Introduction
I should say straight away that, though Aris has been very helpful to me, the initiative to develop this web site was entirely my own and in no way his. So this is not at all an 'official' site. It came into being principally because I wanted to share with other people some of the enormous pleasure this marvellous singer has given me.
Aris is a great artist and musician whose speciality is the ornamentation of the eighteenth-century operatic music written for the castrati. There are a number of sopranists singing this repertoire today but Aris was the very first, the first male soprano to be heard in opera since the mid-nineteenth century; and as the first, he broke most of the ground for the others. He is therefore not only a great star but also an important seminal influence in the modern performance of Baroque opera.
Though some work to recover bel canto technique had been already been done, chiefly by the female singers Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland, Aris still had to discover most of it for himself through improvisation. A thorough musician, he writes cadenzas for his own voice in the style of the original eighteenth-century singers. A number of these can be heard in the music samples given here.
In the last twenty years there has been a steady rise in interest in the castrati and their music and an increasing number of eighteenth-century operas appear in the repertories of the large opera houses. More and more young sopranists are emerging to fill the increasing demand for male singers in the male roles.
However it should be pointed out that though modern sopranists sing music written for castrati, we know that they do not sound like castrati. They are normal men, countertenors using a highly developed falsetto to sing in the soprano rangei. Their voices, though unusually employed, are those of mature men, whereas we know that castrato voices were either feminine or child-like in sound.
The voices of some male sopranos are more androgynous than others and I hope that newcomers to this voice type will be interested to listen to other singers after hearing Aris. (The best source of information about modern sopranists is Andreas Kopp's Male Soprano Page.)
Aris's voice is distinctly masculine even at C6 and this I find one of its most remarkable and enjoyable qualities. Although it would have been a novelty to them, I am very sure that eighteenth-century audiences and composers would have been delighted by it. The beauty of his tone and his exceptional virtuosity and vocal range, which encompasses the entire baritone through to the high soprano, combine to make his voice one of the greatest in the world.
I wish the visitor enjoyment of some wonderful music, superbly sung.
J.B.
September 2002
Aris is a great artist and musician whose speciality is the ornamentation of the eighteenth-century operatic music written for the castrati. There are a number of sopranists singing this repertoire today but Aris was the very first, the first male soprano to be heard in opera since the mid-nineteenth century; and as the first, he broke most of the ground for the others. He is therefore not only a great star but also an important seminal influence in the modern performance of Baroque opera.
Though some work to recover bel canto technique had been already been done, chiefly by the female singers Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland, Aris still had to discover most of it for himself through improvisation. A thorough musician, he writes cadenzas for his own voice in the style of the original eighteenth-century singers. A number of these can be heard in the music samples given here.
In the last twenty years there has been a steady rise in interest in the castrati and their music and an increasing number of eighteenth-century operas appear in the repertories of the large opera houses. More and more young sopranists are emerging to fill the increasing demand for male singers in the male roles.
However it should be pointed out that though modern sopranists sing music written for castrati, we know that they do not sound like castrati. They are normal men, countertenors using a highly developed falsetto to sing in the soprano rangei. Their voices, though unusually employed, are those of mature men, whereas we know that castrato voices were either feminine or child-like in sound.
The voices of some male sopranos are more androgynous than others and I hope that newcomers to this voice type will be interested to listen to other singers after hearing Aris. (The best source of information about modern sopranists is Andreas Kopp's Male Soprano Page.)
Aris's voice is distinctly masculine even at C6 and this I find one of its most remarkable and enjoyable qualities. Although it would have been a novelty to them, I am very sure that eighteenth-century audiences and composers would have been delighted by it. The beauty of his tone and his exceptional virtuosity and vocal range, which encompasses the entire baritone through to the high soprano, combine to make his voice one of the greatest in the world.
I wish the visitor enjoyment of some wonderful music, superbly sung.
J.B.
September 2002