Castrati in Italian opera

Definition

A castrato is a male soprano or alto produced as a result of castration before puberty. The castrato voice was known to be flexibility, powerful, and of great range^[1].

The larynx of the castrated does not undergo the usual puberty changes which allows a singing mechanism as would a boy soprano/alto. V. E. Negus (1966) explained that,

“Although the voice of the castrato had a high pitch, the quality was of a characteristic type and did not necessarily conform closely to that of a boy. The rest of the body apart from the larynx shows a greater development in eunuchs than in normal men. The capacity of the lungs and the force of expiration are equal to, if not greater than, that of a mature man, so that the power of the voice of the castrato was very great.^[2]”

It is also believed that the castrato voice is much closer to the female voice than of a countertenor voice with little falsetto used. “Falsetto” was referred to as “false” in the baroque era, which was used to describe the countertenor voice (L. E. DeMarco, 2002)^[3]. Even though Handel would evidently replace the castrato with a female singer if one had fallen ill^[2:1], there are still drastic differences of the castrato voice to the others. As observed by the French writer, Charles de Brosses (1709-1777), in comparing the castrati to the female sopranos of his country:

“One must become accustomed to the voices of castrati in order to enjoy them. Their timbre is as clear and piercing as that of choirboys and much more powerful; they appear to sing an octave above the natural voice of women. Their voices are something dry and harsh, quite different from the softness of women; but they are brilliant, full of sparkle, loud and with a very wide range.^[4]”

Figure 1 “Caricature of a castrato” by an unkown artist, illustrating the extreme physicalities of castrati. Pietr O. Scholz “Eunuch and Castrati: A Cultural History. ^[5]

History

The tradition of using castrati singers started in the church setting - it began in the mid-16th century with the ban of using women in church and died down in the 19th century when castration was made illegal in 1861 and further enforced when Pope Leo XIII banned the church from hiring them in 1878. Castrato was not formally appeared until the late 16th century, although there was already evidence of castrati before so – the Sistine had the first, a Spaniard entered the choir in 1562^[6]. Even though the ban of women in church might seem the most significant factor for the practice of using castrati, the preference on the sound of castrati might indeed be the more accurate reason, as boy sopranos and “falsetto” singers could easily replace the high voices if range were the concern.

Castrati were divided into the soprano castrato and the alto castrato, accordingly to their vocal range. The most famous castrato of all time has to be Carlo Broschi (known Farinelli), a soprano castrato, and the alto castrato, Francesco Bernardi (known as Senesino), whom Handel employed most^[3:1].

Although there isn’t any living references of these famous castrati, their vocal range, virtuosity and breath control could still be determined through the music composed specifically, which some had shown a range of over three octaves with extreme coloratura and long passages with no breath in-between^[7]. For example, the aria of Arbace from “Artaserse” composed by Riccardo Broschi for his brother, Farinelli, displayed a range from B2 to B5 with passages of highly virtuosic colouratura (see score: Son qual nave ch’agitata by Riccardo Broschi). Even though no ornamentation and embellishment was written out, singers at the time were expected to improvise on the spot in displaying their virtuosity, in which Farnelli was notably famous for. We can take the modern interpretation of Cecilia Bartoli of her attempt to recreate the legacy of the great castrato through her album “Farinelli” as a reference, where she augmented the music with virtuosic embellishments: Cecilia Bartoli, Sacrificium - Riccardo Broschi: Son Qual Nave

The rise of castrati in Italian opera

Although castrati singers had been a staple amongst chapels and monasteries from the 16th century, it wasn’t until the early 17th century to see the rise of castrati singers in theatre. It was regarded as indignity under a non-Christian setting and was believed that to work alongside women shall bring out their erotic sides. In fact, “Every castrato singer was held to be infamous” was a well-travelled gossip in Venice at the time when three of the highly regarded Naples royal chapel’s castrati refused to take part in an opera for their reputation (J. Rosselli, 1988). Singing in public theatre was often received as mercenary and ungodly^[6:1].

The ban of female in theatre in Rome later in the early 17th century had resulted in using castrati singers for female roles in opera^[4:1]. Castrati were dominating the stage of Italian opera in the 17th – 18th century, for their volume, timbre, range, breath, and peculiar looks. A network of theatres had also developed, which implicated the greater possibility of meeting monarchical and noble patrons. The much higher fees offered by the secular market compared to the churches had also led to the change or shift of career patterns amongst castrati from the late 17th century. For example, there were six or seven public opera houses in the front line of competition, that nearly all members of the chapel St Mark’s had also sung in Venice opera seasons at the time (J. Rosselli, 1988)^[6:2]. The keen competition that had therefore been created between churches and theatres had made castrati more demandable and glorified.

However, what truly made castrati singers the super stars was the rise of the genre, opera seria. John S. Jenkins (2010) stated that the rise and fall of castrati was closely paralleled to the popularity of opera seria^[8]. Opera seria is the noble and serious style of Italian opera that predominated the European musical scene in the 18th century, in which the middle of the 18th century of its peak. The “unreal” nature of the castrato voice was considered best suited for the mythical legends and gods centered plots. The Da Capo aria format allowed them to display their virtuosity in extravagant ornamentations, which was only possible through the nature of a castrato’s great chest capacity, range, agility, and power. The most powerful and voluminous voice was a remark of the critics of the time on a performance of Giovanni Manzuoli (1725-72) in London^[8:1]. The large and powerful voice had made them irreplaceable to many composers. For instance, to Handel, a castrato must not be replaced by a small-voiced soprano or mezzo-soprano, indicating the large volume as one of the main characteristics of castrati (L. E. DeMarco, 2002)^[3:2].

The influence of castrati on Italian opera

The enthusiasm for the castrati at the time was so hyped that “Evviv il costello!” (“Love live the knife”) was a common cry from the audience to express their love for the singers. For example, Manzuoli was hired for the opening of the Italian opera season at the King’s Theatre in London in 1764, in which he was paid £1500 and 1000 guineas for a single benefit performance (these values would be multiplied at least 150 times of present currency)^[8:2].

The leading castrati in the early 18th century such as Nicolino, Farinelli, and Caffarelli played the biggest role in establishing the fame of castrati for being incredibly virtuoso^[6:3]. These castrati stars had great influence on the virtuosic nature of the compositions of their contemporary composers. The castrati voices were blueprints for many opera seria as composers at the time often wrote for particular voices. Mozart’s first opera seria was commissioned by the Milan authority in which he had to compose for no less than three castrati out of a cast of seven^[8:3]. In the same year Mozart met Manzuoli in London at the age of 8, he was offered singing lessons by the master himself, which undoubtedly had influenced his composition from then on. Similiarly, Handel had created a remarkable number of roles for castrati, especially for his favorite alto castrato, Senesino.

The fall of castrati from the 19th century

Although the banning of castrati from the opera stage in French happened in 1796 ^[6:4], the offical ban of using castrati in the Sistine Chapel was not enforced until 1903 by Pope Pius X. However, the decline of castrati in Italian opera had already begun from the early 19th century with the shift of idealism to naturalism in both the contexts of the opera trend and the biology of the singers.

In contrast to the extravagent ‘unworldly’ style of opera seria, the ‘beautiful similicity’ ^[9] that Gluck successfully brought to the opera scene in the late 18th century through “Orfeo ed Euridice” was the beginning of the fall of the heavily embellished style the castrati singers specialised in.

“The ‘ideal voice’ had shifted since the early century: where once this voice was prized for its pure, mythological, static, disembodied and universal character (as for the castrato), now it became grainy, powerful, bodily and individual (as for the prima donna). The basics had apparently chaneged: when singers sang, they no longer echoed some absolute emotion or some moral, ideal or mimetic state; or at least not always. Rather, they expressed principally themselves - their changing inner selves and their own mental and material physiognomies - from deep within” - Davis (2005)

The ‘subhuman’ voice of the castrati was no longer prefered in composer’s point of view from Mozart’s opera buffa to the rise of Bel Canto operas of Rossini, Bellini Donizetti etc, as the trend in opera had shifted from the celetrial seria to a more down-to-earth musical style. This had resulted in the drastic decline in hiring castrati in opera as the unworldly nature of their voices became unnecessary in these plots. Not only had the castrato voice fallen out of fashion in the opera trend, the unnaturalness of a castrato’s biolody also become the direct association of their failure on stage at the time, for instance, this review on Balani’s singing in the late 18th century:

“This man [Balani] was born without any visible signs of those parts which are taken out on castration; an opinion, which was even confirm by his voice… One day, he exerted himself so uncommonly in singing an arietta, that all of a sudden those parts, which had so long been concealed by nature, dropped into their proper place. The singer at this very instant lost his voice, which became even perceptible in the same performance, and with it he lost every prospect of a future subsistence.” - Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, A Picture of Italy (1765) ^[4:2]

Even Giovanni Battista Velluti, the last “great” castrato who publicly sang until 1830 was criticised for his momentary crackings by critics in London, which often led to laughters in the audience as opposed to “Evviv il costello!” in the previous century. We might question if it was truly the failure of the castrati themselves that sabotaged the entire reputation or simply the nature of the castrato voice that the audience had grown out of. Velluti’s style of “sliding” or “dragging” one note to another was in fact a stylistic choice that became unfamiliar to the modern ears^[10]. The piercing sound and style of singing of that a castrato the critics once died for in the last two centuries, was ‘now’ loathed in the 19th century. The castrati had slowly died down as the audience evolved with their musical taste alongside the inhuman nature of the castration practice, which eventually was banned across Europe later on.

The last castrato

The last castrato we had and fortunately recorded was Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922), who served as a chorister in the Sistine Chapel for 30 years before his passing. In this recording, we could hear the general characteristics of the castrati voice explained in history - clear and piercing, a solid range that from G#4 to A5 in the piece with a strong chest presence in the high as oppose to falsetto singers. The “sliding” and “dragging” from note to note were also extremely prominent in his style of singing, in which we despise in modern days’ practice. Nonetheless, we must not forget that not only was Moreschi never an operatic singer, he also died the same day the recording was made at the age of 64 ^[11], that this could only represent so little of the castrati in their glorious days.

Link to the youtube video of Alessandro Moreschi singing Ave Maria in 1922

References