No more Bass-Baritone roles
No more Bass-Baritone roles
No more Bass-Baritone roles#1
Posted: 12/22/22 at 5:36pm
With the news of Josh Groban playing Sweeney, I noticed this is another role that originally sung as a bass-baritone, is now being sung by a Baritenor?
I think The Carousel revival led by Joshua Henry, also changed the keys for what is usually a bass-baritone role.
i enjoy lower bass vocals and Broadway used to be full of that in the golden age but now it seems everything is higher for men.
The only recent bass singing I can think of is Hades in Hadestown.
I always see Members on this board scowling when a notes or keys are lowered for women. Does anyone have a problem that keys are being heightened for leading men?
.
No more Bass-Baritone roles#2
Posted: 12/22/22 at 8:29pm
Thoughts 5 and 6 on “A Strange Loop” are bass-baritone (aside from when Kyle Ramar Freeman is on). Jason Veasey once said on an Instagram Q&A that he hits the lowest note in the show (I can’t what exact note) during “Intermission Song”.
Both roles sing a majority of the show in lower registers (with the only exception being Antwayn (#6) doing a cartoonish voice during “Inwood Daddy&rdquo
No more Bass-Baritone roles#3
Posted: 12/22/22 at 11:58pm
Broadway has always been influenced by pop music of the time period, and in general, roles written in a low baritone range are much fewer than they were in the days of Rodgers and Hammerstein, etc. since tenors belting high notes is what has made up much of late 20th/early 21st century pop music. We bass-baritones just aren't that popular (and maybe we never were to begin with).
Many high/lyric baritones or "baritenors" have played Sweeney Todd however. In the last Broadway revival, Michael Cerveris was really scraping the bottom of his register to do it, and even spoke some of the lowest notes. Cerveris is borderline tenor, but Josh Groban is very much a baritone - his passagio into his higher register is probably around where mine is, at about Eb4.
P.S. Billy Bigelow actually is a high baritone role. "Soliloquy" is sometimes transposed down, but as written it requires a solid G4 and a sustained F4 on the last note. Billy's other songs have a similar tessitura. It often gets cast with a tenor since it's written right on the cusp of the two voice types.
No more Bass-Baritone roles#4
Posted: 12/23/22 at 1:55am
As a bass-baritone singer who does a lot of community theatre, I feel ya. Listening to the new Into the Woods recording after being The Wolf in a local production, I couldn't help but notice how their Wolf very obviously in a higher register than was originally written. Because the album was about as perfect as you could ask for, I didn't mind all that much (except for how it reminded me of Johnny Depp's performance in the role).
On the other hand, there's nothing stopping bass voices from adjusting keys on their own. I could easily see Hermes in Hadestown being adapted for a lower range once it becomes available for licensing (it's a dream role for me, tbh)
No more Bass-Baritone roles#5
Posted: 12/23/22 at 4:45pm
And Billy also has a famous canonical option up to a high C at the end of Soliloquy.
Videos
