I suppose if we think of Mephistopheles as a con man, a tenor makes sense, kind of like Aron in Moses und Aron.
Yes, I agree, it's a bit hard to think of Fosca as a soprano, but I wonder if Sondheim considered Clara a soprano role. Which I bring up because I wonder if when he was first writing Fosca, he planned for her to go no higher than an E or F.
Similarly, he originally thought of Dot as a soprano, and George as a baritone. And, really, George is essentially a baritone role with a high tessitura requiring a high baritone, but it also goes lower than tenor roles typically go. As does Henrik, which really is a tenor role, but I guess many Henriks sing different notes in the part of the trio where he goes low. |
