I CASTRATI

A castrato is a male soprano, mezzo-soprano, or alto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.----------Castration before puberty (or in its early stages) prevents a boy's larynx from being transformed by the normal physiological events of puberty. As a result, the vocal range of prepubescence (shared by both sexes) is largely retained, and the voice develops into adulthood in a unique way. As the castrato's body grew, his lack of testosterone meant that his epiphyses (bone-joints) did not harden in the normal manner. Thus the limbs of the castrati often grew unusually long, as did the bones of their ribs. This, combined with intensive training, gave them unrivalled lung-power and breath capacity. Operating through small, child-sized vocal cords, their voices were also extraordinarily flexible, and quite different from the equivalent adult female voice, as well as higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male (soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, sopranist, countertenor and contralto). Listening to the only surviving recordings of a castrato , one can hear that the lower part of the voice sounds like a "super-high" tenor, with a more falsetto-like upper register above that.----------------------Castrati were rarely referred to as such: the term musico (pl musici) was much more generally used; another synonym was evirato (literally meaning "unmanned").--------------------------History of castration----------Castration as a means of subjugation, enslavement or other punishment has a very long pedigree, dating back to ancient Sumeria (see also Eunuch). In a Western context, eunuch singers are known to have existed from the early Byzantine Empire. In Constantinople around 400 AD the empress Eudoxia had a eunuch choir-master, Brison, who apparently established the use of castrati in Byzantine choirs. Whether Brison himself was a singer, and whether he had colleagues who were eunuch singers, has not been definitely established. By the ninth century, eunuch singers were well-known (not least in the choir of Hagia Sophia), and remained so until the sack of Constantinople by the Western forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Their fate from then until their reappearance in Italy more than three hundred years later is by no means clear, though it seems likely that the Spanish tradition of soprano falsettists may have "hidden" castrati (it should be remembered that much of Spain was under Arab domination at various times during the Middle Ages, and that eunuch harem-keepers and the like, almost always taken from conquered populations, were a commonplace of that society: by sheer statistics, some of them are likely to have been singers).----------------------Castrati in the European Classical tradition ---------------------- Castrati, many of them having Spanish names, first appeared in Italy in the mid-sixteenth century. Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, was an early enthusiast (by 1556). There were castrati in the court chapel at Munich by 1574, where the Kapellmeister (music director) was Orlando di Lasso, and it is likely that Palestrina, director of the choir of St Peter's from 1576 to 1594, would have been keen to emulate his famous contemporary. In 1589, by the bull Cum pro nostri temporali munere, Pope Sixtus V re-organised that choir specifically to include castrati, and in 1599, they were first admitted into the Pope's personal choir of the Sistine Chapel: Pietro Paolo Folignato and Girolamo Rossini (it is likely that others, such as Padre Soto, appointed in 1562, joined earlier under the euphemism "falsettist"). Thus the castrati came to supplant both boys (whose voices broke after only a few years) and falsettists (whose voices were weaker and less reliable) from the top line in such choirs. Women were of course banned by the Pauline dictum mulier taceat in ecclesia ("let your women keep silent in church"; see I Corinthians, ch 14, v 34).-----------------------Castrati in opera --------------------------- Castrati had parts in the earliest operas: in the first performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607) they played subsidiary roles, including that of Euridice. By 1680, however, they had supplanted "normal" male voices in lead roles, and retained their hegemony as primo uomo for about a hundred years; an opera not featuring at least one renowned castrato in a lead part would be doomed to fail. Because of the popularity of Italian opera throughout 18th-century Europe (except France), singers such as Ferri, Farinelli, Senesino and Pacchierotti became the first operatic superstars, earning enormous fees and hysterical public adolation. The strictly hierarchical organisation of opera seria favoured their high voices as symbols of heroic virtue, though they were frequently mocked for their strange appearance and bad acting. ---------------------------- Castration "for music" was an almost totally Italian practice, and under the Catholic church's Canon Law, strictly illegal: it was mutilation, and thus punishable by excommunication. The music historian Charles Burney was sent from pillar to post in search of places where the operation was carried out: "I enquired throughout Italy at what place boys were chiefly qualified for singing by castration, but could get no certain intelligence. I was told at Milan that it was at Venice; at Venice that it was at Bologna; but at Bologna the fact was denied, and I was referred to Florence; from Florence to Rome, and from Rome I was sent to Naples... it is said that there are shops in Naples with this inscription: 'QUI SI CASTRANO RAGAZZI' ("Here boys are castrated"); but I was utterly unable to see or hear of any such shops during my residence in that city." ------------------------ The training of the boys was rigorous. The regime of one singing school in Rome (c. 1700) consisted of one hour of singing difficult and awkward pieces, one hour practising trills, one hour practising ornamented passaggi, one hour of singing exercises in their teacher's presence and in front of a mirror so as to avoid unnecessary movement of the body or facial grimaces, and one hour of literary study; all this, moreover, before lunch. After, half-an-hour would be devoted to musical theory, another to writing counterpoint, an hour copying down the same from dictation, and another hour of literary study. During the remainder of the day, the young castrati had to find time to practice their harpsichord playing, and to compose vocal music, either sacred or secular depending on their inclination. This demanding schedule meant that, if sufficiently talented, they were able to make a debut in their mid-teens with a perfect technique and a voice of a flexibility and power no woman or ordinary male singer could match. -------------------In the 1720s and 1730s, at the height of the craze for these artificially-preserved voices, it has been estimated that upwards of 4000 boys were castrated annually in the service of art. Many came from poor homes, and were more or less sold by their parents to the church or to a singing-master, in the hope that their child might be successful and lift them from their lowly status in society (this was the case with Senesino). There are, though, records of some young boys asking to be operated on to preserve their voices (e.g. Caffarelli, who was from a wealthy family: his grandmother gave him the income from two vineyards to pay for his studies). Caffarelli was also typical of many castrati in being famous for tantrums on and off-stage, and for amorous adventures with noble ladies. Some, as described by Casanova, preferred gentlemen (noble or otherwise). Modern endocrinology would suggest that the castrati's much-vaunted sexual prowess was more the stuff of legend than reality. Not all castrated boys had successful careers on the operatic stage; the better "also-rans" sang in cathedral or church choirs, while some, trained as they were in acting, may have turned to the straight theatre, or perhaps even prostitution.----------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------Espa ñol------------------------------- La tradición de los castrati, niños y jóvenes con voces “blancas” o “angelicales”, o sea, cercanas al registro femenino de soprano, cualidad previa a la llegada de la pubertad, se pierde en el tiempo, y sus ejemplos más lejanos se remontan al siglo XII, cuando en el Imperio Bizantino se utilizaban eunucos (esclavos castrados que se encargaban de la vigilancia de los harenes) para ejecutar algunas composiciones musicales.En siglos posteriores, numerosas familias humildes ofrecían sus niños a la castración para preservar sus voces, y garantizarse así los ingresos necesarios para su supervivencia. En Italia, con su tradición del bel canto, la castración de esos niños “dotados” se realizaba entre los 7 y los 12 años de edad, es decir, antes de la “muda” o cambio de voz. La posibilidad de hacer carrera cantando en ceremonias religiosas, teatros o cortes, podía implicar un considerable ingreso, no sólo para el artista, sino también para su familia y los intermediarios de las contrataciones. Además, los mezquinos intereses forzaban frecuentemente a los niños a aceptar su castración, aunque una disposición hipócrita dictaba que no podía realizarse “sin el consentimiento del niño”.Pero no es hasta el siglo XVI cuando los castrati hacen su aparición en las iglesias, tras la prohibición del Papa Pablo IV de que las mujeres cantaran en la Basílica de San Pedro. Así, niños y adultos castrados reemplazaron las voces femeninas. De esta forma, muchos de estos cantantes de “voz angelical” lograron la admiración del público y colosales fortunas personales, interpretando, según el caso, papeles masculinos o femeninos.-----------------------------------