John Dalmas wrote:

>Kevin Sutton wrote:
>
>>As a professional singer AND the artistic director and conductor of a
>>professional chamber choir, I will tell you that I simply will not allow
>>my female singers to put on those vocal straight-jackets.  It's damaging to
>>the voice in the long run and produces what to my ears is a hideous sound.
>
>Wasn't that the convention back then, the so called "white" voice that
>allowed for subtle inflection of the melodic line? I know it's not for
>everybody's ears, but it must have suited its time and place.  Where are
>the HIP defenders on the list?

There is no concrete evidence to support totally straight tone singing at
any time.  The use of vibrato as an ornament is well documented, but the
English style of straight tone singing that is heard on so many recordings
today is right out of the English cathedral tradition, which idealizes the
sound of the boy's unchanged voice.  It is my OPINION (thank you Dave) that
if you want a boy's sound, hire a boy.  I have just spent two weeks singing
for Grahame Jenkins, music director of the Dallas Opera and frequent guest
all over the planet, who grew up in the English boy choir tradition.  We
were singing Handel's Israel in Egypt, and at no time did he ask for
straight tone from the women, even when he was openly emulating and
acknowledging John Eliot Gardiner's ideas for interpretation.  You can't
get any hipper than JEG.  Further, John, a white tone doesn't allow you to
inflect anything.  Rather, it severely limits what coloristic effects that
the voice can produce.

Kevin Sutton