Haute-contre

The haute-contre (plural hautes-contre) is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.

The voice was predominantly used in male solo roles, typically heroic and amatory ones, but also in comic parts, even en travesti (see apropos the portrait reproduced below and representing Pierre Jélyotte made up for the female title role of Rameau's Platée). Lully wrote 8 out of 14 leading male roles for the voice; Charpentier, who was an haute-contre himself, composed extensively for the voice-part, as did Rameau and, later, Gluck.

The leading hautes-contre of the Académie Royale de Musique that created the main roles of Lully's operas, at the end of seventeenth century, were Bernard Clédiere and Louis Gaulard Dumesny. Notable hautes-contre of the eighteenth century’s first half included firstly Jean-François Tribou, who revived Lully style and operas in the twenties and in the thirties, then the mentioned Pierre Jélyotte and his substitutes, François Poirier et La Tour, all of whom sang Rameau's operas and Lully's revivals for the Académie Royale de Musique, and finally Marc-François Bêche, who was engaged mainly in performances at court. After these came Joseph Legros, for whom Gluck wrote his main haute-contre roles, which included the title role in the 1774 version of Orphée et Eurydice, and Achilles in Iphigénie en Aulide. There is also an extensive repertoire of music for this voice in French airs de cour and in French solo cantatas of the Baroque period; hautes-contre sang in choirs as well, taking the part above more ordinary tenors, who were designated as taille.

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