Press Archive
2014-06-12, Opera Today, by Claire Seymour
Jaroussky sings with wonderful precision and control; his beautiful, clean sound strokes the long, phrases into being, with just a dash of flexibility to bring a modern touch to the classical melodies. […]
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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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2014-02-26, 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.Read more: [x]
2015-02-04, la croix, AFP
Avec quinze ans de carrière derrière lui, ce grand gaillard au visage enfantin n’a plus rien d’un débutant, et peut déjà faire un premier bilan.
“Curieusement ma tessiture n’a pas réellement changé depuis mes débuts. C’est plutôt la manière de chanter: ma voix a gagné en projection, en largeur, en brillance”, précise l’artiste, qui subjugue le public avec ses pyrotechnies vocales — au point d’avoir été surnommé “la mitraillette”.
D’une santé vocale insolente, il assure néanmoins être très prudent. “On parle souvent de sopranos et de ténors qui vont se brûler les ailes dans un répertoire trop large pour leur voix. C’est aussi un danger pour le contre-ténor”, observe-t-il.
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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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2013-10-31, Núvol, by Ovidi de Cardona
“El Liceu ja té el seu Messi dels contratenors.”
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2013-10-31, El País, by Juan Angel Vela del Campo
Su canto fluía con calor, con una inconmensurable belleza serena y hasta confidencial. Era como si te cantasen directamente al oído. Tal vez por ello cautivó de una manera irresistible. Los fuegos de artificio dejaron en esta ocasión el protagonismo principal a los fuegos del alma.
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2013-10-29, El Mundo, by Javier Blánquez
La tarde estuvo a un pelo de ser histórica precisamente por ser histérica
Jaroussky es un cantante extraordinario, su técnica es impoluta: en directo, en una sola toma y sin red, canta igual que en su último disco – Porpora arias […]
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2013-10-18, El Cultural, by Rubén Amón
El matiz establece un paralelismo entre Farinelli y Jaroussky, precisamente porque el cantante francés sostiene que su grado de credibilidad escénica proviene de la sutilidad, del refinamiento, del trance estético con que se transforma sobre la tarima. “Creo que transmito un estado poético, incluso una cierta fragilidad. Me doy cuenta de que mi público es una mezcla de adolescentes y mujeres mayores con instinto maternal. Siento como si las mujeres que acuden a mis recitales quisieran protegerme. Tengo 35 años, es verdad, pero mi impresión es que conservo un aspecto o una actitud adolescente que provoca en los jóvenes una cierta identificación y que origina en las señoras de 50 y 60 años la sensación de querer cuidarme”.
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2013-10-17, Blue FM, by yo
ABER ES GIBT JA RELATIV WENIGE MÄNNER, DIE SO SINGEN KÖNNEN. DAS HEIßT, DASS MEZZOSPORANISTINNEN DANN DIE GLEICHEN ROLLEN ÜBERNEHMEN. WAS VERÄNDERT DAS AN DEN ROLLEN UND DER MÄNNLICHKEIT?
Erstaunlicherweise denke ich, dass Frauen manchmal mehr Männlichkeit ausdrücken könne, als Männer selbst. Denn sie müssen dann mehr Bruststimme benutzen als die Countertenöre. Denken wir an die großartigen Mezzosoprani heute, die diese wunderbaren starken Bruststimmen haben. Im Vergleich dazu sind die „zwei“ Stimmen, die ein Countertenor hat in den höheren Lagen eher etwas jugendlich, kindlich. Kastratenstimmen haben gleichermaßen eine Feinheit, aber auch eine große Ausdruckskraft gehabt. Die Mischung von Stärke und Feinheit, machte einen Kastraten auf der Bühne zu einem Jungen oder einen Mann. Hört man sich heute die Stimme von Ella Fitzgerald an, kann man Ähnliches bemerken: Wenn sie singt, dann kann sie Kind sein, Junge, Mädchen, oder erwachsene Frau oder sogar ein Mann. Und eine Frau kann dadurch so theatralisch sein.
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