Moreschi: The Angel of Rome: And the Voice of the Castrato By Nicholas Clapton
2008 | 224 Pages | ISBN: 1905791429 | PDF | 44 MB
In his own lifetime Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) came to be known as the 'Angel of Rome,' he was one of the last surviving castrato singers of the Vatican choir, and the only one of the castrati whose voice survives in any recording. The ethereal, haunting quality of his voice hints at why this extraordinary sound was so highly prized for centuries in the papal basilicas and opera houses of Europe.The tradition became established in Italy in the 16th century when Pope Clement VIII gave it his sanction. By the 17th century the castrati had moved onto the secular operatic stage, where they were feted as the 'pop stars' of their day. Few 'normal' singers male or female, came close to matching their fame and success. But, by the 19th century their continued existence had become an embarrassment, and when Moreschi joined the Sistine Chapel in 1883, there were only six castrati left in the choir, and by 1903 they were officially no more.The strange and lonely life of Alessandro Moreschi was lived in the shadows of great events and great institutions, his personality glimpsed only by inference and illusion. Written by an acclaimed musicologist, who as a counter-tenor has performed much of the repertoire written for castrati, this is a perceptive and informed study of the last survivor of a perennially intriguing part of western cultural history.This is a unique biography about a subject which continues to fascinate both amateur music lovers and expert musicologists alike. It provides widespread broadsheet review coverage. Nicholas Clapton made an acclaimed documentary for BBC4 on the castrati voice in 2006.

The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds By Martha Feldman
2016 | 496 Pages | ISBN: 0520292448 | PDF | 10 MB
The Castrato is a nuanced exploration of why innumerable boys were castrated for singing between the mid-sixteenth and late-nineteenth centuries. It shows that the entire foundation of Western classical singing, culminating in bel canto, was birthed from an unlikely and historically unique set of desires, public and private, aesthetic, economic, and political. In Italy, castration for singing was understood through the lens of Catholic blood sacrifice as expressed in idioms of offering and renunciation and, paradoxically, in satire, verbal abuse, and even the symbolism of the castrato's comic cousin Pulcinella. Sacrifice in turn was inseparable from the system of patriarchy—involving teachers, patrons, colleagues, and relatives—whereby castrated males were produced not as nonmen, as often thought nowadays, but as idealized males. Yet what captivated audiences and composers—from Cavalli and Pergolesi to Handel, Mozart, and Rossini—were the extraordinary capacities of castrato voices, a phenomenon ultimately unsettled by Enlightenment morality. Although the castrati failed to survive, their musicality and vocality have persisted long past their literal demise.