Key change: Rebers goes from baritone to tenor
If you’ve ever reconsidered a youthful decision you made about who you are, or tried to undo a label that was attached to you, then you might understand why Tim Rebers feels both excited and anxious right now.
Rebers has spent more than a year transitioning from baritone to tenor, no small change for an opera and musical theater singer. He’s taking another step forward in his professional identity with Skylight Music Theatre’s production of Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann.” He’ll sing the title role at least once and otherwise back up tenor John Kaneklides.
Local audiences may know Rebers through past performances as a baritone with Milwaukee Opera Theatre and Florentine Opera.
He compared the change he’s making to an athlete switching to a different sport, like from baseball to basketball, requiring him to use muscles differently.
As a baritone, the highest notes that Rebers sang he sang climactically, with great power. When he sings those same notes now as a tenor, he sings them “as just regular everyday notes,” he said.
The tenor and baritone ranges overlap, of course, which is how Rebers got into this pickle long ago. “I was always sort of like a higher baritone that had good high notes,” he said. The difference between them is where the sweet spot is for each.
As Rebers understands himself now, his sweet spot has always been higher than most baritones.
In college and graduate school, voice teachers tried to figure him out, both times deciding he was a baritone. Their conclusion may have come partly from a vocal health perspective, Rebers suggested, not wanting him to push his voice in an extreme direction.
He also felt attracted to the roles played by operatic baritones. “They got to play comedy and drama about equally,” he said.
But in 2016, his voice teacher, Connie Haas, suggested he consider experimenting with tenor. His first reaction: Why do I want to be a tenor with terrible high notes rather than a baritone with great high notes?
But at Haas’ suggestion, at home he pulled out his “Magic Flute” score and sang through the tenor role of Tamino, feeling comfortable doing so.
Exploring a potential change was exciting but not without anxiety. He said it’s not easy to discern “what is an actual technical deficiency you’re papering over and what is nagging self-doubt that you’re papering over.”
Rebers isn’t the first singer to make such a change. In fact, he called it a common story for “the heavier tenor voices.” He cited Placido Domingo, who sang baritone as a young man, then moved into tenor, and now in his 70s has returned to singing baritone repertoire. “He doesn’t sound like a baritone, though. He still sounds like a tenor singing in a baritone range.”
Rebers spent most of 2017 working through a binder of tenor arias to see which would fit him. As a tenor, he has since sung a concert version of Alan Menken’s “King David” and a recital of Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
Rebers’ change “is an incredibly big deal,” said “Tales of Hoffmann” stage director Jill Anna Ponasik, who has worked with him on past Milwaukee Opera Theatre productions. While there have been times in the past when singers had more freedom to embrace a wider spectrum of music, “right now the way pedagogy is shaped and the way programs are cultivated, we stick labels on people sooner and we really try to restrict them,” she said.
He is curious about how people will respond to his new identity, even as he rebuilds his resume to reflect where he wants to go. But Rebers is at peace with how he sings now.
“It feels right because it’s what my voice feels comfortable doing,” he said.