The very idea of castration as a means of gaining a special voice in a singer seems so cruel that we like to think that it belongs to a distant past. However, we have two recordings with one of the last castratos, Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922), that are from 1902 and 1904 which is not all that long ago. His voice sounds kind of spooky, but that may also be because of technical difficulties of this early recording, which includes "Ave Maria" by Bach. By the way, this singer never performed on an opera stage, but solely in churches. From 1883 until 1913 he was in the choir at the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. Maybe that is why he was not cnsidered one of the greatest of these singers. The last one of the truly great castratos was Giovanni Battista Velluti (1780-1861), but there is a legend of how he was not happy with the competiton from a female singer, Maria Malibran, perhaps also because these castratos had had this field of female rôles for themselves and suddenly the women gained access to the domain they had won by their sacrifice.
The most famous castrato was Carlo Broschi (1705-82) who rose to fame as Farinelli. His ambitious family had him castrated and claimed that the boy had had a riding accident and that he could not be healed and would not survive unless he underwent this operation. Most probably that is not true and the family seems to have made the same choice as many other poor, Italian families, i.e. to sacrifice their boys in the hope that their voices can bring everyone in his family economic progress and safety. Sadly enough, many lost their health or their lives and never fulfilled the dream of fame and money. Their families chose to chance the future for them as "singing machines" and themselves because of the pecuniary and social gains they could expect if they got famous.
The boys, who all belonged to poor and uneducated families, had to undergo a strict schooling. They had to speak classical Italian to perform and was trained in many different fields to perform. It was no easy assignment both to train vocal and cultural issues on a daily base. Also they had to learn to interpret difficult and not always perceptible mythological and historical matters.
One of the composers who composed music for castratos was Gluck who e.g. made "Orfeo ed Euridice" (1762) for an alto castrato, but had to change the music when it was performed in Paris with a soprano castrato as Euridice. All this kind of opera music gave the castratos the opportunity of shining as singers. It was full of difficult cadances and frills that a genuine woman's voice normally could not perform. However, in Cecilia Bartoli's voice this group of singers may have found something close to their own voices and thus something which can give an impression of their lost art. In her recording of some of the repertoire of the castratos, "Sacrificium", she sings very varied arias and it is obvious that this is no easy genre. Only a strong and very versatile voice can suffice as a castrato singer and that she has. She both sings Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), Antonio Caldara (1671-1736), Handel (1685-1756), etc, etc. which means that she has chosen the composers from the early period. Nicola Porpora, who was a very diligent composer, also taught the boys who trained for a career as a castrato.
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