Andy-Sandberg-looking Italian actor portraying the title castrato of 1994 film, Farinelli.
This past season at the Met, I brought my very patient girlfriend to enjoy a Baroque opera pasticcio featuring the music of Handel, Vivaldi and others titled The Enchanted Island. The most exciting part about this - for me, at least - was the return to the Metropolitan Opera stage of countertenors, or, gentlemen who sing like ladies.
Their historical precedents are the magnificent castrati whose voices defined Baroque opera. The castrati, for the great unwashed among you, were a school of male singers lucky enough to be pre-pubescently castrated for the sake of retaining their high-pitched singing voices. The practice dates to as far back as the eunuch choirs of 4th century Constantinople, though its contemporarily understood manifestation begins with the reorganization of the Choir of St. Peter's Basilica under the irascible Pope Sixtus V. This is incidentally the same pope responsible for the re-erection of the imperial obelisks of Rome. Freud, as they say, would have had a field day.
The physiological consequences of growing into manhood without testosterone are predictably grotesque: The vocal chords along with other testosterone-dependent parts stay boy-sized, while the limbs grow Jack-Skellington-long. Unfortunately placed fat deposits tend to develop, and the skin becomes pale. To borrow a gag, it would be an "If They Mated" between Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter themselves.
The desirability of the castrato voice lay in the pairing of small vocal chords with a large vocal tract and lung capacity. This provided a power that women could not supply. While no recordings of any operatic castrati exist, the voice of one papal chapel singer, who was a true castrato, endures, and haunts youtube to this day:
South Carolinian countertenor David Daniels as Prospero in The Enchanted Island.
Their historical precedents are the magnificent castrati whose voices defined Baroque opera. The castrati, for the great unwashed among you, were a school of male singers lucky enough to be pre-pubescently castrated for the sake of retaining their high-pitched singing voices. The practice dates to as far back as the eunuch choirs of 4th century Constantinople, though its contemporarily understood manifestation begins with the reorganization of the Choir of St. Peter's Basilica under the irascible Pope Sixtus V. This is incidentally the same pope responsible for the re-erection of the imperial obelisks of Rome. Freud, as they say, would have had a field day.
The physiological consequences of growing into manhood without testosterone are predictably grotesque: The vocal chords along with other testosterone-dependent parts stay boy-sized, while the limbs grow Jack-Skellington-long. Unfortunately placed fat deposits tend to develop, and the skin becomes pale. To borrow a gag, it would be an "If They Mated" between Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter themselves.
The desirability of the castrato voice lay in the pairing of small vocal chords with a large vocal tract and lung capacity. This provided a power that women could not supply. While no recordings of any operatic castrati exist, the voice of one papal chapel singer, who was a true castrato, endures, and haunts youtube to this day:
Alessandro Moreschi performing Gonoud's Ave Maria.
Horror movie directors the world over have missed a tremendous opportunity in this track. Deeply unsettling recordings aside, evidence of the increasing popularity of the Baroque opera repertory, and thus the castrato repertory, is easy to find. As mentioned above, the Metropolitan Opera's New Year's Eve Gala for 2012 premiered The Enchanted Island, featuring two countertenors; this year's National Council Auditions winners included a countertenor; and, entire concerts of castrato arias not performed since the 18th century are on tour:
Philippe Jaroussky's face is difficult to watch.
Philippe Jaroussky has found great notoriety, and deservedly so. It is ironic that arguably the most well known countertenor of our time should be French. France was the only European nation in which Italian opera and thus the castrato did not find success; this is largely in line with France's proud and robust tradition of having no taste.
Countertenors are not the only vocal progenies of the castrato legacy, however. Male sopranos, or sopranists, though exceedingly rare, have the ability to sing in a very high register without the use of falsetto. The below clip is an excerpt from the BBC documentary Castrato. It features an operatically trained singer whose vocal chords did not fully develop, and as a result he sings in the range of a soprano:
Michael Maniaci's speaking voice sounds like a less drunk Julia Child.
Such a voice gives insight into why the likes of Bononcini, Handel, Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini and Vivaldi sought castrati over women for their compositions. Increasingly, operatic roles like Giuilo Cesare and Xerxes, who for so long have been filled by women, are once again being played by men. Therefore, women are correct to fear obsolescence in the face of a castrato resurgence. One such castrato is en route to a stunning victory over every woman in the universe.
Bravo!
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