Opera singer here - you must be playing in North America. In Germany tunings range from 436 to 444, depending on what you're playing. Most theaters tune to 442.
One thing that gets opera singers (like me) up in a knot about this, is that the human voice is not a tune-able instrument. There are registration issues in fixed frequency ranges, which we can't change. At A440, a register shift happens a quarter tone lower than where Mozart and Verdi expected it. That creates a sound difference that an audience can hear, and a big difference technically.
As a classically trained but relatively amateur singer, and professional audio engineer, this fascinates me because I would've thought such breaks vary enough from person to person that it wouldn't be possible for a composer/conductor to expect it to be somewhere with anything like quarter-tone precision. Cool!
Thank you. This is the part of the conversation that gets drowned out by the taoy-wowy numerology crap.
If memory serves, a number of opera singers, including Pavoratti, were lobbying for a change of the international standard to 432. I thought this was a bit foolish, as the problem is better addressed by simply agreeing to adopt an alternate tuning for those pieces that would benefit from it.
Yes I am in North America (Seattle area). However I've also noticed this on recordings of international groups. For example, both Bach Collegium Japan and Taverner Choir (England) have recorded Handel's Messiah at A=415. I didn't realize Germany favored higher pitch.
Personally I prefer singing at A=415 since my voice is lower set. :)
One thing that gets opera singers (like me) up in a knot about this, is that the human voice is not a tune-able instrument. There are registration issues in fixed frequency ranges, which we can't change. At A440, a register shift happens a quarter tone lower than where Mozart and Verdi expected it. That creates a sound difference that an audience can hear, and a big difference technically.