Former classmates at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music recall how David Daniels used to knock ’em dead at parties. After a few drinks he would stand on a chair and sing soprano arias from Verdi and Puccini operas, sounding uncannily like Leontyne Price. “He was camping it up, really funny, but was in fact singing all the notes,” one classmate recalls. “People were amazed — here was a guy singing in a woman’s voice range and doing it beautifully.”
These days, Daniels — who will make his Lyric Opera debut in the role of Arsace in Lyric’s first production of George Frideric Handel’s rarely heard comedy of Eros, “Partenope,” opening Saturday at the Civic Opera House — is amazing everybody with his voice.
He is, in fact, one of the main reasons why opera companies such as Lyric are reviving vocally strenuous Baroque operas that were all the rage in the 1700s when castratos — men castrated before puberty to retain their youthful high voices — thrilled audiences with their brilliance and agility. They were the rock stars of their day.
Tops among countertenors
Daniels, 36, is today’s gold standard among countertenors, whose range is that of a female mezzo or contralto and whose prowess makes it possible for castrato roles to be sung by men in the range in which they were written.
What’s more, countertenors like Daniels and his colleagues Bejun Mehta (who is also debuting here as Armindo in “Partenope”), Andreas Scholl, Daniel Taylor, Brian Asawa, Gerard Lesne and Dominique Visse have created a new mainstream vocal category that over the past few decades has spurred the revival of interest in long-forgotten Baroque opera.
“I wouldn’t sit here and tell you that I’m the sole reason why companies are bringing back Handel and Monteverdi,” Daniels says in his South Carolina drawl over lunch at a Near North Side hotel. “Opera companies are always looking for something new and interesting to bring to the stage. But I’m happy to be part of the revival.”
His wicked sense of humor should serve him well at Lyric as Arsace, one of the three suitors vying for the hand of Partenope, the flirtatious queen of Naples (sung by soprano Elizabeth Futral), in the 1730 opera, one of Handel’s few romantic comedies. Mehta (also making his house debut) and tenor Kurt Streit portray the other princely hopefuls, Armindo and Emilio.
To complicate matters, Arsace is pursued by his jilted girlfriend, Rosmira (mezzo Patricia Bardon), who, true to the gender-bending conventions of Baroque opera, spends much of the opera disguised as a man, Eurimene.
Daniels wasn’t familiar with “Partenope” before singing his first Arsace in Francesco Negrin’s production of the Handel work at New York’s Glimmerglass Opera in 1998. But once in rehearsal he was “shocked at how exquisite the music is.” Now, he says, it’s his favorite role. “I get to show a light, comic side of myself, which I don’t often get to do.”
Harry Bicket, the British conductor who will be making his own Lyric Opera debut, worked with Daniels on “Partenope” at Glimmerglass and considers him to be one of the finest Handelian singers he’s worked with. “This role fits David like a glove — there’s so much of the character in him and it lies perfectly for his voice,” says Bicket. “A lot of listeners who have trouble with countertenors on the stage don’t have any trouble with David.”
Patrick J. Smith, former editor of Opera News, has called Daniels’ voice “the first countertenor in modern times that really sounds like an operatic, well-produced voice, with color and range and vibrato.”
Born in Spartanburg, S.C., the son of voice teachers, Daniels was influenced early on by the singing of his baby-sitter, soprano Gianna Rolandi, who is now married to Lyric Opera music director Andrew Davis. He sang as a boy soprano under the late Robert Shaw. Determined to become “the great tenor from South Carolina,” he entered the Cincinnati Conservatory on full scholarship and went on to pursue his graduate studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
But something was terribly wrong. Although clearly gifted and highly musical, his voice refused to cooperate, cracking on high notes. “I was suffering so badly emotionally that I ran to a shrink to see if I was scared of singing as a tenor,” Daniels recalls. At one session he mentioned his “other” voice — the male alto that he’d sing for fun. “My therapist was dumbfounded that I talked about it as if it belonged to somebody else.”
That’s when it hit him. He went to tenor George Shirley, his voice teacher in Ann Arbor, for advice. Shirley told him to prepare a few countertenor arias and sing them for him the following week. “It was the best week of singing of my life up to then,” Daniels says, savoring the memory. “I felt so free because I could do anything with my `other’ voice.” Shirley told him that if he could sing so comfortably in the countertenor range, why would he want to sing as anyone else?
Entire countertenor repertory
The university music school allowed Daniels to postpone his master’s recital until he could prepare an entire program of countertenor repertory. Two weeks after the recital, he was on a plane to Los Angeles to understudy for Jeffrey Gall as Oberon in Britten’s opera, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
His breakthrough came after Martin Katz, dean of American vocal accompanists, arranged for Daniels to sing for Marilyn Horne, the great American mezzo and Handelian pioneer who in the ’70s and ’80s had triumphed in that composer’s heroic roles. Columbia Artists Management signed him for its roster and, Daniels says, “things started taking off for me.” He sang in New York under auspices of the Horne Foundation and last November became the first countertenor to sing an entire recital at Carnegie Hall.
When he’s not singing, he’s back at the home in Silver Spring, Md., he shares with his life partner, pianist John Touchton. Both are dedicated Atlanta Braves fans and every summer visit that city for a homestand of games. When Daniels was a nobody, they’d settle for a room in the Comfort Inn next to the stadium. Now, with his professional connections, they get a room at the Four Seasons and seats behind home plate.
