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Topic: Castrati

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	USRF - Castrati Singers of Italy
		Thus, castrated men (castrati) came to sing in the choir, possessing "the chest and lungs of a man with the vocal cords of a women (Melicow and Pulrang)."
		Castrati were considered to be the greatest singers of all time, dominating opera in Italy for two centuries.
		The last of the great Castrati singers was Allessandro Moreschi (1858-1922), whose voice was immortalized on a 1902 gramophone recording, which was later digitized and is currently available for purchase at Amazon.com.
	www.usrf.org /news/010308-castrati.html (230 words)

	Castrato - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		This practice was begun in the 16th century, and reflected Catholicism's traditional ban on females singing in church.For much of their reign, castrati were employed as church singers.
		In the late 1550s, the Duke of Ferrara had castrati in his chapel choir, the Munich court chapel from 1574 and in 1599 the Papal (Sistine) Chapel choir was formally described as having castrati.
		There have also been reported cases of so-called "natural castrati" who were born with hormonal disorders that reproduce the above "desired" effects of castration without the surgeon's knife.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Castrato (708 words)

	[No title]
		It is unknown when castrati were first used in church choirs, though there is some evidence that castrati may have been used as early as the fourth century AD in Rome, and in the twelfth century AD a man named Theodore Balsamone (himself possibly a eunuch) wrote a treatise in defense of eunuchs.
		Previous to the castrati, children or falsettists were used in women's roles, but the boys were too young to convey the expression essential to the performance of baroque music, and the falsettists voices too strident to properly convey female roles.
		One anecdote tells of a castrati who dressed as a woman in order to have an affair with the lady of the house, only to be harassed by the husband so much that the castrati had his protectors kill the man, lest the man find out his secret.
	www.angelfire.com /wa/tankgirl1/castrati.html (1970 words)

	glbtq >> arts >> Castrati
		Castrati (singular form: castrato) were male singers who were castrated before they reached puberty so as to retain their high voices.
		It was, moreover, exploitative; castrati were usually poor boys, often orphans, and the operation itself was of dubious legality.
		Castrati were not necessarily homosexual, although many seem to have conducted affairs with either sex or both.
	www.glbtq.com /arts/castrati.html (826 words)

	Castrati history
		The arms and legs of many castrati were unusually long as compared to the torso (the long bones never stopped growing), which made them look distorted.
		Many of the castrati’s well-documented personality disorders were a direct result of their disfigurement, as well as their inability to lead normal sex lives.
		Castrati tended to be fat, volatile, conceited, and almost impossible to get along with.
	wa.essortment.com /castratihistory_rzna.htm (1061 words)

	Guardian Unlimited \| Arts \| Castrati had more fun than you might think
		Pope Clement VIII admitted castrati into the papal choir in 1599, quoting as justification St Paul's directive: "Let women be silent in the churches." Presumably St Paul would have been satisfied with boys, but Clement VIII had been captivated by the castrati's "angel voices".
		Castrati were known for the virtuosita spiccata (where they separated the notes in the trills) and the messa di voce, where they started a note pianissimo, inflated it to a climax and then let it very slowly die away.
		In 1753 the scholar Laurisio Tragiense derided "the insolence of the castrati...
	www.guardian.co.uk /arts/edinburgh2002/story/0,12262,769385,00.html (1399 words)

	USRF - The Voice of the Castrato
		The manner in which the castrati appeared to their audiences can be judged from our clinical experience of eunuchoidism due to spontaneous primary hypogonadism.
		A tallness of stature, which was unusual in the 18th century, was commented upon by contemporary writers and was due to failure of the epiphyses to close at puberty, thereby allowing the unopposed action of growth hormone and other growth factors.
		Although their sexual performance may have been deficient, some castrati maintained their libido (Tenducci actually married), and women were comforted by the fact that any dalliance would not result in embarrassing pregnancies.
	www.usrf.org /news/010308-jenkins_lancet.html (2855 words)

	CASTRATI WERE THE SUPERSTARS OF CENTURIES GONE BY!
		As a result, castrati had the high voice of a boy soprano but the lung power of a grown man. Because the Church always gathered pre-puberty boys to sing high parts in chorals during service (women were not allowed to participate), the finest boy sopranos were hand picked by the masters of Church music.
		Castrati are as far away from being gays as ordinary young singers studying at the conservatory) one will discover that the castrato voice did not reach 'above G5'.
		Castrati survived a while longer on the continent, at catholic electorates, kingdoms of Germany and at the Vatican, until 1922.
	www.opera-gems.com /reflections/castrati.htm (1334 words)

	Castrati Music Web Links (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Urological Sciences Research Foundation: Castrati Singers of Italy - Article about the use of castrated male singers for singing alto in church choirs during 17th and 18th century Italy.
		Boy Choir Costumes - History of the castrati and their influence on music from antiquity through the banning of the practice in 1903.
		Castrati The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.
	www.searchmusicnetwork.com /History_Castrati.html (1852 words)

	PsixE
		As well as affecting the voice, castrati were characterised by their lack of an Adam's apple, because the larynx did not descend to lower the voice, and an almost complete lack of body hair.
		If two well-known castrati were performing in the same opera, an impresario had to ensure that they were both equally represented in terms of the number of arias each sang, the character they represented, and even their placement on the stage.
		Although not all castrati behaved in such a manner, and indeed fast friendships were often formed between the castrati, the archetype was well enough established that it was attacked in public satires.
	www.ucalgary.ca /applied_history/tutor/popculture/PsixE.html (3184 words)

	THE CASTRATI («SKOPTSY») SECT IN RUSSIA: HISTORY, TEACHING AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		The founder of the Castrati sect was a peasant from the district of Oryel, Kondraty Selivanov.
		The Castrati from the town of Saratov often said that they had no need of the churches: their own bodies as the place where the Holy Trinity dwelled were the better temples then the ordinary churches.
		Poeziya i proza sibirskih skoptsov [Poetry and prose of the Siberian Castrati].
	etor.h1.ru /castrati.html (7529 words)

	When Castration Was Normal (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Most castrati could become erect and ejaculate, but their come consisted solely of prostate fluid with no sperm.
		While the Church railed against cross-dressing as a cause of sodomy, castrati were courted and kept by priests and cardinals, who perhaps found it easier to tolerate their desires for men in the guise of women.
		Castrati were worshipped by their societies, but were also taken for granted: They were so much a part of their culture that none of their contemporaries thought to study them as an extraordinary phenomenon.
	www.radix.net /~dalila/singers/castrato-normal.html (684 words)

	Untitled (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		In spite of the wide acceptance of castrati, the act of emasculation was, and remained, a criminal offense punishable by the civil authority and by excommunication.
		In the castrati, this did not happen and so they developed disproportionately long and gangling arms and legs relative to their torso length, a body form called the "eunuchoid appearance".
		This appearance led to their being mercilessly pilloried by the wits and caricaturists of the day, and one may well imagine that, except for the satisfaction of their art and high salaries, their lives were filled with physical and emotional misery.
	www.physics.uoguelph.ca /summer/scor/articles/scor191.htm (589 words)

	boys choir costumes : history castriati (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		The castrati were embraced by Italian opera which during the Baroque era swept Europe as the Church began to expressed increased reservations about the practice, eventually prohibiting it.
		Castrati is the plural form of castrato, Italian for "castrated," or "one who is castrated," and yes it is true that if a boy is castrated before puberty his voice will always remain high-pitched.
		The triumph of the castrati was relatively short-lived.
	histclo.hispeed.com /act/choir/hist/choir-histcas.html (4576 words)

	Carlson_1 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		My research into castrati singers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries presents a particular challenge vis-à-vis the recovery of past bodies; specifically, the challenge revolves around the difficulty of rendering the castrato body intelligible within present-day conceptions of sexual difference.
		The first historical records of castrati—males castrated before puberty in order to preserve their high singing voices—appear near the end of the sixteenth century, when several are listed as performers in the private chapels of the Italian nobility.
		My research suggests that the decline in popularity of castrati coincides with a gradual shift in the conception of sexual difference during the eighteenth century.
	home.earthlink.net /%7Emarlacarlson/sikes_1.htm (796 words)

	Castrati in Italian Opera (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Yet if one thing is clear about castrati it is that most of them were church singers, who might or might not sing from time to time in opera.
		By the early seventeenth century there were castrati employed all over Italy as the court singers of ruling princes, in chamber or chapel or both.
		This value may have lain in an association with youth: in opera, castrati were to sing the parts of young heroes.
	www.radix.net /~dalila/singers/castrato-italian.html (1895 words)

	Countertenor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Countertenors are often used today in baroque operas with parts originally written for castrati - a voice type which, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists.
		Regrettably, the part of the countertenor has been one long accused of being a somehow "false" or "unwholesome" voice because it utilizes falsetto technique.
		Because Castrati are extinct and the percentage of natural countertenors is very, very low, nearly the only way for a male to sing countertenor is to utilize their developed falsetto.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Countertenor (1210 words)

	Reflections in d minor (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		The Church is sometimes blamed for initiating the practice of castrating young boys to prevent their voices from changing but castrati actually existed centuries earlier, mostly in Eastern cultures.
		Castrati became popular in secular music during the Baroque era and had a significant influence on the music of that era and later because of the singers’ demands for difficult music to show off their vituosic skills.
		Though their voices remained high-pitched throughout their adult lives, with maturity and training castrati developed the kind of powerful voices possible only for singers having the lung capacity of full grown men.
	www.aeternam626.com /oldblogs/13jun02_1037.html (309 words)

	CASTRATI
		The golden age of castrati lasted for two centuries, from the beginning of the 17th Century to the dawn of the 19th Century.
		The usual explanation given to justify the use of castrati was that women were forbidden to sing in church choirs or theatres in the papal states.
		For the handful of castrati of which 18th Century Europe and Italy in particular were so proud, many young boys were mutilated and many lives possibly ruined.
	www.spe.sony.com /classics/farinelli/about/fcastrati.html (695 words)

	Directory - Arts: Music: History: Castrati (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Urological Sciences Research Foundation: Castrati Singers of Italy · cached · Article about the use of castrated male singers for singing alto in church choirs during 17th and 18th century Italy.
		Boy Choir Costumes · cached · History of the castrati and their influence on music from antiquity through the banning of the practice in 1903.
		Castrati and Countertenors · iweb · Chat and forums for people who love the high male voice.
	www.incywincy.com /default?p=5852875 (139 words)

	Carne: Tutte le informazioni su Carne su Encyclopedia.it (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Sono i bovini di 3-4 anni (manzo è anche il bovino femmina che non ha mai partorito), castrati per farli ingrassare prima ottenendo così una carne migliore.
		Sono bovini castrati di oltre quattro anni e mezzo.
		Anche se la loro carne è di qualità ottima, sta scomparendo dal mercato, perchè nessun agricoltore usa più buoi per il lavoro nei campi, per cui il bestiame viene macellato molto prima di raggiungere questa età.
	www.encyclopedia.it /c/ca/carne.html (582 words)

	BBC - h2g2 - Castrati in Opera - A590348
		The castrati were male singers, picked out as boys, with exceptional voices.
		Their high soprano or alto voices were preserved by an operation when they were between the ages of seven and ten; various methods were used, but the most common was to sever the spermatic ducts, causing the testes to atrophy.
		Composers no longer gave their heroes soprano or alto voices, and the castrati began to disappear from the operatic stage by the 1820s.
	www.bbc.co.uk /dna/h2g2/classic/A590348 (839 words)

	Voice Definitions and Ranges
		Castrati first appear in the late 16th century in Spain, but the practice of castration to obtain fine voices took root mainly in Italy, where it remained until the mid-19th century.
		Castrati were basically employed as substitutes for boys to sing the high parts in sacred polyphony; at least, that is where most castrati found employment.
		Of course these ranges only represent averages, and there is the added problem that the castrati ranges come from contemporary evidence, and it is not clear what pitch people were thinking of when naming ranges, so you may have to move the ranges down a semitone or two.
	www.medieval.org /emfaq/misc/voices.html (1397 words)

	Curiosity Shop
		The solution was found in the use of castrati, males who were castrated around age 10 so that as adults, they possessed a boy’s high voice supported by the power of an adult body.
		The most famous of the castrati was Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) who sang with great agility and power, and who reportedly had a range that reached the high F (above the soprano staff).
		Eventually, the castrati fell from their position as virtual gods, but their vocal legacy remains even today among singers in the bel canto tradition.
	www.bassocantante.com /opera/curiosity.html (1489 words)

	Farinelli
		Castrati were virtuoso musicians, exceptionally talented and trained.
		Castrati were particularly known for their unique timbre: because of the surgery performed on them, their voice did not change with puberty.
		Furthermore, castrati were initially selected among the best singers and received intensive training.
	www.medieval.org /emfaq/misc/farinelli.htm (932 words)

	Castrati Arts, Directory (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Boy Choir Costumes History of the castrati and their influence on music from antiquity through the banning of the practice in 1903.
		Urological Sciences Research Foundation: Castrati Singers of Italy Article about the use of castrated male singers for singing alto in church choirs during 17th and 18th century Italy.
		Castrati and Countertenors Chat and forums for people who love the high male voice.
	www.ekta-parishad.org /ZXBhXzU4NTI4NzU%3d.aspx (150 words)

	Castrato
		Carlo was to leave his accumulated fortune to his nephews (the closest thing to sons he had) and the paid servants who looked after him toward the end of his life.
		The modern ressurection of the operas and arias written for the Castrati, performed by rare male sopranos, female sopranos and countertenors, may be one step to help preserve their story.
		After getting such a warm reception to this topic (after all, so many of us who are Castrati had little choice in the matter, and those who did have good reasons for having it done so I have found) I have personally been far less uncomfortable discussing the topic around people.
	myhome.naver.com /malesoprano/castrato.htm (1335 words)

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