As the curtain rose for act two of Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier, a gravelly voice somewhere behind me declared, “These colors please me.” The set, an interior of a grand, 18th-century ...

Recording technology can buy almost anyone a singer’s voice: Antares Auto-Tune can correct deficiencies in pitch, while a weak voice can be buttressed by the usual round of chorus plug-ins, discreet ...