The following explains how the process was done - oh and as you can see it
wasn;t Sumi Jo - though I was sure I read that somewhere
Richard
Farinelli, or a comment on recreating the voice of a castrato by fusion of
timbres
Carlo Broschi, called Farinelli (1705-82), is known as one of the most
famous castrati. Obviously, we have no recording of his unique voice. For
the needs of the movie of Gerard Corbiau, devoted to this singer, Stephan
Films and Auvidis have both approached the IRCAM to recreate an unheard
voice, quite beyond the reach of modern human performance, using digital
techniques of sound processing.
Castration was banned in the 19th century, and the last castrato in the
Western World died in 1922. Castrati were virtuoso musicians, exceptionally
talented and trained. Almost nothing in their repertoire can be performed
nowadays.
Castrati were particularly known for their unique timbre: because of the
surgery performed on them, their voice did not change with puberty. Upon
adulthood, the size of their thoracic cage, their lung capacity, their
physical stamina and their strength were usually above that of most men.
They had, as a consequence, great vocal power, and some were able to sing
notes for a minute or more. Finally, a small and flexible larynx, and
relatively short vocal chords allowed them to vocalize over a rather wide
range (over 3 and 1/2 octaves) and to sing with great agility (they could
control wide intervals, long cascades and trills). Furthermore, castrati
were initially selected among the best singers and received intensive
training.
The greatest difficulty in making a movie on a castrato is the absence of
recorded material. The last castrato in the Western world, Alessandro
Moreschi, recorded less than one hour's worth of singing on wax cylinders
between 1902 and 1904. The technical quality of this historical recording is
such that it is impossible to obtain acoustic data from it, and it serves
only as an indicator of the general aesthetic qualities of the voice.
So as to recreate a voice true to the original, we started from the notion
that we had to call on performers of today, and, with the help of techniques
developed recently, transform their natural voices so as to obtain a timbre
close to that of a castrato.
To better identify this lost voice and to define its characteristics, we
have taken into account the physical traits of the organs involved in voice
production in a castrato, the general aesthetic qualities of the available
historical recording, and of descriptions of the singing found in written
accounts. The movie director and the musical adviser to the movie were also
involved in the artistic choices.
We have attempted several approaches, starting from a bass, a tenor, an
alto, a countertenor and a coloratura soprano. Because of the very wide
vocal range, we have decided to use both a countertenor (Derek Lee Ragin)
and a coloratura (Ewa Godlewska) who used similar singing techniques
(especially with respect to vibrato and articulation).
After the selection of the singers, the processing took place in two stages.
The first, at the "Image et son" in Neufchatel, Switzerland, carried out by
Jean-Claude Gaberel, tried to recreate the melodic line of the castrato
voice based on recordings of the two singers. This was done by splicing the
parts which could only be sung by the countertenor with those specific to
the soprano. This subtle editing work was sometimes done note by note.
The second stage was carried out by the analysis-synthesis team of the
IRCAM: the aim was to blend the timbre of the two voices. A timbre close to
that of the countertenor, itself quite characteristic, was chosen as
reference. This voice was nevertheless processed to give it a younger
quality, in particular removing certain noisy aspects. The voice of the
soprano was then modified more dramatically by transforming it toward that
of the countertenor. Additional processing was required to produce certain
effects such as very long notes which could not be sustained by today's
singers. These notes were wholly synthesized with elements sampled from
other parts of the sung material.
So as to better understand the type of transformation that was applied, an
analogy with image processing may be useful: it is now possible to create
sequences which represent a continuous transformation from one scene to
another. One of the most common applications alters the face of one person
into that of another This procedure, called interpolation of forms or
morphing, defines a structure of the scenes, based on position, shape,
texture, outline of each object present in the scene. Morphing is a gradual
transformation from one scene into the other by continuously changing the
shape, texture and outline of each fundamental element of the face.
Likewise, we go from one voice to the other by gradually altering the
characteristics of one voice into those of the other voice.
To implement these subtle transformations, we have used programs developed
as part of our research at the IRCAM and developed other programs specially
for this project. In particular, each vowel was analyzed, identified in
terms of its nature, pitch and amplitude, and transformed in a particular
way. Graphical tools were used to compare analyses and modify them in real
time for testing purposes. A special synthesizing process, known as FFT-1
and patented by the IRCAM, was used to create long vowels.
The digitalized sound was processed on one of the most powerful
workstations, a Dec Alpha600, provided by DEC France for the purposes of
this project. In all, 45 minutes of vocal material were transformed to
produce the soundtrack of the movie, thus allowing to bring back to life
some of the repertoire.
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To Early Music FAQ
translated by François Velde from original article by Sony France
Post by Richard LoebPost by REGDo you have any more of an idea of how it's a composite? It seemed to me
that some of the arias were exclusively countertenor, and others more
clearly soprano. Was there some real composite within given arias?
Post by Richard LoebPost by REGSo we just finished watching this movie - kind of a homoerotic Brother
Sun/Sister Moon - but the nice thing was how good the singing was,
especially from Ragin. What has happened to him? He seems very little
presented in the US (he's listed as a Colbert Artist), and yet he
sings
not
only weel, but with a real sense of style - the best thing in the ridiculous
movie was his attention to vocal conventions of the time, including some
lovely messa de voci, and some impressive but perhaps solecistic flourishes.
I heard him once at the Met Museum in recital and thought him disappointing
at the time, mostly because of a Che faro which was au courant in terms
of
Post by Richard LoebPost by REGbeing done in (rapid) 2/4 time, but way too fast for my taste.
Is he singing a lot in Europe, hopefully? He is not a technical wizard
in
Post by Richard LoebPost by REGterms of being a musical typewriter, but there's a lot more to
'accuracy'
Post by Richard LoebPost by REGthan the mere notes. Furtwangler to Horowitz after a performance of the
Brahms 2nd "In Brahms, one does not play all the notes."
Actually the singing voice of Farinelli in that film (extremely inaccurate
though entertaining) is an electronic composite of Derek Lee Ragin and and
Sumi Jo.
Cheers Richard
I don't know - the impression I received at the time was that all of the
arias were composites i.e. not one note was pure Ragin or Sumi Jo - I'll
have to go back and view it on DVD to see if I notice any difference in
the sound. The film does have its attractions as long as one doesn't trust
its historical accuracy - one thing I like is that it shows us the
incredible popularity of Farinelli - the current popularity of opera stars
is dwarfed in comparison to the idolatry that singer enjoyed.
Best Richard