Morgan BellExhumed remains of Farinelli to answer questions about castratos
July 17th 2006 15:07
The body of Carlo Broschi Farinelli, a name often touted as the world's most celebrated castrato, has been exhumed for scientists to study the anatomical effects of castration.
“This is the only skeleton of [castrati] we have,” Nicholas Clapton, a singing professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and curator of an exhibition on the composer Handel’s use of the castrati, told MSNBC.
“We want to know if they were like the cartoons at the time depicted them, tall and dangly, or with women’s breasts and large buttocks, or like the grand gentleman in Farinelli’s official portraits,” he said.
The removal of boy chorists’ testicles is said to have kept their vocal chords small while the rest of their bodies continued growing well into adulthood.
Wikipedia writes: "As the castrato's body grows (especially in lung capacity and muscular strength), and as his musical training and maturity increase, his voice develops a range, power and flexibility quite different from the singing voice of the adult female, but also markedly different from the higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male."
In the words of Clapton, castration "gave them huge lung capacity but with a very sweet voice".
The 1994 movie Farinelli may also be of interest.
(image from sonypictures.com)
Farinelli - the world's most celebrated castrato
“We want to know if they were like the cartoons at the time depicted them, tall and dangly, or with women’s breasts and large buttocks, or like the grand gentleman in Farinelli’s official portraits,” he said.
The removal of boy chorists’ testicles is said to have kept their vocal chords small while the rest of their bodies continued growing well into adulthood.
Wikipedia writes: "As the castrato's body grows (especially in lung capacity and muscular strength), and as his musical training and maturity increase, his voice develops a range, power and flexibility quite different from the singing voice of the adult female, but also markedly different from the higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male."
In the words of Clapton, castration "gave them huge lung capacity but with a very sweet voice".
The 1994 movie Farinelli may also be of interest.
(image from sonypictures.com)
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