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Writer's pictureCarole

What the fach?!


Hi! Carole here! This week’s Simply Overdressed theme is one that is for all the people out there who love to organize! Well, kind of. It seems like a topic that would be great for those who love to organize, but it's actually more for those people who love to appear organized. You know the kind. At first glance, the house is spotless, aesthetically pleasing, neat and tidy. But then you go to open the closet or a drawer and find it stuffed to the gills with stuff that comes tumbling out. 


This analogy is getting out of hand. Let me start back at the beginning, with the musical part this time. So, as we know from our beginner guide to opera, there are different types of singing voices: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass being the main categories. But surprise! There are actually further divisions within each category! Each voice type has slightly different sub-categories within it. Today, though, we will focus on sopranos! (Mostly because I am a soprano and therefore can give examples at our show.)


The sub-genres are called “fachs”, which is a German word for “academic subject” if you are using google translate. In the opera world, we use it more to mean “singer type”. The fach system was created in Germany to categorize singers by range, weight, and color of voice. Of all the voice types, sopranos are split into the largest number of fachs. In modern times, it has been helpful for allowing sopranos to maintain friendships with each other in grad school, as telling yourself that the singer who landed the lead is a different fach from yourself so you never had a chance in the first place allows you to be happy for your friend and not quite so jealous (I am kidding. Sort of). 


Within the opera world, different roles/characters are written in a way that makes it easier for certain voices to sing. Small voices are usually nibble and quick to move from note to note. Big voices require a lot of air to support and are more like a bull in a china show to move around. Some voices love high notes and gain strength up in that range. Some can sing them, but prefer to stay lower and only pop up occasionally, when they have to, etc. In the next section, I’ll break down the fachs, their characteristics, and include a few snippets so you can hear what they sound like.


Soubrette

Starting with the lightest fach, we have the soubrette category. The soubrette fach is where you typically find young singers. The voice is light and youthful with some ability to move, but no extensive coloratura (those fast moving chains of notes). They can sing high, usually to a C6 (two ledger lines above the staff) and can get down to about a middle C, but there isn’t much power in the low voice at all.


Soubrette is usually a category that sopranos grow out of. The female vocal tract doesn’t fully finish developing until about 32 years old. By then, the voice has typically moved to another category, but those who move to lyric or coloratura can revisit soubrette roles without much trouble.


Here are a few examples: 

Professional revisiting a soubrette role: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFzJb7G444g

Listen to how easily the voice almost flutters between notes. It’s a very clean and sweet sound. The professional singer has a bit more body or core behind the sound. That typically just happens with age.


Lyric Coloratura

A small voice as well. Lyric coloraturas differ from Soubrettes with their ability to sing higher, up to an E above the staff (3 notes higher). They have a flexibility with their voice that allows them to perform coloratura passages with ease. These voices can lack the depth and richness found in the larger fachs, but they make up for it with the spectacular fireworks they can perform. Breaking a glass with just your voice is indeed impossible (the waveform of the human voice is too complex) but if there were a fach that could do it, it would be a coloratura.


I began my singing life as a lyric coloratura and let me tell you, it comes with a superiority complex. All my songs were 7 minutes, 20 pages long, and had a billion notes with some secondary options for different coloratura passages. You could also write your own cadenzas (show off moments) in places if you were smart. Then you look at some lyric music and it's 4 pages long with like, 1/5th the notes. It just felt unfair. I had so may more notes to learn!


For our example, we will use the famous Doll Song from Hoffman because it's fun to watch. 

Listen for all the times she is just singing Ah. Those notes are all over the plac!. But so light and clean and precise. This fach is very bird-like. Pure, nimble, and light.


Lyric

This fach contains the most roles. Lyric sopranos are like the universal blood type (O negative if you are donating). They can kind of sing just about any fach and most voice types can also sing their fach’s roles. A true lyric though has a warm, fluid sound. Listening to one live is like being wrapped in a gentle sound hug. This fach is also known as the girlfriend fach. Go figure. They typically don't love to go super high, only a A above the staff, but can go higher if coaxed. But the way they flow from note to note is so smooth, you almost don’t notice the note changing sometimes!


This music is also more conducive to portamenti, which is when you purposefully slide your voice from one note to the next. It's a more romantic sound and singers can use their portamenti to emote in a variety of ways depending one if you crescendo the portamento or descrescendo, etc.


Angel Blue singing the most lyric of lyric roles, Mimi, from La Boheme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpe2wU14kX4 -the famous love duet with Marcello

Listen to how her voice glides from one note to the next and how her sound has more warmth and complexity to it than our previous lighter examples.


Dramatic Coloratura

The description of this voice type is “lyric but with an upper extension”. I like to think of it as the GlobeTrotters of voice types. This voice type can do STUNTS and it is amazing. There is power and acrobatics all rolled into one. And the amount of coloratura in these roles is insane. 


As my voice aged, I moved into this category more and more. A large chunk of the arias I sing are from this fach. Queen of the Night, Violetta (from our Traviata Storyteller), Fiordiligi from Cosi Fan Tutte, and more. We don’t often sing them for our Overdressed audience because these arias can be long and a bit crazy. We want you all to enjoy our shows and sometimes, these arias can be a bit intense. But leave a comment if you are curious and we will program one of them for you. 


I have a great story that illustrates the insanity of this fach. Mozart, back in his day, had a soprano that he frequently worked with. He wasn’t much a fan of her and wanted to pull a bit of a prank. This soprano had a particular habit of tucking her chin on a low note and tilting her chin up on high notes. So in his opera Cosi Fan Tutte, he wrote her an aria. In this aria, he opens it by making her jump back and forth between high and low notes making it look like she was a chicken bobbing her head. He did this on purpose. I’m sure he laughed from his conductor’s podium during every single rehearsal and show. Here is the aria: Come Scoglio. Imagine that chicken bob at the beginning.

For the classic example of a Dramatic soprano, we can't not include Diana Damrau's incredible version of the Queen of the Night aria. Fireworks at their finest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuBeBjqKSGQ



Spinto

Spinto sopranos are a fun type. There is a very specific quality that makes a spinto. Their voice in general is like a richer, bigger lyric or a light dramatic. But a spinto can push this voice in a way that cuts through a large orchestra. When a spinto starts cranking, it gives you shivers. The ability to “push” certain notes and yet still be singing in a healthy way makes spintos great for roles that require really dramatic moments and feelings. A lot of Puccini’s bigger roles fall into this category: Butterfly, Tosca, Alice Ford. The “Ain’t it a Pretty Night” aria I sing from Susannah is in this category. Overall, it has low notes in a sort of speech-like range. But then there are these dramatic swells and that voice starts pumping out. It also has a quality we call “squillo”. It's the Italian word for squeal. In the context of opera, it is the high frequency or “ping” that carries a voice easily over a large 50 person orchestra.


In this version of Un Bel di, there are a few interesting details to note. If you hover your cursor over the scrub bar like you are going to fast forward the video, a little visual of the sound output pops up. Look at how the song is pretty quiet until there is a huge hill at the end. That is the spinto moment. If you scroll to it, you can listen as the orchestra swells to full volume. They are not holding back for anything. Yet her sound cuts through. It's almost like the orchestra rises to meet her voice. This is the spinto quality.


Dramatic Soprano

The biggest voice type that I can get away with singing (sometimes)! Dramatics have a full, rich sound in all ranges of their voice. These voices feel like they are just pouring out of a body. Dramatic voices tend to develop later in a singer’s career/life as voices this big can be cumbersome to wield. It takes a lot of practice, breath support, and some patience to learn how to control a voice of this size and strength. When a dramatic fully sings, it is like being covered with a blanket of sound, even the nosebleed seats at the opera house. 


I can vouch for this experience. When over in Italy for a summer program, we went to Verona to see Verdi’s Aida. The Verona opera house is an old amphitheater. It's huge, stone, and there is no roof. It's an opera in the open air, like we do at Overdressed! We sat about as far away from the stage as humanly possible. The singers looked like ants. But the sound… I could still hear every note clear as day. And they did not use mics! It was an incredible experience. Highly recommend it if you find yourself in Verona.


Arena di Verona- I sat right above this text


Listen for the depth of sound. Her voice is so full, even when she is singing quietly at the beginning. If it doesn’t sound like much of a difference, hop back to the soubrette or coloratura links for a second. That will give you some perspective on how full this type of voice is.


Wagnerian Soprano

Yes, Wagner has his own category of soprano. The fat lady with horns so often used to represent opera? Yeah, she is a Wagnarian soprano. It’s on another level. Strauss also wrote a few roles in this category. I’ll include one of each so you can hear. Its impressive. I don't know how else to describe these voices besides, the biggest of the big.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX8XPDwN7Tk - This clip from Salome, Amber Braid has a brighter voice. It sounds a bit more like a coloratura. But there is still power behind. And she is competing with a huge orchestra. (98 instruments, give or take). 


So that is a summary of all the soprano fachs! Quite the whirlwind! But everything is neatly organized now, right? Wrong! As I am sure you have guessed, there can be a lot of overlap in these categories.  Depending on the size of the opera house, you might need a Dramatic to sing a Lyric role because the hall is so big! Or sometimes the theater is tiny and a Soubrette can try out a Lyric role. It's a big mess and singers love to debate it! After hearing all the examples, what do you think about the fach system? Can you hear the differences?


If you want to explore more, the following link is a great resource. I used it for quick examples while writing this post. It also contains fach information about the other voice types if you are curious! https://halifaxsummeroperafestival.com/opera-resources/the-fach-system-of-vocal-classification/


At our show, we will give you a tour of what it sounds like to have the same voice sing many (not quite all. Wagner isn’t in my skill set) of these fach categories all in a row. Hope you enjoy!




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