CASTRAT SINGERS
SOURCE: PSmithALTO (psmithalto@aol.com) on rec.music.classical.performing (1998/01/10)
Castrati ("castrat" is the French) were also known as "evirati" or "musici".
They were, with a few exceptions {such as the Frenchman Blaise Berthod and the
German Gaetano Berenstadt), Italian; often they were the musical sons of poor
families, who saw their son's musical talent as the key to escaping appalling
poverty. The inability of the castrated boy to have children [see footnote] was
seen as a small price to pay. Operations happened mainly in Naples, but as
Charles Burney related in the 1770s, no Italian town was willing to admit that
it had a castrato production line. Also, many castrati invented ridiculous
excuses for their condition, such as falling off a horse or being bitten
between the legs by a randy and over-excited goose!
Castration inhibits the production of testosterone, and thus stops many of the
processes which accompany the change in puberty from a boy to a man. No body
hair appears. The thyroid gland remains active, pushing the body to grow to
abnormal height. And the bones of the body never really harden; they retain a
flexibility and elasticity which as we shall see is highly important. Of
course, the vocal cords lengthen either slightly or not at all. Hence, the
soprano, mezzo or alto register of the boy is preserved into "manhood".
So what is the result from a musical point of view? Aside from the
preservation of the boy register, a combination of the flexible bones and
intensive musical training (the nearest equivalent today would be being a boy
at an Oxbridge Choral Foundation such as King's, New, or Magdalen, or else a
Wiener Sangerknabe) gave astonishing breath control. One of the two or three
greatest ever castrati, "Farinelli" (Carlo Broschi), was reputed to be able to
hold the C above middle C for THREE MINUTES! He had a range of roughly
two-and-a-half octaves, from about A below middle C up to soprano high C. But
some castrati, such as Gaetano Guadagni, the man for whom Handel rewrote much
of Messiah - e.g. "But who may abide?" - in 1750, and who created the role of
Orfeo for Gluck, had an effective range of little more than an octave and a
half. The intensive vocal training also allowed a castrato to ornament in a
different way every time he sang an aria. Some specialised in agility; others
volume, and others emotional projection. Few were good actors - but then, most
opere serie never concentrated much on plot or drama.
Supernatural voices, agility, breath control and the reputed expertise in
sensual matters made the castrati the most sought-after stars of their day on
the opera stage. In Handel's opere serie, the only primo uomo role not for a
S/A voice is the tenor Bajazet in Tamerlano. Composers such as Hasse, Porpora,
Bononcini and even Vivaldi relied on castrati. When in 1870 Rossini found that
the practice had been banned by the French, he gave up composing and started
cooking steak!! For the many who didn't make it to opera, there was always
church. Indeed, the Papal edict "Mulier tacet in ecclesia" [let women be silent
in church] led Catholic Europe to use both male falsettists and castrati to
sing high parts as early as the 15th century. In the Papal States, the ban on
women also extended to the stage, so it was quite common for castrati to appear
in drag and play women! Gradually, as the castrato's hypnotic vocal gifts
became apparent, the falsettist faded into the background. He never really
died, however; he found a safe home in churches in England and in isolated
places on the Continent.
Vocal evidence for what they sounded like is thin. Clearly there was no heavy
vibrato such as we find in a battleaxe-type Wagnerian soprano. And the voice,
according to listeners like Burney, didn't sound female at all. We have
several clues; the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, sounds terrible, but we
have to remember that he was 70 when he was recorded and that he may not have
been a particularly good castrato anyway! By the way, he had a falsettist
pupil who, reportedly, produced a VERY SIMILAR SOUND.
What do we do now?
-
Use women, who have the range and vocal power, or
(from my point of view, more satisfactory - I'm a countertenor)
- Use men. It is commonly thought that the male falsettist or countertenor
has not got the vocal power of the castrato. Probably true, but bear in mind
that opera houses were smaller then. The drama hangs together when a man is
playing a male character, and the Michael Chances and Andreas Scholls of this
world make a ravishing sound that is worth hearing anyway. They are limited in
upper range mostly to the E or F above the C above middle C; but there are a
few freakish male soprani like the Greek Aris Christofellis and the ex-Wiener
Sangerknabe Max Cencic.
Generally speaking, since Alfred Deller really put the male alto on the map,
the consensus has been increasingly to use such a singer.
NOTE: Although castration was a surgical operation, removing the testes
under anaesthetic, it did not always succeed. The castrato Tenducci led a full
and happy life; besides opera success, it is thought he had two children. You
see, they cut two off, but it turns out he apparently had three!
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