On his first album, he barely smiles and wears a sober shirt. For his second opus, published by Decca, in 2022, Samuel Mariño appears transfigured: he laughs out loud and wears an extravagant outfit (a transparent white tulle coat falling on imposing heels). “When I sing, I come to disturb this small world of white people, who look alike. So what, because I’m a man, should I sing low and wear pants? », is he having fun from his pied-à-terre near the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, in the 19e arrondissement of Paris, where he shares his time with Berlin.
At 29, the Venezuelan opera singer will complete a series of three concerts in France on Monday March 20, with a recital in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, accompanied by the orchestra of the Royal Opera. Like the baroque style that he interpreted a lot, Samuel Mariño is disconcerting. He knows it and plays it. With her high-pitched voice and her clothing style borrowing from all wardrobes, the artist frees herself from the norms of singing and genre. He carries an assumed political discourse in a world of classical music that is still very conventional, displaying on stage his identity as a queer man and frankly celebrating his homosexuality on his Instagram account.
Samuel Mariño proudly wears « son instrument », a soprano voice, an extremely rare case in a man since the death of the last castrato, the Italian Alessandro Moreschi, in 1922. “These much-requested stars traveled from court to court in the late 17th century.e century and in the XVIIIe century. After 1830, the castrati no longer sing except in Italian churches, only to subsist in the end in the Sistine Chapel. traces Yseult Martinez, doctor in modern history, specialist in castrati at the University of Angers. Unlike countertenors, whose tenor range requires switching to the head voice to climb, Samuel Mariño’s natural voice is, from the outset, very high-pitched.
Piano and choir as refuges
However, the road to acceptance was long. At 13, the young Samuel, a schoolboy in a Catholic establishment in Caracas, suffered mockery with homophobic hints on his high pitched tone. Victim of psychological and physical harassment, in class and on the networks, he flees the school system and takes refuge in the piano and the choir. “I had suicidal thoughts,” he confesses. A doctor, then a second, offered to operate on his larynx to make his voice deeper. A third suggests that he instead accept his voice and listen to lyrical singing. In her playlist at the time, the divas Beyoncé and Lady Gaga meet Cecilia Bartoli and Philippe Jaroussky, superstars of opera singing.
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