Harvey Fierstein Singing

[baritonewithtenortendencies]

Posted: 9/24/23 at 10:40pm

At first, I think we all thought Harvey Fierstein was a remarkable musical theatre actor despite his gravelly voice. It occurs to me more and more that his bizarre sounding voice actually makes him even better. I realize that he demonstrates a lack of agility in Hairspray, but Angela Lansbury also somewhat lacked vocal agility and she was an amazing performer. Sometimes, Harvey's voice is unpleasent, but he understands music and how to act through song incredbly well. In case you didn't have the chance to see him in La Cage Aux Folles, his "I Am What I Am" opens in a shockingly tender and tuneful way, dropping almost all of his usual overtones. Then, as he starts to reach the bigger parts of the song, his bizarre but iconic rasp returns to him as he exclaims he is what he is. For me, it added so much meaning to the song. He just might be my favorite Albin ever. But, in an interview I remember him saying his voice isn't as low as we think it is and that we just only hear his lower false vocal chords. And that has been driving me insane. Here's what I can gather about his vocal range:

Low notes: D2 (he uses a D2 at the end of "Timeless to Me" in Hairspray) 

E2 ("Just us girls in the big dollshouse"

F2 (Lowest note he sings in Welcome to the Sixties)

G#2 (Lowest note in "I Am What I Am"

A2 (Low note in "La Cage Aux Folles"

High notes: F3 ("I Am What I Am" ending)

F3 ("If I Were a Rich Man" Ending)

F#3 (He holds it forever in "The Big Dollhouse" at the end)

A3 (In "Poor Unfortunate Souls"

A3 (In "If I Were a Rich Man", which by the way Harvey Fierstein was incredible as Tevye)

B3 (he uses one at the end of "Monologue" in Saturday Night Live)

I think he uses C4's and D4's in certain lines of "Timeless to Me" but they could be C3's and D4's, I don't think they are though because that would suggest he was singing in primarily the second octave in the song

D4 ("You Can't Stop the Beat" on the Tony Awards; this might be a D3 that my brain is tricking me into hearing as a D4)

I can't find anything of him singing in anything that sounds like a falsetto and something tells me he might straight up not have a falsetto

Also bizarre is how the sound of his voice seems to somewhat obscure pitch

Usually the octave somebody is singing in is no trouble for me to find at all but Harvey Fierstein has me constantly second guessing

His tessitura is in the third octave, with him singing all throughout it in basically every song he sings

But if what he says is true, that makes me think that maybe he's secretly a higher singer than we think. It'd be really funny if we removed his false vocal chords and it turned out he was singing D5's in full voice in Hairspray. 

I mean, he was a soprano in a boy's choir as a child

I think that what he really meant about how his voice wasn't as deep as people think was just that the actual pitches he sings are pretty standard-ish bass notes

I mean Marc Kudisch has unbelievably good E2's and he's a baritone, so a few pretty good D2's doesn't make Harvey an oktavist

Also if this is right that means Harvey Fierstein has at least 2 usuable octaves in full voice which makes him automatically better than 90% of the guys I know in theatre, though that is neither here nor there

So pretty much I want to know if any of you have anything else to add to this