2018-03-02 featured press

Deceptive Cadence – Philippe Jaroussky And The Impossibly High Male Voice

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2014-03-02, Deceptive Cadence, by NPR Staff

MUSIC MAKERS
Philippe Jaroussky And The Impossibly High Male Voice

March 2, 20144:00 PM ET

Heard on All Things Considered

NPR STAFF

Philippe Jaroussky’s new album is Farinelli: Porpora Arias.
Marc Ribes /Erato/Warner Classics

Transcript

Philippe Jaroussky cuts a masculine figure on the cover of his new album, Farinelli: Porpora Arias, but you might do a double take upon hearing the music. The arias the French opera singer performs on this release were written in the 18th century for a castrato — a boy singer castrated to retain his high singing voice through adulthood.

Jaroussky is still intact, as they say. He’s a countertenor who achieves that high pitch through vocal technique — singing in a ‘head voice,’ the way the way a female soprano would, rather than in his speaking register. It’s the reason, he says, that he’ll never sound exactly like a real castrato.

“They were sounding more brilliant than us because they are bigger. They have enormous chests, with very small vocal cords,” Jaroussky explains in an interview with NPR’s Arun Rath. “That was probably pretty impressive to hear. And we know that they could keep a sound for one, two minutes, without breathing at all. You can imagine, the impact on the audience was probably amazing.”

Jaroussky took a particular interest the music Neapolitan composer Nicola Porpora wrote for the castrato Farinelli, perhaps Porpora’s most famous pupil. Audible in the work, Jaroussky says, is a mutual understanding between teacher and student that singing is about more than just biology.

“It wasn’t enough to make the operation on a child. They were training, practicing, for many, many years. They were practicing for eight hours, 10 hours a day,” he says. “What I liked with this Porpora music, particularly, is it wasn’t based about virtuosity. I think he’s respecting Farinelli more like a musician, and not only a vocal monster.”

Jaroussky says the point of taking on this repetoire was never to emulate Farinelli — though at least one critic has needled him for not sounding enough like the master.

“I don’t want to say that I’m singing like Farinelli. That would be very pretentious,” Jaroussky says. “But I think the people, they need to hear this music! When I was a student I practiced a lot, all these technical points. But now, what matters for me is really to sing for the audience in front of me. And the audience in front of me is a modern one.”

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2014-02-27 featured press

The New York Times – An Orchestra Plays Backup Band as a Countertenor Takes Center Stage

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2014-02-26, The New York Times, by James R. Oestreich

There are countertenors, and then there is Mr. Jaroussky.

[…] with Mr. Jaroussky, there is scarcely a sense of anything artificial in the vocal production. He sings with an ease and fluidity that you would think could come only from a natural voice. And that is before you lay on his keen intelligence and his tremendous artistry.

[…] But there was no fault to find with the performances. In the repeats of da capo arias, Mr. Jaroussky ornaments his lines lavishly yet so smoothly and naturally that if you hadn’t just heard him sing the opening relatively straight, you wouldn’t believe he was making this up.

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2013-12 featured press

Gramophone – Arias for Farinelli

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2013-12 (?), Gramophone, by David Vickers

 

Jaroussky’s rapid passagework in quick heroic arias is precise (the spectacular ‘Nell’attendere il mio bene’ from Polifemo) and Cecilia Bartoli pops up for a couple of love duets but the outstanding moments are slow arias that could have been tailor-made for Jaroussky’s sweetly graceful melodic singing (‘Le limpid’onde’ from Ifigenia in Aulide, featuring the pastoral delicacy of horns, flutes and oboes).

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2013-10-05 featured press

The Times – Philippe Jaroussky: Farinelli/Porpora

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2013-10-05, The Times, by Richard Morrison

Farinelli was the greatest 18th-century castrato. Nicola Porpora was his singing teacher and, in 50 operas, the composer who gave him the fizzingly virtuosic or meltingly lyrical arias with which he dazzled Europe. I’d be surprised if Farinelli’s voice was any more astonishing than the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who sings 11 of Porpora’s arias here, most previously unrecorded. The Venice Baroque Orchestra supplies zesty backing; Cecilia Bartoli, no less, is on two duets.

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2013-09-13_02 featured press

Album review: Philippe Jaroussky, Farinelli – Porpora Arias (Erato)

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The Independent, 13 September 2013, by Andy Gill

Over string arrangements of a Vivaldian timbre, Jaroussky’s gossamer technique is playfully employed on the likes of “Mira in cielo”, the rapid ornamentation verging at times on laughter; but the more undulating upper-register glide of the sublime “Alto Giove” from Polifemo gives some indication of why Porpora’s 50 operas were once considered the equal of Handel’s.

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Limelight – The French countertenor makes love not war in the battle of Baroque singers

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2013-03-28, Limelight, by
Live review: Philippe Jaroussky, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, “Limelight,” the Classical Music and Arts Website, March 28, 2013

Philippe Jaroussky, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra City Recital Hall, Angel Place, March 15

With typical Gallic gallantry, then, Jaroussky neatly summed up the symmetry of the evening’s dual homage to two duelling voices of the Baroque: Carestini, the star attraction of Handel’s opera company in London, and the showman Farinelli singing in his mentor Porpora’s corner. Handel’s music may have won out in terms of modern-day popularity and enduring genius but, as Jaroussky and the Brandenburgs demonstrate, there is plenty of beauty and virtuosity to be found in the Italian composer’s work. His Alto giove, sung by Jaroussky in his typically sweet, focused tone, was a moment of profound stillness and pathos in an active program.

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2013-03-18_2 featured press

Sydney Morning Herald – Philippe Jaroussky and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

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2013-09-18, Sydney Morning Herald, by Clive O’Connell

Opening its 2013 season, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra under Paul Dyer scored a winner in guest Philippe Jaroussky, the French countertenor who knows no fear.

Sunday evening’s program gave this intelligent artist plenty of room to show his craft […]

Unlike many of his peers, Jaroussky projects with consistency across his range, from a powerful bass register to solid upper notes that are sustained without apparent effort. Thanks to this evenness of production, he carries off each rapidly ornate flourish, required by both composers, with an unexpected ability to make lavishly applied ornamentation seem relevant.

Above all, this artist conveys an emotional depth that carries his audience along with him, from the gripping energy of Handel’s Agitato de fiere tempeste to the lyrical curvaceousness of Porpora’s Dal-l’amor piu sventurato, a deftly sustained scene that showed Jaroussky at his best. In sum, his music-making is convincing, every phrase moulded into a coherent construct.

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2013-03-18 featured press

Australian Stage – Philippe Jaroussky | Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

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2013-03-18, Australian Stage, by Daniela Kaleva

One would think that the 2013 Formula 1® Rolex Australian Grand Prix was the main event in Melbourne last week but early music fans will tell you otherwise. It has been early music week at the Melbourne Recital Centre! […] Jaroussky’s voice was everything one would have expected to hear live and more. He started with a florid ‘tempesta aria’ – a vivacious rendition of Handel’s Agitato da fiere tempeste from the pasticcio Oreste. This was immediately followed by a slower number from Handel’s opera Arianna in Creta which allowed Jaroussky to display his sustained legato singing and his pure, shimmering and rich timbre.

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2013-03-19-featured-press

The Culture Concept Circle – Philippe Jaroussky & Brandenburg Baroque – Sublime Sounds

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2013-03-18, The Culture Concept Circle

The concert proved that Jaroussky is a superstar in the world of contemporary classical music, as indeed were the composers in their time. There is no doubt in my mind he will join into their legendary status as he brings their music alive again once more, making it relevant and vital for a new age.

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2013-03-17 featured press

The Berkshire Review – Philippe Jaroussky Sings Handel and Porpora Arias with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, plus Locatelli’s L’Arte del Violino in Sydney

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2013-03-17, The Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts, by Andrew Miller

Like the best pianists or heroic singers — or dancers —, but something perhaps taken for granted with singers, one is never aware and never thinks about how he is making his sound and he always sings in character; the voice doesn’t come from his chest — it doesn’t really seem to come from his head either. But, paradoxically, his airy, even ethereal tone seems unconstrained, and even modest, his presence is distinctive and vivid rather than penetrating, is musical and theatrical by nature, rather than solid or forceful. This seems especially the case in the slow, grave arias and the slow powerful ones of mixed emotions like Handel’s Mi lusinga a dolce affetto from Alcina or Alto Giove from Polifemo.

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