The Italian tenor Pavarotti conquered the world with his voice. For an idea of his voice, below is his performance of the opera ‘Nessun Dorma’, which was later used for the 1990 World Cup and the famous Champions League anthem:
Pavarotti was Italian, other famous current tenors also come from the more southern regions. Think of the Spanish José Carreras or the Mexican Juan Diego Flórez. But in the Netherlands the high male voice, which often plays a macho character in opera, is hard to find.
Lots of sopranos and baritones
“We may have two hands full,” says conductor Evers, who is currently busy casting for the popular opera program ARIA on Omroep MAX. In the search for the new opera star of the Netherlands, a horde of opera singers passes by, but the Dutch tenors are also absent in this third season. We see a lot of sopranos and baritones, but no tenors.
A soprano is a high, feminine singing voice. A baritone is a singing voice between bass and tenor, the most common among male voices.
Vocal cords Dutch man
Why are Dutch tenors so scarce in our country? Evers, who has a lot of contact with tenors, voice coaches and singing teachers, looks for the first possible explanation in the height of the Dutch man, the average tallest man in the world. That length is important because it can affect his vocal cords.
It goes like this: “The length of your vocal folds, the folds that vibrate to create a voice, produces a low or high voice. Longer vocal folds produce a lower voice, shorter vocal folds produce a higher one.”
The length of the vocal cords is again proportional to the length of the larynx. “It is then logical that taller people have a longer larynx and lower vocal folds,” Evers reasons.
Tenors anyway
It does not mean that the Netherlands has no tenors. Examples of good tenors are Frank van Aken, Lucas van Lierop and Marcel Reijans. Why they succeed as a Dutch man has to do with luck, says opera singer Reijans, also a teacher at the conservatory in Rotterdam.
“It is a physical fact, you are born as such,” he says on the phone. “You cannot stretch your vocal cords or change the structure of your larynx. They are in your body. You cannot say: I will sing louder or sing more, then I will become a tenor. It is just like with top athletes: one is built for sprinting, the other for long distance.”
Less singing at primary school
Pavarotti also said that ‘God kissed him on the throat’. Despite the connection between opera singing and physical fitness, Reijans believes that more can be done in primary schools in the Netherlands to develop tenors. He had sung a lot in choirs from an early age, which helped him to develop his talent. “I hope that there will be a tendency in primary education to sing more. That’s where the seed needs to be planted.”
Conductor Evers also blames the shortage of tenors on education. “Over the last ten years, there has been less and less singing in primary schools,” he says. “If you don’t sing as a child, the step of doing so later becomes even greater.”
“I have always sung a lot in choirs, from the children’s choir to the youth choir to the choir at my university,” says Reijans. “That’s how I discovered that not only was it my passion, but I might also be able to make money with it.”
Finally, it also has to do with our Calvinistic approach. As a result, we have more of a choral singing culture in the Netherlands and less of an opera singing culture. “In our culture, the adage applies: just act normal, then you’re acting crazy enough. The macho tenor doesn’t fit in with that either. We have never had a tradition of raising tenors in the Netherlands,” says Evers.
A look at the number of opera houses in our country reveals our little love for opera. “We have three major opera houses, two of which are on the verge of collapse. If you look at Germany, you see their own opera in every city.”
2023-11-20 18:10:46
#Dutch #Pavarotti #Hard #opera #singers #tenors
