Also this issue:

Feeling the '50s
CP's theater critics go Crazy for 1812 Productions’ stellar homage to 1950s comedy.
-David Anthony Fox and Toby Zinman

Taste Treat
Kitsch and high art cohabitate at Wexler Gallery's current show.
-Susan Hagen

Dolls to Remember
-Robin Rice

Philly-Nutt-Crak-Up
-Kristina Weise

Cirque loize
-Deni Kasrel

Santa Claus is Coming Out
-Debra Auspitz

Artifacts of the Improbable
-Paul Burress

Paul Taylor Dance
-Janet Anderson

December 12-18, 2002

opera

David Daniels

by David Shengold

Fresh from an acclaimed Carnegie Hall solo concert (the first countertenor ever to give one, as befits the first countertenor to achieve mainstream acceptance in performance and recordings), David Daniels finally comes to Philadelphia. With a powerful, beautifully produced, high-lying but very definitely masculine sound, the affable 30-something South Carolinian has helped to redefine listeners’ expectations and to reshape both the opera and recital repertory. He makes a much-awaited local bow at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater this week.

City Paper: Do you remember the first time you heard a countertenor sing?

David Daniels: Yeah, in a music history class. At that time, in the early '80s -- outside of England-- countertenors were largely something you heard in music history classes. [Nowadays] for someone that's never heard a countertenor, I tell them it's like a male singing in the alto range. I'd hope that once the initial jolt is over of hearing a high sound come out of a guy like me, they'll see that it comes very naturally to me and relax and enjoy the music. But after 10 years of doing this now, I think most people know what they're coming to hear, and the recordings help.

CP: Have you ever been to Phillly?

DD: I auditioned for Curtis, back in '88 I think. I was a tenor back then [laughs]; I didn't deserve to get in! These days, with all the major companies doing Handel operas, it makes total sense for students to perform them and to have baroque arias ready for audition tours.

CP: What did it feel like to stand solo on the Carnegie Hall stage?

DD: That was just fantastic! It's such an easy place to sing: It's so large, but the acoustics are so magnificent that you never feel you have to push the voice. And to walk out there and find it nearly full was nice -- and a real surprise.

CP: What mountains left to climb? La Scala?

DD: I doubt that! Italy is not a big country for the countertenor voice. I'd just like to keep on exploring new repertoire for my recitals and continue delving into baroque opera -- with the hope that someday there'll be a 21st century opera written with me in mind -- or at least for the countertenor voice. I'd like to be a part of the decision about what role that might be; something political would be nice, reality and not fantasy. In most of the 20th-century operas written for countertenor you're the King of the Fairies [Oberon in Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream] or a hermaphrodite, like Philip Glass' Akhnaten. It'd be nice to have a role as a man [laughs] -- y'know, a human being!

CP: Strom Thurmond doesn't seem quite the thing ...

DD: Jesse Helms! That'd be a stretch, now wouldn't it?

CP: So do the straight countertenors have some kind of a support group?

DD: Hey, there are more of them then you'd imagine! Interesting, though, that it's OK to name the straight ones but heaven forbid you name the other gay ones? Funny how stereotypes get started. 'Cause I'm this huge sports nut -- I'm sitting here waiting for my N.C. State basketball to come on.

CP: How about the inevitable crossover?

DD: I'm in the middle of doing a guitar album: I'm doing a John Kander song, some Bernstein, Alec Wilder and Harold Arlen -- along with a couple Dowland and Purcell songs. That's about as close to crossover as I'm gonna get -- though I'd love to do a Christmas album. I've heard the Philly recital hall is excellent, really intimate. My program [which includes Handel, Mozart and Fauré] ends with some American folk songs arranged by Steven Mark Kohn. Martin Katz, my accompanist, thought they'd be wonderful for me and so far they've been a big hit on this tour.

David Daniels performs Sun., Dec. 15, 2:30 p.m., $30-$47, Kimmel Center, 260 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999.