Alfred Deller - Portrait of a Voice
A film directed by Benoit Jacquot
Harmonia Mundi HMD990901 (DVD & CD)

Release date June 2009

Back in 1975 Benoit Jacquot, then a very young director, met up with Alfred Deller to make this documentary-interview, which offers one of the very few filmed documents of the most famous counter-tenor of the modern era. During the course of the interview Deller talks frankly about his vocal development from boy soprano to male alto and how he produces his voice. (Astonishingly he did most of his rehearsing by thinking about the music; he never did any vocal exercises whatsoever, nor did he have a singing teacher to guide him!) The conversation is interspersed with quite extensive footage of him singing songs by Campion, Purcell and others, and also of the Deller Consort rehearsing and performing. There is a duet with his son Mark, whose counter-tenor voice was, on this showing, every bit as good as his father’s, and just as musical. It is clear from this film that Deller shared Fischer-Dieskau’s views on the importance of the text, sometimes at the expense of the music’s line. It was also amusing (and enlightening) to hear Deller ornamenting one of his songs in a way that would be considered over-the-top today - and this was in 1975! The actual “conversation” element in the film is slightly odd, in that Deller is obviously answering questions in a very relaxed manner, while the questions themselves seem to have been dubbed into the soundtrack at a later date - we never see the interviewer. It is also a pity that the film caught Deller so late in his career, when his voice was no longer at its best. However, Harmonia Mundi obviously thought of that drawback themselves, so they have helpfully included a CD of solo songs recorded between 1967 and 1979, with the song texts printed in the DVD booklet. It would have been useful to have more information about recording dates and venues used in both the film and the CD. Otherwise, this is an illuminating hour-long portrait of one of the key figures of the early music movement.
Reviewed by Anne McAlister