:: Friday, November 18, 2005
Pearl's a singer
I don't think I know anyone who is into opera as such and if I do they are leading a double life. I haven't even listened to a lot of opera (probably because it sounds like unintelligible screeching and has no drums or guitar presented the way I like it). I guess now days, even opera buffs who have the opportunity to attend a live performance get most of their operatic jollies listening to CDs at home rather than going to each performance of the season.
It would be rather expensive to go every night.
Three hundred years ago, that wasn't the case. Well they didn't have CDs back then, did they?
In the 17th and 18th centuries, opera was BIG in all the right circles and the Catholic church had control over most of the cultural elements of Italy and indeed much of Europe. One of the prohibitions set down by the Vatican was for the inclusion of female singers in church choirs. This was extended to singing in operas within the Papal states. Chicks were out.
How unusual.
To get around this (so that all their singers weren't all deep voiced and hairy), the Castrati was born, young boys with a natural gift for singing like angels gelded before puberty. Each castrato was rigorously trained in music conservatoria and, while the mediocre ones might find a lifelong calling within the church choir, the good ones might go on to become famous opera singers, feted and cherished for their pure soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto voices, earning not just public adulation but large sums of money as well as they travelled through the decadence of the opera houses of Europe to sing the same songs for their supper, night after night for months on end.
But first they had to have their nuts off.
Similar to the eunuchs of a Sultan and his harem, these boy/men were able to engage in all aspects of sexual activity excluding ejaculation of sperm. They were the perfect panacea for the harem woman who only had her number cum up once a year. The eunuch could service all the needs of the royal ladies and never risk contaminating the bloodlines of his Master.
Handy that.
But back to the castrati, these children were often sold into this genderless servitude by poverty-stricken parents, or were encouraged to elect this career path if they were a younger son and therefore never going to be important in the patrician dynastic scheme of things. Once gelded, their bodies often developed differently without the input of male sex hormones to normal boys, achieving softer skin and hair, finer body frames and a female appearance helped in no little measure by the development of large chests from their amazing lung capacity as well as the high voice. Once dressed and made up, they became "woman" onstage and enjoyed great popularity. A top notch castrato was equally able to play the female part as he was the male.
One of the most famous castrati of the 18th century was Farinelli, who was castrated as a child after being nudged nastily in the nuts by a horse.
He spent his long life singing on the stages of Venice, Milan, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Vienna and London and everywhere in between, living much of his life as a member of the Spanish royal household.
La Fenise, Venice
Italy outlawed castratism in 1870 and the last true castrato of the Pope's choir, Alessandro Moreschi recorded his voice for posterity in 1902 and 1904 and died in 1922.
He was the end of a strange cultural and artistic era. Now days we usually only castrate animals. Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I'd give my left testicle to be able to sing like that" though, dunnit.
Mind you, Freddie Mercury didn't need his nuts off to hit those (t)highs of his. I remember as a young teen, Em's mother saying he was 'more endowed than your average male' or something similar when Freddie paraded around the tv screen in his black and white skin tight jumpsuit thingy proclaiming what a Champion he really was. I don't think testicular transplants or prostheses were common in the 70s and it sure didn't look like a sock.
You'd have to know Em's mother to truly understand how unusual it was to hear her utter such a comment. But that's a whole different topic.
Innit, Em?
It would be rather expensive to go every night.
Three hundred years ago, that wasn't the case. Well they didn't have CDs back then, did they?
In the 17th and 18th centuries, opera was BIG in all the right circles and the Catholic church had control over most of the cultural elements of Italy and indeed much of Europe. One of the prohibitions set down by the Vatican was for the inclusion of female singers in church choirs. This was extended to singing in operas within the Papal states. Chicks were out.
How unusual.
To get around this (so that all their singers weren't all deep voiced and hairy), the Castrati was born, young boys with a natural gift for singing like angels gelded before puberty. Each castrato was rigorously trained in music conservatoria and, while the mediocre ones might find a lifelong calling within the church choir, the good ones might go on to become famous opera singers, feted and cherished for their pure soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto voices, earning not just public adulation but large sums of money as well as they travelled through the decadence of the opera houses of Europe to sing the same songs for their supper, night after night for months on end.
But first they had to have their nuts off.
Similar to the eunuchs of a Sultan and his harem, these boy/men were able to engage in all aspects of sexual activity excluding ejaculation of sperm. They were the perfect panacea for the harem woman who only had her number cum up once a year. The eunuch could service all the needs of the royal ladies and never risk contaminating the bloodlines of his Master.
Handy that.
But back to the castrati, these children were often sold into this genderless servitude by poverty-stricken parents, or were encouraged to elect this career path if they were a younger son and therefore never going to be important in the patrician dynastic scheme of things. Once gelded, their bodies often developed differently without the input of male sex hormones to normal boys, achieving softer skin and hair, finer body frames and a female appearance helped in no little measure by the development of large chests from their amazing lung capacity as well as the high voice. Once dressed and made up, they became "woman" onstage and enjoyed great popularity. A top notch castrato was equally able to play the female part as he was the male.
One of the most famous castrati of the 18th century was Farinelli, who was castrated as a child after being nudged nastily in the nuts by a horse.
He spent his long life singing on the stages of Venice, Milan, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Vienna and London and everywhere in between, living much of his life as a member of the Spanish royal household.
La Fenise, Venice
Italy outlawed castratism in 1870 and the last true castrato of the Pope's choir, Alessandro Moreschi recorded his voice for posterity in 1902 and 1904 and died in 1922.
He was the end of a strange cultural and artistic era. Now days we usually only castrate animals. Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I'd give my left testicle to be able to sing like that" though, dunnit.
Mind you, Freddie Mercury didn't need his nuts off to hit those (t)highs of his. I remember as a young teen, Em's mother saying he was 'more endowed than your average male' or something similar when Freddie paraded around the tv screen in his black and white skin tight jumpsuit thingy proclaiming what a Champion he really was. I don't think testicular transplants or prostheses were common in the 70s and it sure didn't look like a sock.
You'd have to know Em's mother to truly understand how unusual it was to hear her utter such a comment. But that's a whole different topic.
Innit, Em?
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