The musician or the music?

The last few days I've been trying to get my head around something which to me was a piece of news, even though perhaps I should have known. I'm ashamed to admit I'm even concerned about it, but since my blog is my primary place to vent when it comes to music, I'll write about it anyway.

As shown in the first video of my last blog post, I've been listening to and watching a lot of Theodora lately, a Glyndebourne production I was drawn to first and foremost by the fact that David Daniels played the male leading role. I have several of his recordings and I've always been amazed at his tone and effortless style, and Theodora only enhanced my positive opinion of him.
Out of curiosity I then started doing some "research" to see what he was up to currently, since the Theodora production was from the mid 90's when he was still a very fresh countertenor on the music scene. What I did find out however was a little more than I wanted to know.

I have no problems with David Daniels, or anyone else for that matter, being gay. What surprised me however was how persistent he was in "flaunting" it and making sure it was mentioned in every article written about him. His reason for this was that it was important to him because being gay was a "very big" part of who he was. Another article mentions an unattractive, straight personal trainer he hired, followed by the "explanatory" quote "I'm not an idiot", alongside a photo of him posing shirtless under a waterfall or shower with his head thrown back. In the same article the interviewer, who was also gay, said he'd had requests to ask for a lock of David's chest hair, upon which David replied "It's not like I'd miss it or anything."

It made me sad to read pieces like this where the focus was so much more on sexuality than the music, and discovering that it was not just the journalist's fault, but often his own intention that the gay part was talked about. I don't care who he's with because it's none of my business, I just find myself getting annoyed when I hear people talking about their sexuality as something that defines their whole personality, their life, and I'd be even more annoyed to see it take over a man's career.
The fact that I knew nothing of this until I actively started looking for info may prove that Mr Daniels has done a good job of keeping his private and personal life separated, but the comment about him making sure his sexuality was mentioned in every article because he was so out and proud threw me off a little.

My thoughts started to wander to Max Emanuel Cencic, who is also openly gay, married - and whose sexuality has been evident for a long time without him having to talk about it. I googled him just as I did with David and out of all the entries I found there were NONE that focused on anything other than the music; his accomplishments, reviews, bios. Nothing that mentioned anything about his private life whatsoever.

The point I'm trying to make is that I'd be very sad to see a career be affected by a man's sexuality - there's no evidence as of yet that it will happen in Daniels' case, but if him being gay really is such a big percentage of his personality, how big is the musical percentage? And while I'm talking about big things I should perhaps also mention his ego (Just don't think I was going to refer to something else). He seems to be under the impression that he single-handedly was responsible for the general accept and renaissance of the countertenor voice. ("Frankly, I did that".)

I'm now a little torn between liking or disliking him. When one appreciates a talent, should one ignore the personality behind it and view them as two separate things or consider them together as an entity?

That having been said, let me clarify two things.

1) Once again, I have no trouble with people being gay as such. I'm not homophobic and don't intend to come across that way.

2) There is no question that David Daniels possesses a remarkable voice and I'm not trying to imply that he's not a gifted performer.

Now the only thing left is to wait and see if any tomatoes come flying in my direction...

A voice to fall in love in

That's right, to fall in love IN, not fall in love TO...
I confess I've always been strangely attracted to voices. It started out as a childish thing I could look back on and smile to myself, but it persisted and even today I have these "voice crushes".

You can laugh now.

But it is true and in this context I'm a proud polygamist. Sometimes I can listen almost exclusively to one singer and sometimes I listen to a lot of people, rediscovering their voices in the process. Having said that, let me present my current "voice crush": Richard Croft.

The funny thing is that I had actually heard and seen him several times in various videos (again, I think youtube is one of the world's best inventions) before I saw him in Theodora in a Glyndebourne production from the mid 90's and wondered why on earth I hadn't been so impressed with him before. One theory is perhaps that that particular Händel piece hypnotized me in general and I loved the arias he did as Septimius, not just his performance but the compositions as a whole..and the combination turned out to be just perfect.



However, when I started to revisit the videos where I had seen him previously (not knowing who he was at the time) I was no less impressed. Like his opening aria in the great (and first ever fully staged) version of the Messiah:


(aria doesn't start until a few minutes into the video, there's the overture and a recitativo first)

In addition to that I started looking up more youtube videos and his recordings on iTunes, and I'm still just as enthusiastic. Of course I'm in no position to be 100% objective or give my opinions on technique etc, but I will say that to my ears, his voice has that certain inexplicable something that can soothe and give strength at the same time and just strikes a chord within you. And that is a very valuable quality.