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Tuesday 18 April 2006

Solomon again

I have been taken to task, in an anonymous comment added to my posting about my review of Solomon, here. The commentator seems to misunderstand why I brought in comparisons between David Daniels, Andreas Scholl and David Hansen (who sang the title role in the concert). I don't think it is adequate, in a review, to simply write counter-tenor against someone's voice type and leave the reader to work things out further. The counter-tenor voice is so varied that you need to be able to characterise the singer further, just as I would say if someone was a lyric, dramatic soprano etc. So my mentioning of Daniels and Scholl was not intended to be a stick with which to beat Hansen, a singer of fine artistry whose performance stood up for itself; I was merely trying to describe Hansen's voice.

And the reason that I harp on about voice types with the role of Solomon (rather than the entire cast) is that Handel did not write the role for a counter-tenor or a castrato, but for a woman. (And I have actually heard Scholl sing the role live, quite, quite beautifully).

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