For a solid portion of musical history, castrato singers or ‘castrati’ had a prominent role in operas, churches and courts across Europe. But why were young boys forced to undergo the gruesome ...
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Listen to the "last castrato", Alessandro Moreschi, recorded in 1902. The castrato's voice was prized for its combination of pitch and power - an unbroken male voice able to reach the highest notes, ...
The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional. The Princeton TestosterTones, the University’s premier and only all-castrato a cappella group, made a splash Monday night at their ...
The legendary castrato singer Farinelli (1705–1782) suffered from a disease typical of post-menopausal women, according to the first-ever osteological analysis of a eunuch. The poorly preserved ...
When Alessandro Moreschi died on 21 April, 1922, the world thought it had felt the last stubbleless kiss of the voice of an angel on Earth — the boy castrato. The castrato tradition dictated that the ...
Ivan Hewett is The Telegraph’s Classical Music Critic and an author whose works include Music: Healing The Rift, a personal history of modern music. He has been involved in music as a composer, ...
For centuries, their voices soared in gilded churches and candlelit concert halls - otherworldly, pure and achingly beautiful. But behind the ethereal sound of the castrato singers lay an unspeakable ...
Helen Berry's portrait of celebrated 18th-century castrato Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci and his love affair with young Irish girl Dorothea Maunsell. Read by Greta Scacchi. Overture from Artaserse by ...