The lowest of the female voices has a range from F3 to A5 (as ever, approximately!) There is an alto clef, designed to accommodate the voices’ tessitura…
… it’s still very much in use, but not usually for singers (it’s the standard clef of viola players and, as such, appears whenever that instrument does).
Like their male equivalents – the basses and baritones – they’re frequently in roles portraying the more mature characters in operas (Mistress Quickly, Geneviève, Azucena, and God knows how old Erde is!); not always, though, because the arch-seductresses Carmen and Delilah were both written for lower voices
And here are a few examples:
The buffa/comic...
Verdi:
Falstaff
Mistress Quickly – Reverenza!
The femme fatale…
Bizet:
Carmen
Carmen – Seguidilla
Saint-Saëns:
Samson et Dalila
Dalila – Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix
[My heart opens to your voice]
Character roles – the older woman...
Debussy:
Pelléas et Mélisande
…benign…
Geneviève – Letter monologue
Verdi:
Il trovatore
…vengeful…
Azucena – Stride la vampa
[The flames are roaring]
Wagner:
Das Rheingold
…supernatural…
Erde – Weiche Wotan, weiche
[Yield, Wotan, yield]
The soprano’s friend…
Tchaikovsky:
The Queen of Spades
Polina – Подруги милые (Podrugi milïe)
[Lovely friends]
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The Art of Listening 