The fach system is just opera's way of asking what box you fit in

26 years as a mezzo and I still catch myself reading my voice type like a horoscope — 'lyric mezzo, flexible, good with ornamentation' — as if that's a personality instead of a set of notes I'm comfortable singing. This morning at the dentist I realized the hygienist was humming along to the drill and I couldn't tell which fach that noise belonged to. Maybe that's the real lesson: some sounds just refuse to be labeled.