The Unique Voice and Career of Michael Maniaci

Internationally acclaimed Michael Maniaci will be singing at Catacoustic's final concert this season on April 26. (For more information on this concert, click here.) Let's learn a little more about him.

You have such an unusual voice – what can you tell us about it? How does your range compare to countertenors, altos, sopranos? How do you find or choose music that suits it?

My range is most similar to that of a mezzo soprano. It sits higher than most traditional countertenor voices. Yet one of the best things to come out of the industry's relatively new fascination with countertenors in opera repertoire is how varied and unique each countertenor voice truly is. No two sound alike, and it’s great fun to hear the differences and contrasts between multiple voices in the countertenor family.  My voice happens to sit higher than most…but the easiest vocal description is to be referred to as a countertenor.

While most countertenors have specialized in operatic repertoire that sits in a solid alto register, I’m most comfortable in higher roles, such as Sesto in Mozart’s Clemenza di Tito, Idamante in Idomeneo, and Sesto in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. It can be challenging to find opportunities to perform these roles, as rather conservative producers still tend to favor women playing these male characters. But I’ve been fortunate to perform both the Mozart roles in Toronto with Tafelmusik, and they were exceptionally enjoyable musical experiences.

What kind of music do you like to sing best?  What are your favorite performances? 

My career began on opera stages, as opposed to appearing in concerts halls. This wasn’t a personal choice, it’s just how the cookie crumbled. So the majority of my most memorable musical experiences come from the opera stage. When I had recently graduated from CCM, and was continuing my studies at the Juilliard School, I was invited to sing the title role in Handel’s Xerxes at Wolf Trap, in their superb Young Artists program. I remember being terrified ahead of time. Never having tackled a role so vocally and dramatically demanding before, I was scared I would fall flat on my face. But I learned so much that summer, and had amazing support and encouragement from conductor Gary Wedow, who taught me so much. I surpassed my own expectations and discovered I had the right to do this when I grew up, and needed to keep working hard to hone my craft.

Another meaningful moment occurred when I sang the role of Medoro in Handel’s Orlando at Glimmerglass Opera - a role they offered me a year earlier while in their Young Artists program. It was my first chance to share the stage with a truly world-class cast, and receive my first exposure to major US and international press. Medoro sings a haunting aria in Act 2, when he and his lover, believing they will never see each other again, carve their initials into a tree, so all may know of their love after their deaths. It was the first time I brought down a house  -- and while every kid who dreams of show biz takes pretend bows in the basement to imaginary cheers and applause, when it actually happened tears welled up and I just felt so fortunate and blessed to be there.

Since then there have been amazing experiences, such as my Metropolitan Opera debut in Giulio Cesare, (including running offstage at the end of a scene and crashing into set pieces that had been moved into place for the next day’s performance of a different production), being hired by Teatro La Fenice to learn, memorize, and pull off the title role in Meyerbeer’s Il Crociato in Egitto in two weeks and winding up on the DVD (which was shot from the final dress and second performance… the final dress being the first time I was ever in costume, let alone singing the role from beginning to end), and Christopher Alden’s wonderfully singular and powerful staging of Handel’s Imeneo at Glimmerglass Opera. Chris knew the score better than anyone else in the room, and his ideas and focus challenged me so deeply in the most wonderful sense. He helped me find something so profound and meaningful…the connection with the audience was truly intense, and I’ve really never experienced an opera production like it since.

How do you come to live in Cincinnati?

I attended UC-CCM as an undergraduate, where I studied with David Adams, and from there continued my education at the Juilliard School. I’m still so impressed by the work ethic and standards CCM instills in its students, and the results their graduates enjoy. It really was a phenomenal experience and I’m proud to be an alum.

Tell us about the music from this upcoming concert. Will you have to sing in Chinese?

For this concert, the repertoire will be contemporary, but written for baroque instruments. I can’t think of anything more fun. To hear these baroque instrumental colors exploited by modern artistic sensibilities and musical palates is fantastic. Whether a piece was written in 2015 or 1715, the same responsibilities still apply:  bringing to life the text and color world the composer has provided in the score. The piece by Tan Dun is in Chinese, but this is not my first experience with the language or culture. On a one-month tour of China and Singapore with the Shanghai Opera Orchestra, I learned, or rather had pounded into my brain, two Mandarin folk songs which I performed from memory. While on my trip I saw a lot of arts programming on television, which included transfixing excerpts of traditional Chinese opera. The sounds, style, and vocal techniques from that genre will be on full display in our concert - and it will offer the Catacoustic audiences the chance to listen to something they’ve never heard before in Cincinnati.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the performance and will be there to visit for a bit afterwards.  Unfortunately I won’t be able to stay for long as I have to drive overnight to Charleston, SC. My rehearsals for a staged production of Cavalli’s Veremonda with Spoleto USA begin the next morning at 10:00 am! This program will be a lot of fun and I’m honored to be a part of Catacoustic’s spring season. See you there!

The Turn of the Year

Catacoustic’s concert on April 26 will be unlike any other.

Costello

For years audiences have asked us for a concert with more modern music. Our specialty being Baroque and Renaissance music, we have taken our time planning what such a departure might look like. The concert we have put together will satisfy those hungering for something truly different from anything they have heard before. And also those who just want to hear amazing, amazing music.

Rore

We have chosen to pair historical composers – in this case, composers from the early part of our usual range, the first century of the Renaissance – with contemporary composers, most still living. These historical composers are some who strayed far outside their appointed times, paying little heed to the expectations of their contemporaries. And these modern composers have turned to that quintessential Renaissance instrument, the viola da gamba, to express the texture-rich, rule-defying, global sound of our interconnected world.

Representing the 21^st century:

Bryars

• Gavin Bryars has studied with John Cage, worked with Brian Eno, been recorded by Tom Waits, and been danced to by Merce Cunningham. His work often uses found sound and improvisation.

Sculthorpe

• Peter Sculthorpe was from Tasmania and was part Aborigine. He had a strong interest in the cultures of Asia and the South Pacific, in particular the indigenous peoples of Australia – his compositions include a Requiem featuring didgeridoo solo.

Edwards

• Mike Edwards experimented with a variety of musical styles as a cellist, including jazz, folk, and his rock and roll years with the Electric Light Orchestra.  In the end, though, he found his true love in Baroque music and the viol, founding and performing with the Devon Baroque orchestra.

Tan Dun

• Tan Dun is best known in this country for his film scores for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, but this is only a small part of his musical achievement. Others include opera, symphonic music, chamber works, Peking opera, and – his specialty – “organic” music written for paper, water, stones, and other found objects.

• Elvis Costello is one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the last forty years. He is a Grammy winner, member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and collaborator with a vast range of musicians in almost every imaginable genre:  the list might start with George Jones (country), Bill Frisell (jazz), Burt Bacharach (pop), and Paul McCartney (you know), but that would only scratch the surface. He has also composed classical opera and worked with mezzo Anne Sophie von Otter.

The unifying theme of all these composers is the wide range of their musical interests, their love of exploration, and their rejection of a single genre as being definitive to their expression.  And did I mention that they composed music for viola da gamba?

Representing the 16^th century:

•  Alexander Agricola, 1445-1506, was known for his endless variety and electrifying musical

  

  Agricola

  intensity. While Columbus was sailing for the Indies, Agricola was composing confounding music that some critics called sublime and others called crazy. His music is willful and complex, filled with puzzles and perversions of the accepted practices of his time.

• ChristopherTye, 1505-1573, was an enthusiastic composer of consort music. He was known to experiment with eccentric meters, even going so far as using different meters for different parts simultaneously.

• Cipriano de Rore, 1515-1565, was a composer of contradiction. His sacred music was deliberately retro, harkening back to Josquin of 50 years earlier, but his secular music was wildly forward-looking:  serious, chromatic, employing an oddly free relationship with his texts.

Gesualdo

• Carlo Gesualdo, 1566-1613, was one of the maddest composers of his or any time. Actual mental illness is certainly possible, and Aldous Huxley called his work the “strange products of a Counter-Reformation psychosis working upon a late medieval art form.”  But his music presages the shifting tonalities, the chromatic anti-melodies, and a technically difficult yet deeply felt expressiveness that would not re-appear until the late 19^th century.

Their unifying principle? They don’t care, they just do what they want. They did their thing, and if it took 400 years for anyone else to get it, too bad.

The music is as extraordinary as its creators. Four of the greatest viol players in the United States today will gather to take it on. And just to pile it on a little higher, singing will be the great male soprano Michael Maniaci, another musical outsider who does what he does and waits for the rest of the world to catch up.

Thank you, audience, for pushing us out of our comfort zone. Join us to discover what's out here.

Sunday, April 26, 2015, 3:00pm
Church of the Redeemer, 2944 Erie Avenue, Cincinnati (Hyde Park), OH 45208
Individual tickets are $25 general, $10 student. Children 12 and under are always free. Tickets are available at the door, in advance by calling 513.772.3242, or at www.catacoustic.com.