The Voice

A countertenor is a male singer who sings mainly in head voice, in the range of an alto or a mezzo-soprano. The mechanism is what voice physicians call mechanism 2, or falsetto: the vocal folds vibrate over a reduced part of their length and thickness, which produces a higher and clearer sound than the chest voice. It is neither a trick nor a flaw: it is a register every man has, and some work on it until it becomes a complete voice, with body and colour, able to fill a hall without amplification.

• Britannica, Countertenor (nouvel onglet)
• Wikipedia (fr), Contre-ténor (nouvel onglet)

Arnaud Raffarin is a countertenor. His voice is that of an adult man, physically intact, who has spent twenty years working on this register. He is not, and will never be called, a castrato. What this site calls “the memory of the castrati” is a musical memory: a repertoire, an era, an aesthetic of sound, which the countertenor voice is today the only one able to make heard without mutilation.

A castrato was a male singer castrated before puberty in order to keep the high range of a child, with the power and breath of an adult. The practice developed in Italy in the 16th century. In 1599, Pope Clement VIII officially admitted two castrati to the choir of the Sistine Chapel; they gradually replaced the falsettists and the boys.

• Britannica, Castrato (nouvel onglet)
• Wikipedia (fr), Castrat (nouvel onglet)

In the 18th century, castrati were the stars of Italian opera. Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782), sang for the courts of London and Madrid, where he became the private singer of Philip V. Handel wrote for Senesino and Carestini; Mozart composed “Exsultate, jubilate” for Venanzio Rauzzini. Behind the glory of a few, thousands of boys were operated on every year in the Italian states, most of whom never had a career.

• Wikipedia (fr), Farinelli (nouvel onglet)

The practice declined at the end of the 18th century and became illegal in the Kingdom of Italy after unification (1870). In 1903, Pius X’s motu proprio “Tra le sollecitudini” ended the use of castrati in church music. The last castrato of the Sistine Chapel, Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922), is also the only one whose voice was recorded: discs cut in Rome in 1902 and 1904, the only direct sound trace of that voice.

• Wikipedia (fr), Alessandro Moreschi (nouvel onglet)
• Wikipedia (fr), Tra le sollecitudini (nouvel onglet)

In the 20th century, the repertoire written for castrati was taken up by women, then by countertenors. The Englishman Alfred Deller (1912-1979) gave this voice back its place as a soloist: Britten wrote the role of Oberon in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1960) for him. Since then, the rediscovery of baroque music on period instruments has made the countertenor a voice in its own right on the opera stage.

• Wikipedia (fr), Alfred Deller (nouvel onglet)

The Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, founded in 1987, trains singers in its Maîtrise in the French repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, and performs at the Palace. Arnaud Raffarin trained there from 2001 to 2003, under Olivier Schneebeli, before winning his First Prize in singing at the Versailles conservatoire. When this site speaks of Versailles, it does not mean a backdrop: it means the place where this voice learned.

• Centre de musique baroque de Versailles (nouvel onglet)
• 2026 CV and training record of 21/09/2026

Arnaud has created a method for singing with power without tiring the voice, which he teaches to opera singers, actors and people who speak in public. The breath, the passage between registers, holding a phrase of Purcell: short films will show this work here as soon as they are shot.

• 2026 CV