The classic contralto voice compasses a range of two octaves, starting at the E below middle C (but kind composers wonΓÇÖt call for anything below a G). The tessitura called for is often in the lower part of this range.
The word contralto is derived from the italian ΓÇ£contra altoΓÇ¥, meaning ΓÇ£against, or contrasting, with the high [voice]ΓÇ¥. The contralto is the lowest of the standard female voice types, and the rarest. In choruses she has her work cut out not to get swamped by surrounding tenors and sopranos. When writing for her, composers usually want a good beefy sound under middle C, and in opera the character is often beefy too - like Azucena, the determined but tragic gypsy mother of the tenor in VerdiΓÇÖs Il Trovatore. Symptomatically, she spends her first scene stirring up the camp fire, and is later condemned to death by burning.
In contrast italian composer Giacomo Rossini shrugged off sopranos for one of his finest female operatic portraits, in favour of the creamier, more richly sensual sound of the contralto (though it is often described and sung as a mezzo soprano r├┤le). Cinderella (La Cenerentola), is no fated, retiring, chronic consumptive, but a young woman who knows her value and puts her vocal jewellery and mental acumen on display at the drop of a baton. Perhaps Rossini just wasnΓÇÖt as screwed up about women as Verdi and Puccini, but knew them better as people rather than as adolescent fantasies.
Contraltos also get to play trouser rôles, and have stolen many heroic parts from countertenors, notably in Handel operas. Marietta Alboni went one stage further in 1845. She took on the baritone rôle of Don Carlo, the King of Castile, in the London première of Verdi’s Ernani, apparently with great success.
For an unusually smooth, liquid contralto, listen to Kathleen Ferrier in the concert hall. Ferrier was also a great interpreter of the works of Gustav Mahler. He knew what the contralto voice was all about, when he selected NietzscheΓÇÖs prophetic words for her to sing in his third symphony (first performed in 1902) :-
