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WOS Radio: Edward Seckerson Talks to Iestyn Davies

Log on to Iestyn Davies' website and you are instantly seduced by the ethereal strains of Handel's "Eternal Source of Love Divine", a number so amply demonstrating why this seductive young countertenor is making waves all over Europe and America.

He is currently in rehearsal at English National Opera for Christopher Alden's provocative new staging of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and in the London Coliseum's royal retiring room he can be heard here chatting with Edward Seckerson about the dramatic evolution of this most particular and haunting of voices.

So much about it has changed from the era of Alfred Deller for whom Britten fashioned the role of Oberon. Now there are countless varieties of countertenor, different colours, different fachs. Davies scotches some of the myths surrounding this most sophisticated of falsettos: how it is produced, how it is maintained without recourse to "the must unkindest cut of all", how it might develop in years to come. He recalls one royal personage asking him with some degree of concern: "Does it hurt?" Ouch to that.

To listen to the full recording of the Q&A, click the 'play' button below; or to subscribe and download from iTunes, click here.

- by Edward Seckerson

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