The Last Castrato

[soso]

The is a story on BBC about Alessandro Moreschi, the last of the Castratos from Italy. He died in 1922.

During the 18th and 19th century, up to 4000 boys a year had their testicles removed in order to stop their voices from breaking and (hopefully) kickstart a glittering carreer as an opera superstar.

The practice was eventually outlawed by the italian govenment in 1870.

In 1902, employees of the Grammophone company travelled to Rome and recorded the voice of Alessandro Moreschi singing in the Sistine Chapel, where he was the "resident" Castrato. The is a link to the original Audio recording on that website. It sounds absolutely surreal.

Moreschi was the only Castrato ever to have his voice recorded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4853432.stm

[Byakhiam]

He sounds really much like a female.

[Sinmara]

yeah was listening to it a few days ago - a cat sounds better than that... I hope he was a bad example of castrati!

[soso]

This from www.medieval.org, who are distributing the 17 track CD:

"The quality of the recording is as one would expect from those years. The music that was recorded is not terribly interesting either. All the composers on the program (except Victoria, Palestrina and Mozart) are 19th century composers. The value of the recording is its uniqueness. The voice is clearly in the soprano range. It is not a great voice, and the technique is either bad or marred by the habits of the time (in particular an abundance of portamento and scoops in the attacks of notes, which can be excruciating). But its timbre is very striking, with the ambiguity that one expects, and it is most intriguing in the high notes.

One should not, however, look at this recording as evidence on the castrati of the 18th century. Moreschi was as far from Farinelli as we are from, say, Rossini. The last castrato to sing on stage, Velutti, had retired 30 years before Moreschi's birth. As his repertoire and technique show, he belongs to the world of late 19th century religious music, not Baroque opera. Whether due to the recording technique or (more likely) to Moreschi's own voice, one learns nothing about the phenomenal strength, agility and holding power that were celebrated qualities of operatic castrati. What remains from this recording is a haunting quality of voice that is clearly unlike anything else."

I though it was a fascinating story.

How long until VNV Nation sample this recording..?

[Antagonist]

do VNV do anything interesting??

[soso]

do VNV do anything interesting??

No.

Woof!