HIS ROYAL HIGH-NESS
A falsetto-voiced opera singer finds a new set of fans in his theater debut
NO one suffered more for their art than the castrati, the men whose heavenly high voices cost them part of their manhood.
Among the most famous of their ranks was the 18thcentury Italian known as Farinelli, the Pavarotti of his day. So enthralled was Queen Isabella with his voice that she took him home to Spain to serenade her manic-depressive husband, King Philip V. Music may not have cured the monarch, but Farinelli stayed with the king until his death and never sang in public again.
That’s the history behind “Farinelli and the King,” which opened on Broadway on Dec. 17 to ecstatic reviews for Mark Rylance’s addled king and Iestyn Davies’ castrato.
Program notes assure us that the countertenors in this production (such as Davies) are intact and the castrati extinct — the practice mercifully banned since around 1870. So saying, Davies tells The Post, “A lot of what we know about castrati is based on hearsay. They were reportedly tall, with huge rib cages, but their voice box stayed the same size. They were sexually active but couldn’t reproduce, so they were basically walking contraceptives.”
In a speaking voice some two octaves below his singing voice, the 38-year-old says he found his falsetto by accident: As a teenager who sang “crap tenor” with a pop band, he was bored during his school’s choir practice and suddenly broke out some high notes.
“It felt really good,” says Davies, whose Welsh first name is pronounced “Yestin.”
“I felt like I was accessing something that allowed me to express myself.”
He’s since expressed himself on stages around the world, including the Met’s, where he starred this fall in “The Exterminating Angel.” The British Grammy winner might never have left the opera houses had “Farinelli” playwright Claire van Kampen not heard him singing on the radio three years ago and asked him to be her castrato.
Davies needed persuading. For starters, he was daunted by Farinelli’s three-octave range, one more than his own. He also thought he’d be consigned to singing “some little Shakespeare ditty in the balcony.”
Somewhat incredibly, it didn’t seem to matter to Davies that he’d be sharing the stage with Rylance, van Kampen’s Oscar- and Tony-winning husband: “I didn’t know who he was back then,” he insists. “I told my taxi driver I was working with Mark Rylance, and he had no idea who he was, either!”
But van Kampen persisted and Davies took his place alongside Rylance and Sam Crane, the actor who plays the “speaking” Farinelli. Identically dressed, the two appear onstage together. What seems like a metaphor — the separation of mortal man and divine voice — is really a matter of logistics, Davies says.
“Even if I could act, I certainly couldn’t speak and then sing in falsetto,” he says. “It’s a testament to Sam that he makes the part look so easy.” As it is, Davies sings just six shows a week; countertenor James Hall takes Wednesday and Saturday matinees.
Davies may not speak, but he does fly across the Belasco stage at one point, singing and tossing glitter. “I do love the flying,” he says. “But they’re so particular about safety here in America — there are about 400 people checking your groin before you go on, to make sure your harness is clipped in!”
And he loves working with Rylance, who read a passage about love from “The Merchant of Venice” at Davies’ wedding in August 2016.
Rylance and van Kampen got something out of it, too.
“The [clergyman] was hanging around the altar and Mark went up to him and said, ‘Could Claire and I reaffirm our vows?’ ” Davies says. “So they had a little secret ceremony in the back.”
He laughs. “They hijacked our ceremony!”