Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli sings Baroque works and has a 2009 Grammy
Award-winning album "Sacrificium," in which she sings works originally
intended to be performed by castrati.
Grammy for Sacrificium | Cecilia Bartoli
ceciliabartolionline.com/grammy-for-sacrificium/
BBC - Music - Review of Cecilia Bartoli - Sacrificium http://bbc.in/mX5lBs
J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab. 2000;13 Suppl 6:1503-8.
The lost voice: a history of the castrato.
Abstract
Under
the influence of testicular secretion, the male vocal cords increase in
length by 67% in adult men compared with prepubertal boys, whereas in
the female the increase is only 24%. This greater length and an increase
in vocal cord mass is responsible for the lowering of pitch of the male
voice during puberty. From the late 16th century, castration was
carried out in Italy to preserve the unbroken male voice into adult
life, but the high pitch was accompanied by fully grown resonating
chambers and a large thoracic capacity, giving rise to the unique voice
of the castrato. The initial stimulus for the production of castrati
came from the Sistine Chapel in Rome, to provide singers for the complex
church music of the time. The second reason was the coming of opera to
Italy at the beginning of the 17th century. Boys were castrated between
the ages of 7 and 9 years, and underwent a long period of voice
training. A small number became international opera stars, of whom the
most famous was Farinelli, whose voice ranged over three octaves. By the
end of the 18th century, fashions in opera had changed so that the
castrati declined except in the Vatican, where the Sistine Chapel
continued to employ castrati until 1903. The last of the castrati was
Alessandro Moreschi, who died in 1924 and made gramophone recordings
that provide the only direct evidence of a castrato's singing voice.
- PMID:
- 11202227
- [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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