Joseph Caillot (24 January 1733, in Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris – 30 September 1816, in Paris) was a French actor and singer. He was endowed with a very wide

compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself wit ...

which enabled him to sing as a basse taille ( bass-baritone), while also reaching the

haute-contre The haute-contre (plural hautes-contre) was the primary French operatic tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century. History This voice ...

tones. According to

Rodolfo Celletti Rodolfo Celletti (1917–2004) was an Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist. Considered one of the leading scholars of the operatic voice and the history of operatic performance, he published many books and articles on the subje ...

"he was a

baritenor Baritenor (also rendered in English language sources as bari-tenor or baritenore) is a portmanteau (blend) of the words "baritone" and "tenor." It is used to describe both baritone and tenor voices. In ''Webster's Third New International Dictionar ...

and a bass at the same time": Grétry and

Monsigny Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny ( – ) was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (1813). He is considered alongside André Grétry and François-André Danican Philidor to have been the founder of a new musical genre ...

used to notate his parts in the bass clef, but set them in high- baritone tessiture.''Voce di tenore'', Milan, Idealibri, 1989, p. 59,

References

Bibliography

*Émile Campardon, '' Les Comédiens du roi de la troupe italienne'', Paris, Berger-Levrault et C^ie, 1880, vol. I, pp. 85–95. 1733 births 1816 deaths Male actors from Paris French male stage actors 18th-century French male opera singers 18th-century French male actors {{France-stage-actor-stub