Word: debutants
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...bearded, sturdily built man strides onto the stage and opens his mouth. Out floats an exquisitely beautiful alto voice--and the crowd starts cheering. Is it a dream? A freak show? No, it's what happens whenever countertenor David Daniels makes another debut, as he did in April at New York City's Metropolitan Opera, and will be doing in August at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival. Seven short years ago, he was a frustrated tenor whose high notes refused to kick in; now he is racking up reviews that might make even Pavarotti envious...
...that both voices came from the same person. Within days he realized his true identity as a singer; just five years later, he won the coveted Richard Tucker Award, given to highly promising young opera singers (Renee Fleming is a laureate), and made a spectacular New York City Opera debut in Handel's Xerxes...
...many countertenors have small voices that are eerily sexless, hardly what Handel had in mind for such heroic roles as Sextus Pompey in Julius Caesar (the vehicle for Daniels' Met debut), who kills the king of Egypt in revenge for the murder of his father. That's one reason that Daniels makes so powerful an impression. His full-blooded alto is big enough to bounce off the back wall of the Met, with a cut and thrust that is wholly masculine, yet when he sings softly, you couldn't ask for a sweeter sound...
...understandably more interested in talking about his first CD, Handel Operatic Arias (Virgin Veritas); or his recent debut at New York City's Avery Fisher Hall, a four-encore lovefest at which he sang art songs by Britten, Schubert and Ravel so gorgeously that the audience was reduced to frenzied foot-stomping; or the fact that in November he will record Handel's Rinaldo with Cecilia Bartoli. It is all proof positive that the ex-tenor with the shaky top has definitely found his other voice...
Dreamy pop, electronica shadings, folk guitars and soulful vocals bend and blend together on No Angel (Arista), the debut album by British singer-songwriter Dido. Despite the denial in the title, this is for the most part heavenly music. The songs are sweet and soothing, but because they are anchored by strong, captivating beats, they never float away...