The age of the castratos was one of the most dazzling and remarkable in European music history. Seldom has there ever been such a complete fusion of sensuousness and splendour, form and content, poetry and music, and, above all, such a perfection of vocal virtuosity, as was achieved in the glory days of the Baroque era.
The legendary art of the castratos continues to exert its fascination even today, and, despite the great human sacrifice it exacted, a new assessment of this extraordinary period is surely justified.
For over two hundred years in the musical capitals of Europe, it was unthinkable to do without the virtuosity of the omnipresent castratos: men who, in early youth, had been surgically robbed of their sexuality, and thus of their identity and emotional equilibrium, as well as any chance of leading a “normal” life, by those dedicated to creating musical instruments of unprecedented beauty out of mutilated boys.
In order to recreate the sound of that world for today’s listeners, we must resort to a little theatrical trickery and make modern interpreters (of both sexes) assume the musical guise of castratos. Thus several exponents of the flourishing early music scene, and especially countertenors, have produced valuable documents about a number of these figures (including Senesino and Carestini). Women’s voices, too, now regularly appropriate the repertoire of these artists who sang in the soprano and alto range, but paradoxically, even in the heyday of the great castratos, it was widely held that female singers, with their particular vocal capabilities, were worthy competitors:
“Thus, for example, I believed that no woman’s voice in the world could compare with those of Farinelli or Caffarelli; and yet here before me, blooming and dazzling in her sumptuous beauty, is the living refutation of that view” (Wilhelm Heinse, 1795).
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View extracts from the 108 page Castrato Compendium from the Limited Edition version of Sacrificium.
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