The man with the 300-year-old voice

Michael Maniaci’s unique soprano voice gives him the air of an antique castrato

We are endlessly fascinated by the high male voice, from Jimmy Somerville to Michael Chance, from Pavarotti to Steve Tyler. But the young American singer Michael Maniaci is something else again: a real-life male soprano. “I don’t sound like a counter-tenor or a woman” he explains. “It’s quite unique.”

He does not sing falsetto, nor does he have a baritone register, as counter-tenors do. On the other hand, he is whole and male (he obviously shaves; he assures me he is fertile). It is just that some quirk in his development led to all the appurtenances of puberty appearing except one – his larynx did not grow along with the rest of him. As a consequence, his voice never broke.

Next week the 31-year-old singer appears on stage for the first time in Britain in Tim Albery’s production for Opera North of The Fortunes of King Croesus. It is the first performance here of this rare Baroque opera by Reinhard Keiser, who was a mentor to the young Handel. It had its premiere in Hamburg in 1711. Maniaci plays Atis, Croesus’s son, a role that would originally have been sung by a castrato. He may be the only man on the planet who can sing this role at pitch, which goes up to a B natural, two octaves above middle C.

Maniaci’s speaking voice is light and high, but, because he is an adult with a stocky frame, it is oddly resonant, like a rather fruity maiden aunt. His singing voice probably comes close to those castrati voices of long ago – although with only one antique recording available we can only really guess.

Maniaci has always sung. His father is a Baptist minister, so choir was more or less obligatory. And he fell in love with musical theatre when his parents took him to see Les Misérables when he was 14. But you can well imagine that, when this developmental quirk became apparent in those tricky teenage years, it was not necessarily an unalloyed joy for the young Michael

“People would say: ‘Oh how sweet, you’re just a late bloomer’,” he recalls wryly. “I had to tell them that everything else had bloomed.” Others tried to persuade him that he needed to “become a man”. Fortunately, a woman in his church choir, Lisa Kay Morton, knew enough to save him from such do-gooders. With her guidance he entered formal musical education, first in Cincinnati and then at the Juilliard in New York

But the challenges were far from over. “It’s the good and the bad of being so unusual,” he acknowledges. “Having this weird voice made everyone aware of me quite early. I was winning a lot of competitions, but I didn’t fit. I had to continue growing and maturing but I was getting much more attention than most people at that age would have to be concerned with. I’ve been under the microscope for a long time.

Just finding stuff to sing was bad enough. Baroque opera is a lot bigger than it used to be but it is still rarely part of the repertoire of the big companies, where a young singer might learn his or her craft. At one point he was even cast as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, a “breeches” part written for a woman dressed as a man, after the grisly castrati craze had come to an end. As Maniaci recalls: “It gave those scenes alone with the Countess real energy and real bite. They became very dark and interesting”

It was the instinctively radical Christopher Alden who directed that Figaro in Pittsburgh. Other directors were more confused than enthused. When Maniaci auditioned for René Jacobs in Berlin a few years ago, the great counter-tenor turned conductor could scarcely believe his ears. Eventually, unable to fault Maniaci’s musicianship or vocal technique, he was reduced to complaining that his choice of ornamentation was too American

Now, though, with the work beginning to roll in, Maniaci seems happy with his gift. “I have to embrace it. To not embrace it would be silly. I am what I am. I know this was what I was meant to be doing.”

He can even make jokes about it. “I feel castrated!” he says, describing his punishing schedule this year, which started in January at La Fenice in Venice, where he jumped into a role he did not know (in Meyerbeer’s Il crociato in Egitto) at two weeks’ notice, and has not stopped since. The source of his equanimity may be found in his choice of relaxation after Croesus, when he finally has a break in his schedule. He is going back home to his family in Ohio, where he will be warmly welcomed, just the way he is.

The young American male soprano Michael Maniaci is rapidly gaining attention for his rare, “thrilling” voice and “sensational” stage presence. Mr. Maniaci “sounds like no other counter-tenor or female soprano on the scene” and sings with “chilling strength and flexibility.” The Toronto Star recently declared that he “promises to become one of the major gifts of the Baroque opera revival,” while The Washington Times similarly proclaimed, “Mr. Maniaci has all the makings of a first-rate star.” Mr. Maniaci is also a winner of the 2003 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

In the 2003-2004 season, Mr. Maniaci sings Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea with Chicago Opera Theatre (which marks the opening of the company’s new theatre), and with Cleveland Opera (reprising the Opéra Atélier production). He also sings the title role in Handel’s Oreste with the Juilliard Opera Center, and returns to Glimmerglass Opera as Tirinto in Handel’s Imeneo.

Highlights of Michael Maniaci’s 2002-03 season included his European debut as Ulisse in Handel’s Deidamia with the Göttinger Händel Gesellschaft, his New York City Opera debut as the Sandman in Hansel and Gretel, and his return to Glimmerglass Opera as Medoro in Orlando.

In the 2001-2002 season, Mr. Maniaci made his Carnegie Hall debut in Chichester Psalms with The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, sang Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea for Toronto’s Opéra Atélier, and the title role in Xerxes with Wolf Trap Opera.

Recent operatic appearances for Michael Maniaci include Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea with Wolf Trap Opera, Pastore in L’Orfeo with Chicago Opera Theater, Narciso in Agrippina with Glimmerglass Opera, Idamante in Idomeneo for The Juilliard School, Mirtillo in Handel’s Il pastor fido and Nireno in Giulio Cesare in Cincinnati. His performance as Nerone in Houston Grand Opera’s 2001 production of Poppea was broadcast throughout the United States on NPR’s World of Opera.

Equally at home with contemporary music, Mr. Maniaci has originated a number of roles in world premiere operas, such as Brittany Peters in Bernard Rand’s Belladonna for Aspen Opera Theater, Lenin in Christopher Butterfield’s Zurich 1916, and Priest/Whore in Andrew Toovey’s Spurt of Blood for the Banff Centre of the Arts. Michael Maniaci has recorded Chichester Psalms with The Dale Warland Singers.

Concert engagements for Michael Maniaci are highlighted by performances for New York City Opera – at Showcasing American Composers, a Gala Concert for the Rosa Ponselle Foundation at Lincoln Center (after receiving the Bronze Medal in the 1997 Rosa Ponselle International Opera Competition), Bernstein’s Missa Brevis for the Dale Warland Singers, St. Matthew Passion and Bach’s Mass in B minor in Cincinnati and performances with the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival.

Michael Maniaci trained at The Juilliard School and Cincinnati Conservatory, while gaining experience with several prestigious American young artist programs such as Wolf Trap Opera, Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artists Program, Aspen Opera Theater and Tanglewood Music Festival. He is a winner of the 2002 Sara Tucker Study Grant, 2002 Shoshana Foundation Career Grant and the 1999 Houston Grand Opera Competition.

Rising to the occasion – Michael Maniaci saves the day at La Fenice

It is every young opera singer’s dream.

The phone call at midnight, the frantic request to drop everything and “just come–we have a problem, we need you to cover all performances and it’s curtain up in just two weeks……”
Yet that usually happens when the house in question knows that the young singer already has the role in his or her repertoire, and it will just be a matter of polishing up the vocal muscle memory, and learning the stage-moves. No real problem – and exactly the sort of opportunity which is the life blood of opera. The king is dead (or at least hors de combat), long live the king. But a few months ago young American male soprano Michael Maniaci had all this, and a lot more, to cope with and it took him to the very limits of his mental and physical powers in a way that he will never forget.
It was the very end of December, and he was about to set off for Canada to record his first CD of Handel arias with the ATMA Classique label in Montreal. He was looking forward to his Met debut as Nireno in Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” singing alongside Ruth Ann Swenson and David Daniels in March and his diary was pretty much in order. Then came the phone call – was he free for a last minute departure for Venice and the acclaimed Fenice, to learn and perform the role of Armando in Meyerbeer’s “Crociato in Egitto”? It was a difficult call; for a start, he’d never sung the role. In fact, he’d never heard the opera, or even ever sung any Meyerbeer at all. But, encouraged by the Fenice’s inference that the two scenes they sent him by email constituted the bulk of the role, he decided to take the plunge and, with grateful thanks to the understanding folk at the record label, postponed the recording and headed for the airport. When he landed he went straight to the opera house, and that is when the dream started to look more like a nightmare and an artistic “Death in Venice” began to seem a distinct possibility.

Tired and jet-lagged, he sat himself down at the back of the famous auditorium, and watched the rehearsals with both 1st and 2nd casts well underway. It was with shock that he suddenly realised that his role, the title role of the Crusader, was the largest sing in the production and with just two weeks to go before final orchestra dress rehearsal, he was looking at 350 pages of music for a role he’d never heard or studied, and in a style he had never sung in. Panic seemed a reasonable option – and a fast exit back to the airport. However, the director Pierre Luigi Pizzi then asked him to take the stage and sing the opening scene for him (the one that he had been sent) and Maniaci realised that this might be crunch time – and so he took the stage, sang the music and, when he’d finished, Pizzi, without ceremony, walked to the stage, shook his hand, and said simply “thank you for coming”. It was the stamp of approval and a huge vote of confidence, and Michael Maniaci decided there and then to head for his canal side apartment rather than the airport. Little did he know that worse was to come.

The Fenice had, rightly enough, provided him with accommodation that would in other times have seemed idyllic but, as he shut the door, sat down, and reviewed his position he quite frankly admits now that he was near to a mental breakdown as the enormity of his task became fully apparent. He had a huge role, a huge score, to read, memorise and master to not only his own high standards, but to that of La Fenice. He had just fourteen days to be stage-perfect and as he walked out onto the veranda overlooking the canal, he says that for a moment he seemed to see his own body, metaphorically floating face down in the murky waters of a very, very, bad decision. It was probably the lowest point of the entire experience but when you are ambitious, talented and hungry you find reserves of strength that you never knew you had. Luckily for Maniaci, he found those reserves and took the only possible course for a young singer in that position: he buckled down, shut out the world and started to learn the music…..
In his own words, it was “ten days of hell”, alone in the apartment with only occasional coaching help from an over-stretched company pianist, trying to absorb new music, new words, and yet still somehow trying to get some sleep when the brain simply wouldn’t hear of it. Yet, after those ten days, he was able to return to the opera house and inform them that he had learnt the role and was ready to learn the staging. Understandably, there was some disbelief among musicians and staff. Watching his colleague in the first cast rehearse was helpful, and he was able to jot down notes of the staging – he still hadn’t been given any time on stage – and he went home each night to walk through the action in his apartment. Suddenly, he got a text message to say he was to take the stage at the next day’s technical rehearsal – at last! The conductor, Emmanuelle Villaume, started the proceedings with Maniaci’s colleague, but then stopped after the second scene and invited the American to come on stage and sing the big Act One trio with Patrizia Ciofi and Laura Poverelli. He had neither rehearsed it with them, nor with the orchestra. When they finished, the orchestra cheered and stamped their feet in approval and he was then invited to do the rest of the rehearsal and staging with the cast and orchestra. But better was to come – that night, the 9th of January, he was informed he had been chosen to join the A cast and sing the premiere in less than six days time. Next morning it was his first full run in costume with orchestra. Two days later it was public general dress rehearsal, and the production opened on the 14th.

This most demanding role that he had ever sung would be given seven times in twelve days, and recorded for CD and DVD for good measure. Most seasoned singers, even knowing a role, would find this a punishing schedule and Maniaci now thinks that it was only his youth (he is just thirty) and the heady mix of adrenaline and horror that got him and his voice through the whole production. That and the excellent support given to him by Maestri Villaume, Pizzi and his singing colleagues, particularly Patrizia Ciofi and Fernando Portari, who all offered both kindness and assistance in a situation which perhaps only they truly appreciated.

Interestingly, the management at La Fenice never disclosed to the paying public or the critics what Michael Maniaci had been asked to do, and had achieved. But that achievement did not go unnoticed by some. This from Francis Muzzu of Opera Now: “Concert (performances) so far have cast the Velluti role of Armando with a mezzo-soprano, but La Fenice took the fascinating option of using Michael Maniaci, a male soprano (not countertenor) whose technique and artistry vindicated the choice triumphantly …… Maniaci has impeccable phrasing, excellent coloratura, a confident top and an effective stage presence. Matching him was Patrizia Ciofi’s Palmide whose soprano grows in strength without any loss of flexibility or sweetness - their Act One duet …… was exquisite.”

I asked Michael Maniaci what, looking back, his final thoughts were. “It was the greatest musical, intellectual and dramatic challenge I have ever faced. Was it the strongest singing that I have ever done? Perhaps not. But have I ever been prouder of any accomplishment? Absolutely not.”
(Michael Maniaci can be seen next in the title role of Berlioz’s arrangement of Gluck’s “Orphée” at Glimmerglass Opera, USA July/August 2007.
Opera North, (UK stage debut) as Atis in Kaiser’s “Croesus” directed by Tim Albury, conducted by Harry Bicket, performances through October/November 2007.)