mezzo-soprano

The medium female singing voice in opera and non-classical music (although in the choir, the mezzo-soprano and the contralto are lumped together as altos). The mezzo-soprano has a range of two octaves from A3 (below middle C) to A5 (just two notes short of high C). This is the most common female voice. Situated between the soprano and contralto, the mezzo-soprano typically plays supporting roles (mothers, maidservants, friends of the heroine) as well as villainous women like the femme fatale (the saying among mezzo-sopranos and contraltos is that they play "witches, britches, and bitches"). Many pop singers are mezzo-sopranos, although the vocal subcategories used in opera are not applied to them. Examples include Madonna, Beyonce, Patti Lupone, Ethel Merman, Tori Amos, Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, Whitney Houston (since the mid-1990s), Enya, Janet Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Alanis Morissette, and Sarah McLachlan.