# Opera has so much gorgeous music. But the singers sound like shit.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 7, 2016, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182 "2016-03-07T05:23:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/121 "2016-03-14T20:09:41Z")

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> [@fachverwirrt](#):
>
> I’m assuming that’s what she’s talking about, but I’d still like to hear it.

Yeah, but it started in opera. I mean, it’s what coloratura soprano is, basically.

And, BTW, I did not mean to imply that the Vienna Boys Choir is opera. But I’ve heard them do solos, and I think they could do some adult opera parts, as long as they aren’t expected to sing above a full orchestra.

There are definitely opera parts written to be children, even if they were to be performed by adults.

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**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/122 "2016-03-14T20:44:13Z")

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> [@BigT](#):
>
> Yeah, but it started in opera. I mean, it’s what coloratura soprano is, basically.

Well, no, it didn’t start in opera. It predates opera by hundreds, if not thousands of years. It’s used in all sorts of styles of music, across the globe. If using musical devices that are also used in opera is what makes something “operatic” then we may as well end the discussion, since at that point more or less everything is operatic.

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**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opera-has-so-much-gorgeous-music-but-the-singers-sound-like-shit/748182/123 "2016-03-18T14:47:31Z")

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> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> SNIP
> 
> Men singing women’s solos in opera have typically been highly trained adults, either countertenors/falsettists or (in earlier eras) castrati. Adult opera roles are not written for children to sing, and when children try to sing them as an adult would it’s not good for either the music or the children.

Castrati did sing female roles, but by the late 17th century, they were actually singing _male_ roles. From [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato):

> [@](#):
>
> Although the castrato (or musico) predates opera, there is some evidence that castrati had parts in the earliest operas. In the first performance of Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607), for example, they played subsidiary roles, including Speranza and (possibly) that of Euridice. Although female roles were performed by castrati in some of the papal states, this was increasingly rare; by 1680, they had supplanted “normal” male voices in lead roles, and retained their position as primo uomo for about a hundred years;[5] an Italian opera not featuring at least one renowned castrato in a lead part would be doomed to fail.

So because of a modern paucity of castrated males who can also sing opera, you now get performances of, say, Handel’s Giulio Cesare with a [female playing Giulio.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Cesare#With_the_role_of_Caesar_at_original_pitch)

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