Vivaldi was a great tune writer."
Michael Chance with the City Chamber Orchestra, Jan 25, 8pm, City Hall Concert Hall
Published in the South China Morning Post, Jan 18, 2011
Read the newspaper article (PDF)