Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Patrick Barbier's entertaining and authoritative book is the first full study of the subject in the context of the baroque period. Covering the lives of more than sixty singers from the end of the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, he blends history and anecdote as he examines their social origins and backgrounds, their training and debuts, their brilliant careers their relationship with society and the Church, and their decline and death.The castrati became a legend that still fascinates us today. Thousands flocked to hear and see these singing hybrids - part man, part woman, part child - who portrayed virile heroes on the operatic stage, their soprano or contralto voices weirdly at variance with their clothes and bearing. The sole surviving scratchy recording tells us little of the extraordinary effect of those voices on their audiences - thrilling, unlike any sound produced by the normal human voice.Illustrated with photographs and engravings, the book ranges from the glories of patronage and adulation to the darker side of a fashion that exploited the sons of poor families, denied them their manhood and left them, when they were old, to decline into poverty and loneliness. It is a story that will intrigue opera-lovers and general readers alike, superbly told by a writer who has researched his subject with the thoroughness of a true enthusiast.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Illustrations (p. xi)
• Preface (p. 1)
• 1 Castration (p. 5)
• From time immemorial ...
• 'Castration done here, clean and cheap'
• Physiological disruption
• The development of the voice
• 2 Origins and Recruitment (p. 19)
• Geographical and social origins
• The inevitability of castration
• The road to the conservatoires
• 3 Training the Singers (p. 35)
• The Neapolitan conservatoires
• Internal organisation daily life
• Classes and teachers
• How the castrati studied
• The otherItalian schools
• 4 The Theatre in Italy (p. 62)
• The great theatres
• The performances
• Italian audiences
• 5 The Road to Fame (p. 82)
• The choice of a name
• Debuts in public
• Vocal prowess
• The castrati on stage
• Escapades and temperaments
• Fortune and honours
• 6 The Castrati and the Church (p. 122)
• The Popes and castration
• Music in church
• The theatres in the Papal States
• 7 The Castrati in Society (p. 136)
• The castrati and women
• Masculine rivalries and friendships
• The castrati and their relatives
• The patrons
• Satires and pamphlets
• 8 European Journeys (p. 174)
• Perpetual travellers
• Vienna and London
• The French and the castrati
• Farinelli in Spain
• 9 In the Evening of Life (p. 209)
• Farewell to the public and the return to roots
• Old age and the voice
• Last occupations
• 10 The Twilight of the Angels (p. 223)
• First signs of decline
• The last two great castrati
• The Vatican and the last castrati
• Epilogue (p. 242)
• Notes (p. 243)
• Bibliography (p. 249)
• Index (p. 257)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

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

Kirkus Book Review

A remarkable topic that, unfortunately, doesn't get the nuanced handling it deserves. In a society in which the outrageous garners maximum media attention, the Baroque-era castrati should be guaranteed to lure readers other than scholars and opera fanatics. What other history can discuss sex, forced genital mutilation, religious hypocrisy, and adultery, all in the name of historical research? Incredibly, Barbier manages to make this intriguing 16th19th century European phenomenon (which involved the castration of male children before puberty to preserve the purity of their singing voices) boring, even annoying. His style is, on the whole, plodding. Particularly bothersome is his overuse of exclamation marks and his habit of asking questions and then not answering them, this despite the fact that the inquiries often go to the essence of a particular section. The chapter on the almost hysterical appeal some women felt for castrati, for instance, asks: ``Was this merely the attraction of a circus phenomenon? Was it the search by the ladies for a love-life without danger? Or the exceptional power of a voice that numbed reason and led to `the delights of paradise'? The idealisation of a `supernatural' being who belonged to both sexes without knowing the limits of either?'' Intriguing ideas. Barbier's conclusion? ``We shall never really understand the intimate motivations of each spectator, man or woman, in their relationships with the castrati.'' Which is not to say that the book is totally without redeeming features. Barbier (Opera in Paris, 18001850: A Lively History, 1995) knows his opera and is fairly thorough in touching all the important bases. As such, the book is a decent overview for people needing the basics. A lesson in how to take a great story and dull it to death. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Patrick Barbier is a Professor at the West Catholic University in Angers and is an expert on operatic history. He has also published a biography of Farinelli, the most famous of the castrati.