Yuriy Minenko ( Mynenko )

Yuriy astonished me with his rich, beautiful and very natural sounding voice.

I was especially mesmerized by his interpretation of Broschi's aria, Ombra fedele anch'io from Idaspe. I have never heard this aria sung so well. His performance easily outshines the interpretations of Vivica and the artifically crafted voice in "Farinelli".

I thought it was almost perfect. He was a tiny bit inaccurate in the very beginning of the aria but otherwise he seems to have been fairly accurate. I also noticed that he tended to sing "ng" at the beginning of some phrases, perhaps to check if he was on pitch. Lastly, it would have been nice to have some more varied ornaments in the da capo, especially considering that he is indeed more a male soprano ( or sopranist if you prefer , although that makes me think more of a Christofellis or Raunig ) than a countertenor ( although that could hardly have been noticed in any of the final arias, but if you listen to Sesto's aria "Parto, ma tu ben mio" from "La Clemenza di Tito" (excerpt), you should hear what I mean ). Having those high notes, he should have been able to show off a more dramatic ornamentation, perhaps something like what was in the "Farinelli" track.

You should check out Aria of the Queen of the Night "Der Hölle Rache" from "Zauberflöte" (modern version). Warning: This "modern version" has a techno playback which may offend some of you . It certainly annoyed me. Perhaps I can find a more credible playback and replace the original one with that. Please PM me or reply here if you have a playback for this aria. Also, you will notice that the aria has been transposed down a fifth. Nonetheless, he does it very well and I urge you to listen to it and pay attention to the voice rather than the playback.

My having listened to the clip of "Parto," I would have little choice but to say the following:

I always hope for the best for singers' careers. Also, I always hope to discover a new, excellent, high-male voice.

In this case, however, I am not particularly impressed with the quality of the voice. His technique and sound are very similar to that of 20th-century-21st-century female singers, i.e., heavy vibrato, loose technique, lack of focus. The world of stage and recordings is filled with that sound. I now try to avoid it, having heard so much of it.

There are valid, good reasons that I have concentrated upon quality voices such as (male) Andreas Scholl and (female) Gundula Janowitz.

In my opinion skbf is absolutely right, he sings like Cecilia Bartoli

I suppose I am less impressed by voices that sound less natural. That is why I prefer Jaroussky, Marian and Wong over Scholl or Esswood. Nonetheless, I can very much appreciate their technique, but I still prefer the other three because they do not only have good technique but also natural tone.

Broschi's aria is not very virtuosic since the main challenge is breathing. Therefore, I very much enjoyed hearing Minenko sing it. You could not notice his imprecission that much ( except for the two points I mentioned in my first post ).

I agree however, that he is not as impressive in the more virtuosic arias, but I am very happy that a male singer has finally sung this aria properly.

I don't think he sounds like Bartoli at all. She sings more erratic. I think he has a lovely voice.

Bump: On the second song I didn't care for the high notes. I like the techno beat though! I think his German was off too?

chris

i think he sounds like a real male mezzo

but i think max cencic is better

well i dont know really, both are different.

i like both indeed. both have good things and are my favourite singers because i am a mezzo myself.

when i sing soprano i still sound like a mezzo, like cencic does or yuri does. Ok not when cencic sings super high and changes his technique to a kind of a child soprano voice when he sings soprano 1, but when he sings soprano 2, like faramondo, or anything in alto ( remembering that baroque alto is = nowadays mezzo) and rossini arias ( high mezzo ) equivalent to baroque soprano 2.... he has a different technique that his mother tought him to keep his child soprano voice, that is different from his mezzo countertenor voice, that can go up to soprano 2. and sounds allways mezzo. like yuri.

that happens to me to, although i am just an amateur.
so thats why theese 2 singers are my favourites.

but i have to say, i dont like very much cencic's child soprano technique. he even doesnt do it much anymore. its astonishing yes, but now he goes for things like caffarelli's role faramondo in his countertenor high mezzo voice ,wich for me are better.

here you can hear yuri Minenko singing ombra fedele YouTube - Broschi: Ombra fedele (Idaspe)

and crude furie from xerxes YouTube - Händel: Crude Furie (Serse)

just if you didnt happen to search in youtube for him yet hahah.

he is most astonishing!!!


cya!

You cannot find this very aria without the techno playback, Yuriy made i just for fun, he didn't intended to make a serious recording of the Queen of the Night's aria. He doesn't like to sing female arias at all. So we cannot judge him from this recording.
You are right, Ombra fedele is really astonishing. I advise you to listen to Minenko's Cara sposa from Rinaldo as well. He managed to combine Italian belcanto with Ukrainian song tradition. Sounds sensetive and fabulous

Bump: You may download Minenko from this link:
http://yuriy-minenko.narod.ru/en/audio.htm

actually i was confused about yuriy minenko being a male mezzo....

because he is in fact a sopranist.

because the castrato sorpanos had the same tessitura as the female mezzos. when you listen to a female aria, they are way higher than castrato soprano or male soprano arias.

so thats why they choose mezzos to sing castrato sorpano arias.

or even vivica genaux that did farinelli's arias.

sorry, i was confused about that.

Bump: *i meant " when you listen to a female soprano aria, its way higher than a male soprano aria " or castrato sorpano aria.

first: the idea of dividing voice categories listening their timbre is a product of the late nineteenth century, so if we talk about singers trying to substitute singers before that era, we should try only to distinguish them by their voice range.
second: this ukrainian guy has a too big vibrato (P.s. evern the singers till 1850 hated such an exaggerrating vibrato, so why does nobody anything against t!!!!!!!!!!!).
third: you can't say that castrato roles wereN#T as high as female roles, because everything was composed for one special singer, so a composer tried to show the power of the individual voice; nfor example the part of mozarts Fauno in "ascanio in alba" reaches several times e6 so it was always a question of individual voice range (thats also why there are three versions of handels radamisto, because when the singers changed he had to revise it, he didn't look for singers who fitted to the things he composed)(this convention consisted till early verdi)

The real high voices were first wanted in the middle of the 19th century. Before that the two greates singers were pauline viardot and her sister maria Malibran who were also only "mezzos", but the highth of a voice says nothing about its quality

His vibrato is not as heavy as of most singers today but it is too much for this music. Nevertheless, this is the best singing of this aria that I have heard. Do you not agree?

He may be one of the better vocalists for this song.

chris

Which song do you mean? Sesto's aria?