Half-way between the bass and baritone in terms of tessitura, the bass-baritoneΓÇÖs range should produce a full-blooded tone from, typically, low F to the F above middle C.
The characteristic vocal quality of the bass-baritone combines the deep, dark resonance of the bass voice, with a tighter focus and greater agility, particularly in the higher register. Composers cast him in more adventurous r├┤les than the pure bass can deal with as he searches around in the darkness for his profound notes and statements. The German archetype of the bass-baritone is the r├┤le of Wotan in WagnerΓÇÖs Ring Cycle operas. This character is a bass who would love to be a baritone, an amalgam of God and man, who recognises that it needs a tenor to save both his daughter, the soprano, and the world of the Gods from the fate that he has inflicted on them by his weakness for large palaces.
