Castrato

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A castrato (plural: castrati) was a type of singer that was very popular in the early days of opera. Castrato is an Italian word that means “castrated”. A castrato was a man who sang soprano. Most of the main soprano roles in operas by Handel and other composers of that time were written for castrati. Nowadays they are always sung by female sopranos because we do not have castrato singers.

The horrible practice of castrating young boys who had good singing voices was quite common in Italy in the 17th century. Castration is an operation in which the sex organ which will make a boy become a man is removed. When the boy grows up he will not be able to have children. The vocal chords will not thicken so that his voice will not break as it normally does with boys in their teens. He will continue to have a high voice for the rest of his life. Castration was illegal in many parts of Italy, but there were plenty of people who would perform the operation secretly. The reason why parents let their children be castrated was probably the same as the reason that parents in some parts of the world still sell their children today: they are desperately poor and people promise them that this is a way to give their child a brilliant future.

Once a boy was castrated he would go to a special music school where children learned singing and musical instruments. The castrati pupils were given special treatment. They were fussed over and kept warm to stop them from getting colds. When they grew up they hoped to become famous opera singers. A few of them had very successful careers in opera. They were the great stars of their day, and audiences came to the opera to cheer on their favourite singers. Those who were not good enough to make a career in opera joined church choirs instead.

It is impossible now for us to know what these great castrato voices sounded like, but they must have had very powerful voices and many of the singers were very skilled in singing and adding musical ornamentation to the songs. In the 18th century Italian opera became very popular in England. This was largely due to the German-born composer George Frideric Handel who moved to England in 1709 and wrote lots of Italian operas. Many singers who sang in London came from Italy, and a lot of them were castrati. The most famous one was called Farinelli.

The popularity of castrato singers died out in the 19th century when operas became less artificial and more like real life. By the mid-19th century they were no opera castrati left, although a few castrati still sang in church choirs. The last one, a man called Alessandro Moreschi, died in 1922 aged 64. There is a recording of his voice made in 1902 which can be heard online, but he may not have been a good singer and he was old when he made the recording, so we cannot judge whether the castrato voice was beautiful by that recording.

See also: Breeches role

External reference: http://www.archive.org/details/AlessandroMoreschi