Knowing your enthusiasm for THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, Don B, you may like Arne's THOMAS & SALLY, which is in the "English Pastorale" tradition - although it's more jovial and hearty than the "Nymphs & Shepherds" kind of thing. ARTAXERXES lies at the other end of Arne's output, and is consciously written in the Italian style as an
opera seria (with a cod-classical libretto to match). It enjoyed great popularity at the time, although it's now dropped from view. There is a recording by Roy Goodman and the Parley of Instruments, whom I always find curiously coldblooded - Chris Robson does a decent job in the title role.
Although Quantz wrote this of Farinelli, his roles don't bespeak that range... it would seem rather odd that composers who were creating pieces especially to showcase his talent (it was, after all, the singer rather than the composer whom the public came for) didn't explicitly include this upper end of his voice? I wonder how much of that range was practicably usable in performance? Most singers have up to a fourth above their comfy range where they can knock-out a squeak or two if needs be - but they won't be overkeen to do it often! Yet female soprano parts do go up into the stratosphere in the written dots. I agree it could be that Farinelli may have displayed his prowess in his own ornamentations and elaborations of the written line, especially in the
DC sections... but it's odd that composers didn't write for it? BTW, I know several mezzos who will "go for" Bb and B at the top in Verdi, so they have those notes "on call" if needed... but socking-in one glorious top-note at the end of an aria is a different thing to negotiating it repeatedly in a cantilena line
Absolutely agreed about the chest-voice end of things - I'm a great fan of Scholl and have most of what he's recorded. I respect him for using his baritone voice now and then, because it's in the interests of the music rather than his singerly glory... after all, he is a counter-tenor, and the mixture of registers is accepted practice for that voice
Purcell - who was consciously writing for non-castrato male voices - frequently takes his singers over that break, and his Catches characteristically have two verses in baritone register and then shoot-off into falsetto for the third verse. It all underlines the essential differences between the counter-tenor voice and the castrato.
[BTW, the term "counter-tenor" was frequently used in C18th England to describe a female mezzo-soprano-pitched voice. Anastasia Robinson, Handel's ever-dependable
seconda donna in the heyday of his "Academy" operas, was almost always described as having a "counter-tenor" voice. (She'd started off billed as a soprano in RADAMISTO, then reappears as a "counter-tenor" two seasons later in OTTONE and after. Thereafter she seems to have been put out to pasture when Faustina Bordoni arrived, and appears to have been "collateral damage" in the Bordoni/Cuzzoni rivalries - and also because the paying punters wanted Italian singers for their money, whether they were truthfully "better" or not. By ALESSANDRO she'd completely disappeared from the casting - perhaps she'd left the profession to get married? It wasn't a profession that many husbands outside it tolerated at the time.). ]
In all these discussions about replacing castrati with counter-tenors or mezzos etc, it's worth remembering that Handel was utterly sanguine and practical in these matters, and made such swaps without blinking. For RADAMISTO his opening cast (April 1720) had Durastanti (a female soprano) singing the male lead Radamisto as a breeches role, and Anastasia Robinson singing the female lead Zenobia. There had been a castrato available, but evidently not one who met Handel's requirements - Benedetto Baldassari was left singing the comprimario role of Fraarte (the role was entirely removed in the 1728 revival). He was evidently not even up to the secondary castrato role of Tigrane, and this, too, was allocated to a female soprano in drag - Caterina Galerati. So in just one cast,
two castrato roles had been handed to female performers in the absence of decent castrati.
But the opera was then swiftly revived (Dec of the same year) when Senesino finally arrived (after a protracted dispute with his previous house, who were disinclined to release him from contract). Handel put Senesino into the male lead part (he could hardly reasonably have been billed in any alternative part in any case), and switched Durastanti onto Robinson's previous (female) role. Poor old Baldassari seems to have been dispensed with entirely - a new castrato Matteo Berselli took over Tigrane from Caterina Galerati, and she was moved onto Baldassari's role of Fraarte.
He then revived it a second time eight years later - Senesino continued in the male lead, with Bordoni now brought in to sing Durastanti's role (she'd returned to Italy for family and career reasons). Cuzzoni was moved into the role of Polissena (and was famously threatened with defenestration if she refused it) and a fresh castrato named Baldi took over Tigrane. Fraarte - as mentioned - was cut entirely (if that's not an improper thing to say of a castrato role).
In other words - Handel himself was more than content to use female sopranos to sing heroic male castrato leads, IF there wasn't a star castrato available, and even did so in premiere first casts. He would prefer to cast a better female performer than a second-rate castrato - this may have been for musical or box-office reasons, or a combination of the two.
