tamaranth | True or Falsetto? ... The Story of a Voice

adela_terrell and I had a splendid evening -- well, about an hour -- at the Drill Hall, where we saw True or Falsetto? A Secret History of the Castrati. "This is the story of a voice," it begins: an hour-long one-man show (with piano accompaniment and a clever stage design) which traces the falsetto and castrati voices from Renaissance Italy through to the death of the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi.

Ernesto Tomasini is a very assured performer, ad-libbing to the audience, mimicking and skipping from character to character -- slimy cackling Papal advisor, Director of the Papal Choir, barber-surgeon, music hall star -- effortlessly. Also skipping from English to Italian to German to French: this is a Euro-friendly show, though I am not sure that his extravagant accent is not another effect. And his version of the history of the castrati is funny, even when it's also macabre: the castration of a dummy child on a table in front of two audience members, as Tomasini tells us that up to 5,000 boys were castrated each year. Opium was used for anaesthetic, when they had any. The failures ended up with 'a voice that made Geri Halliwell sound like Maria Callas.' The successes ... "Without them, I've got the whole of Europe by the balls".

But this show wouldn't work without the voice. Opening with a blissfully camp rendition of 'Granada', then a Mass (accompanied by what he claimed was holy water, though none of the audience burst into flames -- myself and H included). Then came Opera ("I've been waiting five centuries for an interval"). Having selected an audience member to play Monteverdi (all he had to do was sit there and be, er, the straight man), Tomasini performed a wonderfully smooth and swinging aria from Monteverdi's 'Orfeo', and my God he can sing properly. Apologies for all the emphasis, but this is a classical-quality voice almost as rich as Andreas Scholl -- and I've never seen Scholl in a tiny basement theatre, capacity about 50, scaling his voice to his surroundings.

With the Gluck aria -- "Orfeo again," he apologised: but Gluck was played by a plaster bust of the composer -- the humour came out too, as he first added, and then subtracted, all the elements that Gluck despised. No dancing! No vocal embellishments! No cavorting! Mean what you sing! And that was gorgeous too.

A snippet of Mozart's Cherubino, and an excerpt from ... well, it was either Carmen or something I haven't heard of by Ernestini: I was laughing too hard to pay attention. I have never heard a single performer take both parts in a baritone/soprano duet before. It was worth the price of admission for this alone. And, even mercilessly mocking the virile posturings of 19th-century baritone roles, he could sing that properly too: not an exceptional voice, but a perfectly adequate baritone.

After that the tone became rather more solemn. Castrati were exiled to late-night music hall appearances, and viewed with deep suspicion. "But can't this monstrous voice be beautiful too?" he cried: 'Mon couer s'ouvre a ta voix' from Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalilah proved that, oh yes ...

And the final scene, Moreschi listening to the recording of his voice, declaring it monstrous and refusing ever to sing again -- was powerfully moving. It's easy to present something as a tragedy but he did better than that: he made me feel pity (I have a feeling the refusal to sing again is based on fact, but must go check ...)

Apparently he does perform classical repertoire as well as theatre. I should also point out that he is nothing like as camply painted as one might imagine from the publicity or even from his website. Nice legs, too. And the voice. Even when he was singing wittily (I don't think I can really explain this: it's not a case of singing badly. Things like holding the note way too long and then deliberately singing the next one too short and in a lower register. Would have been funny even on the radio -- the mark of a good performer with visual presence who doesn't simply rely on the physical aspects of his act.)

Look, just go see it if at all possible. It's on until next week some time. Details here. I'm hoping to catch something else he does, so watch this space ...

Oh, and then we went on a very long pub crawl (oddly, nowhere was uncrowded at 8:30 on a Friday night ...) before ending up in the bar in Waterloo Station. I had pink drink and discovered, I think, that it is something they add to alcopops like Reef and Bacardi Breezer which gives me agonising stomach cramp. Fine after vodka/cranberry at the Drill Hall: drink one Reef: go 'ow, ow, ow' all the way home. Well, for about 20 minutes. Fine now, thankfully. </TMI>