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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
The practice of castrating boy sopranos continues to both repel and fascinate the modern audience. Reflecting these responses, this book vacillates between an up-to-date obsession with clinical details and a Victorian sense of shock. As Barbier (music history, West Catholic Univ., Angers) documents here, some of the castrasti were extraordinary singers and led interesting lives, both public and private. But the book adds few new details to what has previously been known, and it is neither scholarly enough to be a definitive study nor breezy enough to entertain. A more interesting treatment is still Angus Heriot's The Castrati in Opera (1956. o.p.).?Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The papal declaration that no woman could sing in church gave rise to the castrati--boys castrated before puberty and cultivated to sing the treble parts. Major Italian cities even had conservatories for training poor boys as castrati to give them a better life. Soon the musical theater embraced the castrato voice, and many castrati enjoyed long, international careers as singers and teachers; the famous Farinelli, subject of a recent movie, became a privy minister of the Spanish court. Considered safe companions, castrati often forged alliances with noble women; they even married. Handel, Gluck, and Rossini all wrote for the castrato voice, but the passion for castrati in the theater died out by 1790. (It continued in the papal choirs until 1913, when Moreschi, the last castrato, died.) Barbier weaves quite a tapestry out of the lives of the great castrati and the theater and church music of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe, especially that of Italy. Although rather dry, well worth reading. Alan Hirsch
See all Editorial Reviews
The practice of castrating boy sopranos continues to both repel and fascinate the modern audience. Reflecting these responses, this book vacillates between an up-to-date obsession with clinical details and a Victorian sense of shock. As Barbier (music history, West Catholic Univ., Angers) documents here, some of the castrasti were extraordinary singers and led interesting lives, both public and private. But the book adds few new details to what has previously been known, and it is neither scholarly enough to be a definitive study nor breezy enough to entertain. A more interesting treatment is still Angus Heriot's The Castrati in Opera (1956. o.p.).?Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The papal declaration that no woman could sing in church gave rise to the castrati--boys castrated before puberty and cultivated to sing the treble parts. Major Italian cities even had conservatories for training poor boys as castrati to give them a better life. Soon the musical theater embraced the castrato voice, and many castrati enjoyed long, international careers as singers and teachers; the famous Farinelli, subject of a recent movie, became a privy minister of the Spanish court. Considered safe companions, castrati often forged alliances with noble women; they even married. Handel, Gluck, and Rossini all wrote for the castrato voice, but the passion for castrati in the theater died out by 1790. (It continued in the papal choirs until 1913, when Moreschi, the last castrato, died.) Barbier weaves quite a tapestry out of the lives of the great castrati and the theater and church music of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe, especially that of Italy. Although rather dry, well worth reading. Alan Hirsch
See all Editorial Reviews
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Citations
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8
books
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- Musical Women in England, 1870-1914: "Encroaching on All Man's Privileges" by Paula Gillett in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance by Valeria Finucci on page 230, and Back Matter
- Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood by Gary Taylor in Back Matter
- Castration : An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood by Gary Taylor in Back Matter
- Eunuchs and Castrati: A Cultural History by Piotr O. Scholz in Back Matter
See all 8 books citing this book