Manuel García, for instance, who had a wide range as a baritenor, "had L'italiana in Algeri in his repertoire, but faced with the extremely high tessitura and the mainly syllabic writing of ‘Languir per una bella’, he transposed the aria down a minor third, performing it in C major instead of E flat".
It was, in fact, a type of tenor voice extremely light and widely ranged, but nearly systematically uttered in falsettone in the high pitch, so as to somehow re-echo the castrato "contraltista" of the Italian stamp.
[7][clarification needed] Between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the shortage of castrati among available opera singers compelled coeval composers to contrive substitutes for the roles of "primo musico" [8] in operatic companies.
According to Rodolfo Celletti, in the first 35 years of the 19th century, more than 100 cases of original resort to the "contralto musico" can be counted up, and it was employed also by musicians of the rising post-Rossini generation, such as Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini and Bellini.
When Giovanni David entered Barbaja’s company in Neapolitan theatres, he was entrusted with the young and/or noble lover’s parts, whereas Nozzari and other baritenors got the roles of rancorous or villainous antagonists, or of army leaders.
[15] Such tenore contraltino characterization would be slightly attenuated after Rossini's moving to France, where it was possible to resort to the tradition of hautes-contre, who were equally versed in high singing, but rather more averse to castrato virtuosity, typical of Italian opera.