April 02, 2006

• *crosses legs, goes on to another thread*
• Oh, bees, oh, bees, oh, bees. Not only CAN we judge the attitudes of societies long gone, we already HAVE, and that's why we changed. We don't castrate choir boys, we don't dunk possible witches, we (supposedly) do not discriminate on the basis of sex or race any longer. It is sometimes painfully slow, but the evolution to a better society moves forward, snail-like, but in the right direction. The evil twin of such progress: the simultaneous loss of decency. Not a bother to me, I am a childless hedonist that finds it all rather funny, but it is remarkable that when I was a kid we had Rob Petrie and wife sleeping in twin beds, and today we have Jerry and George telling Elaine that swimming in cold water shrivels their penises. A century from now, if the planet still supports human life, people will look back at us and wonder why we monkey-posted. Time equals change, and comparisons between people of differing eras is apples and oranges.
• That's nutty talk.
• See Farinelli.
• segregated societies usually have no small amount of nambling about don't make it right no children were harmed in the making of this comment
• Human cultures often have strange reverence for those who have made a sacrifice of their own flesh.
• Fake boobs.
• Ok...am I the only one that thought Moreschi sounded like somebody's melacholy granny awash in Jack Daniel's?
• Yes. In my opinion, it was more like schnapps.
• Very interesting, bees. Perhaps there's a comparison with what people these days are willing to do to their own or their children's bodies in pursuit of an Olympic gold medal?
• Anatomical control issues seem related to that, yes, Plegmund. As do some kinds of torture-mutilation inflicted on a victim. Heads literally rolling, or punitive and/or lawful removal of limbs. And then there's organ harvesting and selling. And conceivably abortion. When doctors remove or refuse to remove pieces from a patient. To say what someone else may or may remove from their own body, or from a dependent's or subordinate's body -- well, who has or hasn't authority to make such decisions and who carries them out? Many of these things have yet to be addressed.
• =may or may not remove from their own body etc
• Anyone consider that women with deep voices get a similar reaction?
• No one has removed those women's means of procreation. So far as we know. Only Bea Arthur knows for sure.
• Surgical tinkering with the external genetalia of babies deemed to be gender ambivalent has certainly happened in very recent times. And then there's circumsion -- male or female. And the separation of physically conjoined twins.
• =circumcision
• *notes similarity between a castratori and a nutcracker*
• ))))))!!! Great set of links, bees.
• Now that I've had a chance to listen to the recordings... bees: Recordings of Moreschi's voice may serve to give us a glimpse of the effect castrati voices played in religious music of the day, but hardly suffices to explain the tremendous response people seem to have had to operatic performances by castrati. A few things to consider: 1. The recording environment wasn't ideal... keep in mind that these recording sessions were done at the dawn of this new technology, and there's no way that gramophone recordings can capture all of a voice's subtleties and nuances. Plus, Moreschi was not an ideal subject. At age 44 he was almost certainly past his prime as a singer, and some people contend that Moreschi wasn't all that great of a musician to begin with. (Wiki article here) 2. Aesthetics change over time with culture, so it's possible that we just don't "get" the whole castrato thing. But these singers were a feature of the Church's musical life from the mid-1500s on, and were prominantly featured in the operas of the Baroque period. It seems to me that this wasn't a fad, but that there may have been something uniquely beautiful about the castrato voice, a quality that captured the attention of some of our finest composers. This doesn't justify the mutilation of children (especially considering that, according to your wiki article, "[d]uring the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, only approximately 1% of castrated or partially castrated boys developed into successful singers"). However, it does suggest to us that there may be something to the whole castrato phenomenon uncaptured by these recordings. We can hear approximations (IIRC, in the movie Farinelli, the castrato sound is created by digitally fusing together an adult soprano and a boy soprano's voices), but the real thing will remain ever inscrutable to us. Thanks for posting this. I heard of the Moreschi recordings in college, but have never actually heard them until this morning. This is the best MoFi post I've seen in a while.
• Dang , awesome , brilliant , great topic ! i feel sooo guilty stealing this link. thank!
• Gack! I suspect that, to most, the difference between the voice of a castrato and that of a robust female soprano would be almost imperceptably subtle. The bizarre means by which effect was achieved was undoubtedly a large part of the attraction. A castrato's performance is much freak show as art.
• = as much
• It seems to me that the castrato voice is its own thing entirely and would be easily distinguishable from a female voice (prepubescent boys and girls have similar singing ranges but you can tell them apart). However, I think you're right on the money with the whole freak-show-factor idea... this was probably more the case with the Baroque operatic castrati than with the choristers in the Sistine Chapel, but would have been a big part of the appeal.
• Since I posted this link, I've changed computers, with the result hearing these on new speakers is even more compelling. All my life I've collected old recordings. The voices are often haunting, and manage to induce a melancholy in me which more sophisticated recording techniques seldom do. I want to say they seem 'realer', somehow, in the same sense that a black and white photo or a fading sepia one can be more compelling than any colour photo. Despite which, I seem to be perverse enough to relish 'em. So Lillian Russell singing "Come Down, My Evening Star" has much the same effect on me as as Moreschi's singing. Possibly this is due to my awareness of the passage of time, and the subtraction of the life/lives giving rise to the recording itself. However, these old things pack, for me, a tremendous emotional wallop -- voices aren't prettied up, sound is rawer, unvarnished. But I relish all their flaws and quaverings and hesitations -- for me, the outdated techniques and aspirations spring to life again, however imperfectly. Can remember being stricken into stillness even as a very small boy by this immediate and ineffable emotional impact of older recordings in the family. Just as, now I think of it, I loved hearing the older folk in my family -- none of whem were highly trained or remarkable -- sing. bone, I'd heard a vague rumour of a castrato recording, but never thought to search for a name before until the BBC article started me looking online. Delighted you enjoyed it.
• Latterly a freak-show element perhaps, but I think not to begin with. I should guess (?) that castrati in choirs were a last survival from the Byzantine world, in which eunuchs were relatively common - but either way, the fact that something is already a going institution (a tradition, even) has a great power to anaesthetise one's sense of strangeness (and perhaps moral sense as well).
• Most comprehensive set of links I've ever seen on the subject - thanks, bees! I did a lot of research on this topic back in the day; Baroque music was my specialty in college. I had an odd vocal range that for some reason fit very well with the castrato repertoire. Moreschi was absolutely not in his prime when recorded. These guys made an enormous sacrifice (often involuntarily, and if you judge by today's standards of a minor not being able to give consent, always involuntarily) for the possibility of enormous reward. It was easier for the parents to rationalize in a time when a lot of these boys would have been expected to lead celibate lives as priests or monks, anyway. Read Anne Rice's Cry to Heaven; it's very well-researched. Staging a Baroque opera these days, you're left with three options: 1. Transpose the part down for a tenor 2. Engage a countertenor (a high tenor with a well-developed falsetto like David Daniels (teh sublime!) or Andreas Scholl) 3. Cross-dress a female singer, which is great fun (Lucia Popp was an excellent Serse!)
• I remember that when we learned about Moreschi in class, we were amazed that it was still going on in the 1860's. The professor said, "Don't be so shocked. We were still branding and mutilating slaves, too."
• More on David Daniels here.
• Although it's not physical, lots of parents choose to alter their children for fame and profit. Case in point, the little girl beauty pageants (think JonBenet Ramsey). These children's future adult views of the world, themselves, and sexuality must forever be warped, I'd think.
• I just asked Dreadnought (who studied singing a while ago - yes, that is a total appeal to an authority and knowledge I lack :) what he thought, just listening to the recording. He said it was hard to tell due to the poor recording, but it sounded like there were a few mistakes to begin with, but after that got better. I know I certainly was more impressed with the sound as the piece went on, but I know little about singing technique.
• Moreschi's personal history, and indeed the whole phenomenon of the castrati, is difficult to fathom, and full of contradictions. The church, the institution Moreschi served/worked for all his life, finally ended up condemning what he was. And he lost his position. He suffered at least a twofold loss. And I have to wonder how he regarded all this. One thing about the castrati differentiating them as a class from the rest of eunuchdom is the intention behind the castration -- i.e. that little Giovanni become a great singer. And then there is the popular adulation and/or covert approval of this by at least some elements of the society who created them, of the church, of the musical world, the turning of a blind eye to the creation of such singers, the plaudits they were given. I don't think we've any way to really understand all this, at such a remove in time. All in all, I can't think creating a castrato is any more grotesque than castrating a boy so he can work in a harem or a brothel, which is something that was done in the Ottoman empire and in China until fairly recent times. However, the societies in which the castrati flourished seem far more grotesque than the castrati phenomenon per se, and distinct from the phenomenon of eunuchdom in general. Strangeness within strangeness lurks. Such strangeness in what it is to be human.
• As a mezzo who sings quite a bit of baroque music, I'm fond of Underpants Monster's option 3. I sing a lot of repertoire that was originally written for castrato, including popular things like the alto solos in Handel's Messiah. I'll be interested to see the exhibition at the Handel House, just so I can see which operatic roles were written for which castrato. I'll report back here once I've been.
• Exhuming Farinelli