The Role of Castrati in Opera Rebeeea Warfel Music History I] December 5, 2016In today’s Europe, the practice of turning a young boy into a castrato would constitute such an immense evil that such a procedure would not be condoned, During the Baroque and Classical era, however, the castrati were viewed in a much different manner. By definition, a castrato isa male who, at a young age, underwent a procedure to remove the testicles. The result was a man who did not undergo the physical changes that occur during puberty (Rosselli) Pete! During the Baroque era and, to a lesser extent, the Classical era, this was done to prevent voice changing so that the male singer could retain a soprano voice. To be successful, this procedure had to be performed when the person was very young (Rosselli). Although some sources state that children had to request the procedure themselves, the boys would have been so young that, by today’s standards, they could not have had a full understanding of the implications of ge MeGact becoming a castrato. In this way, creating castrati was actually a somewhat accepted form of “aglaathen genital mutilation. In the past, however, this was done for a range of reasons. Among them were income for the family, a favorable career for their child, and even eventual fame for the castrato. Whi le the process of creating a castrato may seem barbarous and cruel today, many people of the Baroque and Classical era accepted and condoned it. ‘The castration procedure that was employed to create a castrato involved placing the boy in a bath full of warm water. The purpose of this was, as practitioners of the day understood it, to “soften the parts and render them more manipulable and prone to disintegrate” (Clapton, 2008, 10). The ducts that connected the testicles to the body were then severed by a knife. Over time, the testicles would wither and they would eventually disappear entirely. In this type of castration, only the testicles were removed. In this manner, castrati were not completely castrated because the phallus was left intact (Heriot, 1956, 44). This procedure could be quite dangerous for the boys because of the methods that were used to render them unconscious. Two main methodsx (om at y were used to achieve this end, One method was to interrupt blood flow to the brain by using pressure to block the carotid artery. The timing was very important here because if the practitioner blocked the artery for even a few seconds too long, the boy could die. The other method was to use opium, or another narcotic substance, to drug the boy into unconsciousness This was not a safe practice either because using too much opium would cause a potentially deadly overdose (Clapton, 2008, 10). Typically, castrati did not belong to wealthy families. They usually came from families who only had modest incomes. James Heriot, the author of The Castrati in Opera, explains this simply by s yying “Only those in fairly pressing need of money would have consented to the mutilation of their children” (Heriot, 1956, 38). The practice was not absent from the upper class, however. Families that owned land and who had multiple children would sometimes have one of their younger sons made into a castrato, This would render him incapable of having children of his own and would simplify land distribution among the ildre . The family land would not have to be divided to support the young son’s would-be wife and children (Somerset-Ward, 2004, 63-64), A successful castrato could earn a generous amount of money. This possibility encouraged less wealthy families to have their sons castrated. If the boy grew to be successful, the family could hope he would support them financially in their later years (Heriot, 1956, 38). The chances of a castrato being successful, however, were low. According to Richard Somerset- Ward, author of Angels & Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera, only about one in every hundred castrati became wealthy. Only ten or fifteen out of a hundred were even able to make enough to support themselves and send money back home (Somerset-Ward, 2004, 63). To impoverished families, however, these odds were seen to be worth the risk (Heriot,1956, 38). Some families simply sold their sons to a teacher or conservatory to receive money nmediately, Other families provided their sons with what money they could gather to give him a higher quality musical course of instruction (Heriot, 1956, 38). As a result, young castrati were often separated from their families at a young age. Some of them lost contact with their families entirely and, upon reaching adulthood, did not know who their parents even were. Many castrati who knew they came from poor families were ashamed of their parentage and would avoid admitting that they came from humble backgrounds. Even if their parents had them made into a castrato with the intention of having their son support them and their son was a success, there was no guarantee that the castrato would choose to support, or even acknowledge, his family after what had been done to him (Heriot, 1956, 38-39). Life for young castrati in musical conservatories was not always a pleasant experience, hhe conservatories in Naples were the most renowned for the training of castrati. They were originally meant to educate poor children as a charitable endeavor, but they eventually were turned into musical conservatories instead. They experienced financial hardship during the mid- seventeenth century and, in order to remedy this, they sold the services of their musical pupils. Often, they would have the students employed as pallbearers during funeral masses, These schools also began to accept boys who were not castrati for a tuition charge (Heriot, 1954, 40- 41). In these schools that taught both castrati and uncastrated boys, the castrati were treated differently from their peers. Discipline for all students was rigorously strict, but castrati had special privileges, like private areas to practice. The other boys had to practice their singing in a single, crowded room (Heriot, 1954, 44-45). In at least one of the schools in Naples, Onoftio, the castrati were given warmer sleeping quarters than the other pupils. The reason for this was that their teachers” worried they could become ill and lose their voices temporarily or“i, Rg "" f { wl (a ae eye permanently. The castrati students were seen to be more fragile than the other boys, so the castrati received preferential treatment (Heriot, 1954, 45). In addition to being considered more fragile, the castrati could have been considered more valu: le to the school. During the Baroque period, most important male vocal roles were given to castrati, so these students were more likely to achieve fame and to bring renown to their school (Bonds, 2013, 233-237). Although their physical needs were meant and even provided for in excess, the schooling that the young castrati received did not do much to comfort them mentally. They were consistently set aside from their ordinary peers and were certainly made to feel ferent during their education. Young castrati also had to face the ridicule and teasing of their classmates, especially those classmates were jealous of the preferential treatment that the castrati received from their teachers (Heriot, 1954, 45). The result of these psychological stresses was that many castrati ran away from the schools that they studied in. Their classmates rarely fled the schools, although some may have been expelled for being poor students. The fact that only castrati commonly ran away is a sign of the psychological hardship that they faced during their conservatory years (Heriot, 1954, 45). Normally, a castrato would leave the conservatory to perform in operas when he was between fifteen and twenty years old. His first role would typically be a female part which, due to the physical changes brought on by his castration, he would be able to play convincingly. If he performed well, the audience would praise him excessively and would even toss flowers to him. It would not be unlikely for him to entirely overshadow the other performers on the stage by the end of the opera (Heriot, 1954, 51-52), As the castrati aged and became more popular, male roles would be given to them, However, they would still be well received even as female characters. Goethe spoke of castrati in female roles by saying “The young men have studied the properties of the female sex in its being and behavior; they know them thoroughly and reproduce them likean artist; they represent not themselves, but a nature absolutely foreign to them” (Clapton, 2008, 43), In addition to the raucous praise of the audience after their performances, successful castrati could expect a generous salary for each opera they performed in, They made more money for their season’s performances than the composer of the opera. For example, Senesino, a castrato who performed in Naples during the year 1738, earned 3,693 ducats while the composer of the opera received 200 ducats. Other singers who performed in the same company eared between 600 and 1,108 ducats each. While castrati could earn more than the leading female role in an opera, they were often comparable. Certainly, however, castrati eared more than their uncastrated male counterparts (Heriot, 1954, 67) ice that created While talented castrati were highly praised operatic performers, the pra them was considered very taboo. Most of the operations were done in Italy and, unsurprisingly, most of the famous castrati were Italian, However, the surgeons that performed these operations practiced in secrecy (Clapton, 2008, 22-23). If one wanted to have their child castrated, finding someone to do the operation was often a frustrating and difficult process that involved asking many people where a surgeon was located and often receiving misdirection from them (Heriot, 1954, 42-43). There were well renowned doctors in Bologna who performed castrations, but even they practiced with caution as the castration of boys was an illegal act (Heriot, 1954, 44). The punishment for the doctor was death and the punishment for everyone else involved in the castration was excommunication from the church (Heriot, 1954, 43). Only when castration was necessitated by an illness or if the boy requested it himself was the act considered to be legal Many boys were purported to have illnesses that required castration when, in fact, their parents simply wanted their perfectly healthy children to become castrati (Heriot, 1954, 42-43). Despitethe penalty of death or excommunication for those who were involved in castrations, the church consistently employed castrati during the Baroque era. Castrati who were not successful in ope ‘would often find employment as a church singer (Heriot, 1954, 52-53). Part of their acceptance into the church'sariisical traditionawas becauseifemalesingers were banned focvaingingin church. Therefore, castrati were necessary if any soprano parts were to be included in sacred singing. Some of the earliest castrati that were employed by the church were Girolamo Rossini and Pietro Paolo Folignato. They were hired in 1599 and received much praise from Pope Clement VIII for their singing abilities (Heriot, 1954, 10-12). Pope Clement VIII went as far as to say that “the creation of castrati for church choirs was to be to the honour of God” (Clapton, 2008, 16-17). The employment of castrati in the church continued throughout the 1700s, although each pope had a somewhat different view on it. Officially, castration was not allowed. However, the church continually hired them. By the 1780s, Rome knowingly employed more than two hundred castrati while women were still banned from singing in church (Heriot, 1954, 2 26). While the castrati certainly were the focus of mixed and hypocritical views from the church, they were also viewed in a hypocritical way by members of the public. The teasing and ridicule that castrati endured did not end when they left the conservatories. The same audience that praised them on the night of a performance would look down on the castrati in everyday life. They were often considered to be vain and arrogant people, prone to outbursts if they did not get their way. Salvator Ros aw them as a representation of everything that he thought was wrong with Italy. Others were made uncomfortable by the castrati’s feminine appearance. Often castr were assumed to be attracted to other men, something that lowered the public’s opinion of them even farther. At the same time, the church forbade castrati from marrying (Heriot, 1954, 52-57).Even when Pope Alexander VII heard that a castrato had impregnated a woman from the court he would not let him marry. Instead, he ordered that the strato should be castrated more fully (Clapton, 2008, 23), Despite the various negative views the public held aj inst castrati in everyday life, these singers were essentially the face of Italian opera seria, They had been used even at the very birth of opera, during the time that Peri and Caceini were helping to bring about the seconda prattica and the first operas (Somerset-Ward, 2004, 65). As opera seria grew as a genre, the castrati grew with it. Although the castrati and opera seria originated in Italy, castrati such as Siface and Pistocchi were internationally famous within Europe (Somerset-Ward, 2004, 65). Castrati were the celebrities of the eighteenth century Europe. Metaphorically speaking, they were the Hollywood movie stars of their time (Heriot, 1954, 13). Most of the important roles in opera seria were written with castrati in mind, Leading male roles were written in the soprano range, not tenor or bass (Bonds, 2013, 236-236). Those voices were saved for minor roles or for characters who were aged men. Males singing in the lower octaves were considered to have inferior voices, so they would not be used for a leading role. In fe 1, part of the problem may have been that tenor and bass singers received the same type of training that sopranos did. It is thought that this could have strained their voices, making them “intolerably rough and coarse” (Heriot, 1954, 32). However, this only further ensured that castrati would be the only men to sing leading male roles in opera seria. Sometimes castrati took the leading female roles as well, as their voices, and their celebrity, were prized so highly (Heriot, 1954, 33). Handel's 1724 opera Giulio Cesare is an example of an opera seria work that cast castrati for many of the main characters. Cesare, Sesto, Tolomeo, and Nireno would have all been playedby castrati (Bonds, 2013, 236-237). Today these roles would be given to female singers or to male countertenors, but when Handel wrote the opera it is certain that he had castrati in mind (Somerset-Ward, 2004, 66). While no high-quality recordings of castrati were ever made, the incredible range that they possessed can be seen by examining works that were written for them, such as Giulio Cesare. Figure | is an example from the fifth scene of this opera where Cesare is singing one of the final arias, The music is written in treble clef and, in this example, Cesare’s line goes from middle C to DS. Arvo eRe, SENAY us ——— q= ie aS ee Aa pS ae Gueltor=renia, cho ca-de del monte, tateablor =m tullnalete - = Qeresjjives eels weer ierteret pt ite F] pes ae eS a Figure 1 Giulio Cesare, George Frederic Handel, mm. 19-379 In Figure 2, Sesto’s part reaches from D4 to GS. SS ee Figure 2 Giulio Cesore, George Frederic Handel, mm, 11-16 Another characteristic of eighteenth century castrati that can be seen in this aria is the extreme technical ability that they possessed. Years studying in conservatories under strict and demanding teachers allowed castrati to become extremely virtuosic vocalists. The castrati’s arias from Giulio Cesare are full of quick melismas the ones in the previous two examples, However, there are also slower melismas that use vocal techniques like tills as in Figure 3: ‘nee eg eoe w Z Figure 3 Giulio Cesare, George Frederic Handel, mm. 48-58 Castrati saw the height of their popularity between 1700 and 1750. Although they were still used after 1750, they, and opera seria, were no longer the main focus of opera. After 1730, opera buffa became a major competitor to opera sera. Generally, castrati were not used in the genre of opera buffa (Somerset-Ward, 2004, 64-65). Instead, basses and tenors finally got a chance to win the meaningful roles that they were denied in opera seria (Bonds, 2013, 336). It is, not entirely accurate to say that castrati were never used in opera buffa, but itis true that their role in that genre was nowhere near as large as their role in opera seria. Castrati would sometimes take female roles in opera buffi, especially in areas where women were not permittedon the opera stage. However, opera buffar was certainly not reliant on castrati in the way that opera seria was (Heriot, 1954, 17). Eventually, as opera seria declined, the castrati did as well Operatic reform, paired with an increased government effort to prevent and punish castration, eventually signaled the end of the castrati (Heriot, 1954, 35). Most of the castrati had passed away by the 1850s, While the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, did not die until 1922, he was born after the prime of the castrati and lived for his entire life as an oddity (Bonds, 2013, 237). Although the creation of a castrato through the mutilation of a young child would be an unspeakable act today, a large number of operatic works depended on them, Opera seria as an entire genre could not have possibly been the same had the castrati never existed. And because opera seria was a major influence on other operatic genres, such as French and English opera, can be argued that castrati were important to those genres too. If opera seria had been different because castrati never existed, those genres would have developed differently as well. During the 1700s, the creation of a castrato could be defended by the possibilities the boy would have had because of the operation, He would have had a chance at a promising career, fame, and profit if he could be successful as a castrato. To many families, the gamble that their son would achieve these things made his castration a worthwhile sacrifice. The creation of castrati is certainly one of the darkest practices that has ever existed in music history, but it is also an extremely important one. pee jb! yay pee je be ald pore. Avsussy'eo ox ae opeulffe poles Japere cf ated aaplnhicns of pypies { sofiseBibliography Clapton, Nicholas. Moreschi and the Voice of the Castrato. London: Haus Books, 2008 Handel, George Frederic. Guilio Cesare, ed. Frideric Chrysander, 2008. Heriot, Agnus. The Castrati in Opera. London: Da Capo Press, 1956, Somerset-Ward, Richard. Angels and Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera, 1600- 1900. Bonds, Mark Evan. “The castrato.” In A History of Music in Western Culture, 233-237 New Jersey: Pearson, 2013 Rosselli, John. “Castrato.” Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2016 Feldman, Martha. “Denaturing the Castrato.” The Opera Quarterly 24 (2008): 178-199, Bergeron, Katherine. “The Castrato as History.” Cambridge Opera Journal 8 (1996): 167-184.