Why aren't girl soprano soloists used?

[cmh90790 16]

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

Sexism.

[bollemanneke 3,334]

Agreed. I really hate things like King's College choir. Just use girls already, they're good enough.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,343]

Because then they'd have to be called soprona!

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

They have completely different tonal qualities. 

[cmh90790 16]

[Faleel 5,326]

Doesn't Desolation of Smaug use a girl soprano?

[LOTRHobbitFan 20]

3 hours ago, Fal said:

Doesn't Desolation of Smaug use a girl soprano?

 

Yes, Grace Davidson was used for the Feast of Starlight and Nazgul choral work in DOS! She is even performing in the upcoming LOTR Return of the King concerts.

 

http://gracedavidsonsoprano.com

[cmh90790 16]

[Simon McBride 113]

Hook has a girl soprano, right?

[Chen G. 3,941]

The Lord of the Rings Symphony uses a girl and a boy soprano.

 

On 12/24/2017 at 9:39 AM, LOTRHobbitFan said:

Yes, Grace Davidson was used for the Feast of Starlight and Nazgul choral work in DOS! She is even performing in the upcoming LOTR Return of the King concerts.

 

As far as I know, Grace performed all the soprano parts in both The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies, but she's not a little girl. It's the amazing purity of her voice that leads people into thinking she's a boy soprano. She was featured in The Return of the King concert I attended in Prague. What a great voice! Although Into the West sits WAY too low in her voice. Her parts in The Hobbit were written with her voice in mind, of course.

 

The Hobbit didn't use a boy soprano at all, which is fine because it leaves something exclusively to The Lord of the Rings. In fact, Battle of the Five Armies will go down as the only film in the series not to feature a boy choir at all!

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

21 hours ago, Chen G. said:

The Lord of the Rings Symphony uses a girl and a boy soprano.

A girl soprano?  The only soloists I remember are the boy soprano, adult mezzo, and baritone for Aragorn's coronation.  Even the Dimrill Dale solo is done by a boy soprano in the symphony.

 

21 hours ago, Chen G. said:

The Hobbit didn't use a boy soprano at all, which is fine because it leaves something exclusively to The Lord of the Rings. In fact, Battle of the Five Armies will go down as the only film in the series not to feature a boy choir at all!

The solo at the end of "The High Fells" wasn't a boy soprano?  Wow.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The solo for Bridge Of Khazad Dum is done either by a boy soprano or an adult female.

 

Traditional!

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

26 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

The solo for Bridge Of Khazad Dum is done either by a boy soprano or an adult female.

 

Traditional!

Mabel Foletelu in the original recording, a boy soprano in the symphony, and the featured adult soloist in the LTP.

 

As for other scores, Desplat's daughter sings in Hostage and Buck Sanders' daughter created a "Nazgul screech" sound for No Escape.

[Chen G. 3,941]

27 minutes ago, Gnome in Plaid said:

A girl soprano?  The only soloists I remember are the boy soprano, adult mezzo, and baritone for Aragorn's coronation.  Even the Dimrill Dale solo is done by a boy soprano in the symphony.

 

Well, there are two "boy" sopranos credited in the Lord of the Rings Symphony release, but I think one of them - Loris Sikora - is a girl.

 

I also seem to recall seeing footage from performances of either the symphony or the live to-projection concerts where two such soloists were used for the different boy soloist parts: a boy, and a girl. That's of course besides the adult soprano.