(Ger.: ‘heroic tenor’).
A dramatic tenor voice of clarion timbre and unusual endurance, closely tied to such Wagnerian tenor roles as Tannhäuser, Tristan, Siegmund and Siegfried. It was an extreme manifestation of the new dramatic tenor that appeared in the 1830s and 40s, especially in such Parisian operas as Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable (1831) and Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini (1838). Wagner did not use the term Heldentenor himself but was adamant in dissociating his tenor parts from the ‘so-called dramatic-tenor roles of recent times’ (‘den sogenannten dramatischen Tenorpartien der neueren Zeit’), especially citing Robert le diable (Prose Works; Eng. trans., 1894, iii, 202–3). He blamed ‘the positively criminal [Italian] school of singing now in vogue’ for devoting its entire attention to ‘vocal trickery’, thereby making the usual tenor appear ‘unmanly, weak and completely lacklustre’ (‘unmännlich, weichlich und vollständig energielos’). Although recognizing that his tenor parts demanded extraordinary stamina, Wagner was more concerned that the singer be ‘thoroughly alive’ to the spiritual significance of the role. He praised Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld as the perfect interpreter of his music (Prose Works; Eng. trans., 1894, iv, 225ff). Riemann (Musik-Lexikon, 1882) identified two main types of tenor, the lyric tenor and Heldentenor, describing the latter as having a smaller range (from c to b'), a powerful middle register and a baritone-like timbre. The dramatic tenor with a higher register, generally known as a tenore robusto, is associated with the operas of Verdi.
See also Tenor.
K. Sparwald: Die Rolle des Helden-Tenor in den Werken Richard Wagners bis zum Lohengrin (diss., U. of Berlin, 1940)
C.M. Verdino-Süllwold: ‘The Heldentenor in the Twentieth Century: Refining a Rare Breed’, Opera Journal, xx (1987), 24–40
OWEN JANDER, ELLEN T. HARRIS